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The Eucharist and Marriage

This Rock Volume 17, Number 1   January 2006     Survey Says . . . By Cherie Peacock   Reasons for Hope By Cherie Peacock   Letters   What We Can Learn from the Twelfth Century By His Eminence Avery Cardinal Dulles   Tired of Being Called a Morality Cop (and Other Bad Names)? By J. Budziszewski   Don't Know Much about History By Thomas E. Woods, Jr.   Society of Jesus Was a Society of Scientists   The Rite Not to Be Roman By Carl E. Olson   Byzantine Worship   Marriage Makes It Happen By Mark Lowery   The Eucharist and Marriage   Symbol of the Covenant   Sidebar   Sidebar   Damascus Road From Communist to Catholic By Robert Brennan   By the Book "Fatherly" Wisdom By Tim Staples   Truth Be Told This (Pop) Rock By Robert P. Lockwood   Up a Notch Five Ways or Five Proofs? By James Kidd   Classic Apologetics Against Materialism By Rev. P.A. Halpin   Quick Questions   Last Writes By Karl Keating    Subscribe    Permissions

Because the covenant is an efficacious model, and the covenant is made present in the Eucharist, the Eucharist is a chief source of the grace that allows good marriages to happen. Familiaris Consortio captures this in a truly sublime text:

The Eucharist is the very source of Christian marriage. The eucharistic sacrifice in fact represents Christ’s covenant of love with the Church, sealed with his blood on the cross. In this sacrifice of the new and eternal covenant, Christian spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant flows, is interiorly structured, and is continuously renewed. As a representation of Christ’s sacrifice of love for the Church, the Eucharist is a fountain of charity (FC 57).

Christian marriage, like the other sacraments . . . is in itself a liturgical action glorifying God in Jesus Christ and in the Church. By celebrating it, Christian spouses profess their gratitude to God for the sublime gift bestowed on them of being able to live in their married and family lives the very love of God for people and that of the Lord Jesus for the Church, his bride (FC 56).