what is this picture saying?

What is this picture saying?

Jesus’ Nuptial Love• To compare the love of a

husband and wife, to the Christ’s love for us

• To explain how marriage is a sign of how God saves us.

• To reflect on how the Church is fruitful

Christ and the Church

Husband and wife

Write the subtitle. Match the two sides to show how Christ’s love for us is the love of a husband to his wife. ** Do you think Christ’s love is like a husband’s to a wife?

1. A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Gen 2:24

B…God blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing

D….just as Christ feeds and cares for the Church, His body, nourishing it with his own body

3. Husbands love your wives as you do your own bodies, feeding and caring for it..

A…just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, to take her to Himself

4. God blessed Adam and Eve saying “be fruitful and multiply”

C…just as Christ is the head of His body, the Church

2. For the husband is the head of the wife

Christ’s love for us is the love of a husband to his wife.

Which came first?a man uniting with a woman in marriage

or Christ uniting with us, as Church?

“The Great Mystery”* is that from the very beginning, God made marriage to be a hint of how He was going to save us: - by loving us with a “married” kind of love: the self-giving love that makes a man and woman “one flesh” in closest communion, only that Jesus’ love is really for ever.

Marriage is the SIGN of our redemption. It shows how we are saved by God: that Christ gave himself up for us, to “marry” us as His bride – and make us “one flesh” with him.

This is how we are “saved” into the life of God.

(* Pope John Paul II’s term based on Eph.5)“For your Creator will be your husband; the LORD of Hosts is his name. He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth.” Isa 54:5

1. What is marriage a “hint” of?2. How does God show us “married” love?3. How does this “save” us?**Is this a nice way for God to save us, or would it have been better to just give us His eternal life as equals to Him (eg like the angels)?

What questions would you set based on this text ??!

If God married us, then this “marriage” should be fruitful…

Through which His grace flows on the world…

1. Identify how God shows helps us to show his faithfulness.

2. Write down 4 in order of importance for you.

The secular person is 23% less likely to give than (any) religious person and 26% less likely to volunteer.

Design your own artwork to show how Christ loves and “married” us, the Church, as a man loves his wife.