the contribution of the sacrament of penance to a conjugal spirituality
TRANSCRIPT
UNIVERSITY OF SAINT MARY OF THE LAKE
MUNDELEIN SEMINARY
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE
TO A CONJUGAL SPIRITUALITY:
THE SIGNIFICATION OF MARRIAGE AND THE BODY IN THE THOUGHT OF
DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND AND JOHN PAUL II
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO
THE ECCLESIASTICAL FACULTY OF THEOLOGY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
LICENTIATE OF SACRED THEOLOGY
LITURGICAL INSTITUTE
BY
OWEN G. VYNER
MUNDELEIN, ILLINOIS
MAY 2012
ii
CERTIFICATION
This certifies that the thesis, The Contribution of the Sacrament of Penance to a Conjugal
Spirituality: The Signification of Marriage and the Body in the Thought of Dietrich von
Hildebrand and John Paul II, submitted to the Ecclesiastical Faculty of Theology of the
University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary, which is a record of research
work conducted by Owen G. Vyner, has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Licentiate of Sacred Theology.
___________________________________
Reverend Douglas Martis, Ph.D., S.T.D.
Thesis Director
Liturgical Institute
___________________________________
Reverend John Lodge, M.A., S.S.L., S.T.D.
President
Ecclesiastical Faculty of Theology
______________________________
Date
iii
To my wife
Terri Ann Vyner
iv
Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1. The Signification of Marriage in the Thought of Dietrich von
Hildebrand ..........................................................................................................................5
1.1. Introduction ...............................................................................................................5
1.2. Conjugal Love as the Primary ―Meaning‖ of Marriage ............................................6
1.3. The Characteristics of Conjugal Love ....................................................................13
1.4. Consequences of the Signification of Marriage for a Conjugal Spirituality ...........17
1.5. Conclusion ..............................................................................................................23
Chapter 2. Pope John Paul II: The Significance of the Body ......................................25
2.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................25
2.2. Original Solitude: The Filial Signification of the Body..........................................26
2.3. Gift and Communion: The Spousal Meaning of the Body .....................................29
2.4. The Procreative Meaning of the Body ....................................................................37
2.5. Conclusion ..............................................................................................................40
Chapter 3. The Sacrament of Penance ...........................................................................42
3.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................42
3.2. Theological and Anthropological Aspects of the Sacrament of Penance ...............43
v
3.3. Christological Aspects of the Sacrament of Penance .............................................48
3.4. Pneumatological Aspects of the Sacrament of Penance .........................................52
3.5. Conclusion ..............................................................................................................56
Chapter 4. Sacrament of Penance and the Significations
of the Body and Marriage ...............................................................................................58
4.1. Introduction .............................................................................................................58
4.2. Penance and the Filial Meaning of the Body ..........................................................59
4.3. Penance and the Spousal Meaning of the Body ......................................................61
4.4. Penance and the Procreative Meaning of the Body ................................................68
4.5. The Pulchra Dilectio and Prophetic Witness..........................................................71
4.6. Conclusion ..............................................................................................................74
Bibliography .....................................................................................................................76
1
Introduction
This thesis will examine the contribution that the sacrament of Penance makes to
a conjugal spirituality. It does so in light of the claim by Blessed John Paul II that the
Eucharist and Penance are the ―means – infallible and indispensable – for forming the
Christian spirituality of married life and family life.‖1
The question as to the contribution of Penance to holiness in marriage is essential
given the Second Vatican Council‘s calling of all Christians to holiness.2 Many
Christians in the married state do not know how to pursue holiness. Typically, the path
they choose is more suited to the celibate person, a vocation that is distinct from,
although complementary to, the married state.3
Thus it becomes essential to consider how Penance contributes to holiness in
marriage. Does it do so in a general way – two Christians who are striving to grow in
holiness – but in a manner that is extrinsic to marriage? By extension there is the
question: what does Penance actually contribute to marriage insofar as it is marriage, a
communion of life and love? Finally, is there something in the very nature of Penance
that is indispensable to the pursuit of holiness for spouses? These issues are fundamental
in addressing the call to holiness as it is to be lived in the vocation to the married state.
This thesis will argue that the Trinitarian structure of the sacrament of Penance, as
expressed in the words of absolution, corresponds to the somatic structure of the person
1 John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein
(Boston MA: Pauline Books and Media, 2006), (TOB) 641. 2 Second Vatican Council, ―Lumen Gentium: the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,‖ in Vatican II: The
Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents (Rev. ed. Vol. 1.), ed. A. Flannery OP (Dublin: Dominican
Publications, 1996), (LG) no. 29. 3 John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio: Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the Christian Family in the
Modern World (Homebush NSW: Saint Paul Publication, 1982), (FC) no. 16.
2
who, as imago Dei, is made for God. Spouses live this somatic structure, referred to Pope
John Paul as the meaning of the body, in a communio personarum whose primary
meaning is to signify conjugal love. This love that spouses signify is no less than Christ‘s
love for the Church, a love that is both merciful and redemptive. Spousal love participates
in Christ‘s love and is called to witness to it as a permanent reminder of the Cross.4
Consequently, Penance, as an encounter with mercy itself, enables spouses to live the
signification of marriage and the body.
In the last century there has been much written regarding the question of the
signification of marriage and the body in Catholic theology and magisterial teaching. In
the 1920s, the German philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand spoke of conjugal love as the
primary signification (in German, ―Sinn‖) of marriage. In 1968, Pope Paul VI‘s
encyclical on the regulation of birth, Humanae Vitae, referred to the two significations (in
Latin, ―significationem‖) of the conjugal act. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, John
Paul II introduced the language of the spousal signification (in Italian, ―significato‖) of
the body in his theology of the body. Thus, the language of ―sign‖ becomes central in
considering marriage, the conjugal act, and the body, created male and female.
This thesis will consist of four chapters. In Chapter One, it will consider the
thought of Dietrich von Hildebrand. It will examine his thought pertaining to marriage
first as he not only precedes Pope John Paul chronologically but also much of his
language of communion and mutual self-gift is found in Vatican II‘s treatment of
marriage and subsequent magisterial teachings on marriage.
This chapter will form the framework for the question: what is marriage? This is
foundational in attempting to address the issue of a spirituality for married persons. Von
4 FC, no. 13.
3
Hildebrand argued that the primary meaning, or significance, of marriage is conjugal
love. This chapter will explore the concept of conjugal love as marriage‘s primary
meaning. It will then describe the characteristics of this love. Finally, it will discuss the
consequences of the signification of conjugal love for a marital spirituality, namely,
spousal love‘s participation in Christ‘s love and the prophetic witness of the spouses.
These two consequences form the parameters for the issue of a conjugal spirituality.
The second chapter will examine John Paul II‘s thought relating to signification of
the body as it is found in his theology of the body. The role of the body in marriage is
fundamental since marriage is the union of a man and a woman. The spousal, or nuptial,
meaning of the body is one of John Paul‘s greatest contributions to a theological
anthropology. Nevertheless, this concept has been given an overemphasis by the
predominant popular commentators on the theology of the body. The result of this
overemphasis is to bestow upon marriage an undue priority in the Christian life.
Thus, this thesis will seek to provide a corrective to this view by discussing the
spousal meaning of the body within the context of a prior, filial meaning of the body, and
a subsequent, procreative meaning of the body. This approach is found both implicitly
and explicitly in John Paul‘s thought. In Chapter Two, the filial meaning of the body will
be examined primarily as revealing the truth of the human person in relation to God as a
theological-anthropological truth. The spousal meaning of body will be discussed
ultimately as a Christological truth of the human person. Finally, the procreative meaning
of the body will consider who man is in relation to the Holy Spirit, that is,
Pneumatologically. It will then apply these three meanings to marriage.
4
Chapter Three will build upon the Trinitarian anthropology established in the
second chapter. As the human person is made for communion with the Persons of the
Blessed Trinity, the sacraments in general (and Penance in particular) will be Trinitarian
in structure and personal. Thus the penitent encounters in Penance, God the Father who is
rich in mercy. He encounters the Son who reconciles and fully reveals who man is.
Finally, the penitent encounters the Holy Spirit who convinces him of the truth of sin and
purifies his conscience.
The final chapter will apply the Trinitarian structure of Penance to the
anthropology of John Paul II precisely as it pertains to the meaning of the body as lived
by married persons. It will argue that Penance introduces into marriage a new
―hermeneutic of the gift.‖ In the confessional, spouses encounter Divine Love that comes
to them as mercy. They receive this love and mediate it to each other. Christian spouses,
by the grace of the Holy Spirit, are made fruitful and are able to witness to this love, the
most beautiful love, which was made manifest on the Cross. This witness to the pulchra
dilectio is, in the final analysis, the primary signification of marriage.
5
Chapter 1.
The Signification of Marriage in the Thought of Dietrich von Hildebrand
1.1. Introduction
In the magisterial teachings on marriage in the last half-century, there appears to
have been a movement away from the traditional hierarchy of ends of marriage contained
in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The 1917 Code refers to procreation as the primary end
of marriage, whereas mutual help and the remedy for concupiscence are considered the
secondary ends.1 Beginning with Vatican II, and continuing in the post-Conciliar period
there does seem to be a shift in focus toward personalist values.2 In particular there is an
emphasis on the role of conjugal love and the persons of the spouses. This is especially
evident in Gaudium et Spes, Humanae Vitae, and the pontificate of John Paul II.
One of the most prominent contributors in the area of conjugal love and a
personalist understanding of marriage was the German philosopher, Dietrich von
Hildebrand (1889-1977). Then Cardinal Ratzinger, said of von Hildebrand, ―I am
personally convinced that, when, at some time in the future, the intellectual history of the
1 Codex juris canonici: PII X Pontificis Maximi iussu digestus Benedicti Papae XV auctoritate promulgatus
(Westminster MA: Newman Press, 1964), Canon 1013 § 1: ―Matrimonii finis primaries est procreatio atque
educatio prolis; secundarius mutuum adiutorium et remedium concupiscentiae.‖ 2 This shift is not a contradiction of the traditional teachings of the Church, rather it is a development. See,
Cormac Burke, ―Marriage: a personalist or an institutional understanding?‖ Communio 19 (1992): 278-304.
Msgr. Burke argues that the shift in thinking is a movement away from the language of hierarchy towards
the language of inseparability.
6
Catholic Church in the twentieth century is written, the name of Dietrich von Hildebrand
will be most prominent among the figures of our time.‖1
Von Hildebrand‘s analysis of conjugal love results in a view of marriage that is
found verbatim in the language of Gaudium et Spes and the post-conciliar period. This
chapter will argue that according to von Hildebrand, conjugal love is the primary
signification of marriage. It will then discuss the characteristics of conjugal love as
delineated by von Hildebrand. Following this, it will consider the consequence of this
signification for a conjugal spirituality, establishing the foundations for Pope John Paul‘s
contribution to this area.
1.2. Conjugal Love as the Primary “Meaning” of Marriage
The two most important texts by von Hildebrand on marriage are Reinheit und
Jungfräulichkeit (―Purity and Virginity‖)2 and Die Ehe (―Marriage‖)
3. In both of these
texts, and in Marriage especially, von Hildebrand was responding to an overly one-sided
emphasis on procreation as well as materialist ideologies that reduced the person and
human sexuality to mere biological realities. Writing only ten years after the
promulgation of the Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law, von Hildebrand referred to
marriage thus:
Marriage is the closest and most intimate of all earthly unions in which, more than
in any other, one person gives himself to another without reserve, where the other
1 Quoted in Alice von Hildebrand, The Soul of a Lion: Dietrich von Hildebrand (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2000), 12. 2 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Reinheit und Jungfrdulichkeit (Cologne: Oratoriums Verlag, 1927). This work
was published in English in 1931 as In Defense of Purity: An Analysis of the Catholic Ideals of Purity and
Virginity. 3 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Die Ehe (Munich: Verlag Ars Sacra, 1929). First published in English in 1942
as Marriage.
7
in his complete personality is the object of love, and where mutual love is in a
specific way the theme (that is to say, the core) of the relationship.4
He then goes on to state what is considered his most important contribution to an
understanding of marriage: ―Love is the primary meaning of marriage just as the birth of
new human beings is its primary end.‖5
Certain ethicists, such a Todd Salzman and Michael Lawler, interpret this
contribution as revolutionary.6 It does appear that this is a misinterpretation for two
reasons. First, only a few years after von Hildebrand had written Marriage, magisterial
teaching had already begun to focus on the role of love in marriage. In Casti Connubii,
Pius XI writes:
The love, then, of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of
the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment
of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This
outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must
go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other
day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life…7
And:
This mutual molding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each
other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the
chief reason and purpose of matrimony…8
4 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love (Manchester: Sophia Institute Press,
1997), 4-5. 5 Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 7.
6 Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology
(Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2008), 39. ―The Catholic juridical approach to
marriage…is wide open to the charge of biological materialism…So, too, is Aquinas‘s position…In
contrast to this biological approach, Von Hildebrand introduced a radical innovation in thinking about
marriage…Conjugal love, he claims, is the primary meaning and ultimate end of marriage.‖ 7 Pius XI, Casti Connubii: Encyclical Letter on Christian Marriage (New York: Paulist Press, 1931), (CC)
no. 23. 8 CC, 24.
8
Finally, Von Hildebrand was aware that the distinction that he makes between the
meaning of marriage and its end could be misconstrued as a contradiction of the
traditional understanding of the hierarchical ends of marriage. Consequently, prior to
presenting it he sought the advice of then Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who would later
became Pope Pius XII. It is recounted in von Hildebrand‘s biography, Soul of a Lion, that
Pacelli endorsed the idea.9
It is important to note that von Hildebrand never argued that conjugal love was an
end of marriage, only its primary meaning. Also, he did not consider that conjugal love,
considered as a meaning, was opposed to procreation as an end of marriage. In fact, he
was a vocal defender of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, arguing for the God-willed
connection between marriage and procreation. He stated it thus: ―…understanding the
meaning and value of marriage as a love union does not minimize but rather enhances the
link between marriage and procreation.‖10
Thus, for von Hildebrand, marriage is a communion of mutual self-giving and the
primary meaning of this communion is love. Furthermore, he considers the conjugal act
not simply for the purpose of procreation but from the perspective of the realization of
conjugal love. The conjugal act is the consummation of marriage, without which the
marriage is said to be ratum sed non consummatum. As such, the conjugal act
consummates, that is, brings to completion and fulfills, this communion of mutual self-
9 Von Hildebrand, Soul of a Lion, 212: ―Conscious that he was breaking new ground, and anxious never to
say anything that was not in perfect harmony with the teachings of the Church, Dietrich decided to expound
his views to his friend Nuncio Pacelli…To his delight, Msgr. Pacelli endorsed his views and encouraged
him to publish them.‖ 10
Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Encyclical Humanae Vitae: A Sign of Contradiction, trans. Damian
Fedoryka and John Crosby (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1969), 29.
9
giving and therefore cannot be understood solely as a means of procreation. Von
Hildebrand states it in this way:
But this primary end [procreation] is not the only meaning of the physical act.
Subjectively speaking, it is not even its primary meaning…Its meaning is
primarily the realization of the sublime communion of love in which, according to
the words of our Savior, ―They shall be two in one flesh.‖11
In his writings on marriage, Von Hildebrand uses two German words to
distinguish between meaning and end. In Marriage, he refers to conjugal love as the sinn
(meaning) of marriage. Sinn can be translated as ―meaning‖ as is often the case in English
editions of Die Ehe, although, it can also be translated ―sense‖ or ―signification.‖12
On
the other hand, he speaks of procreation as the primary end (zweck) of marriage. This
word can also be translated as ―purpose‖, ―aim‖, or ―object.‖13
Despite the distinctions made by von Hildebrand, there has been criticism as to
exactly what he means by meaning. The greatest criticism came from Bernard Lonergan
who wrote:
The difficulty is the studied vagueness of the position. A book has been written on
The Meaning of Meaning, and it concluded that ‗meaning‘ has over eight hundred
meanings. Which of these is meant by von Hildebrand, what is a primary
meaning, what would be a secondary meaning, are so many questions
conveniently left without an answer. So far is such lack of precision from Catholic
philosophy and theology that it reminds one rather of Anglican
comprehensiveness…it cannot be denied that he shares the romanticist vagueness
and thinks in a misty middle distance where ideal love and plain fact merge.14
In his doctoral dissertation, Kevin Schemenauer agrees with Lonergan that von
Hildebrand does not clearly define the distinction between meaning and end. However,
11
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 26. 12
The New Cassell‟s German Dictionary (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1958), s.v. ―sinn.‖ 13
Ibid., s.v. ―zweck.‖ 14
Bernard Lonergan, review of Marriage, by Dietrich von Hildebrand, in Shorter Papers, vol. 20 of
Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, ed. Frederick Crowe and Robert Doran (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2007), 155-6, quoted in Kevin D. Schemenauer, Conjugal Love and Procreation: Dietrich
von Hildebrand‟s Superabundant Integration (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 40.
10
Schemenauer contends that it is still possible to distill an understanding of meaning from
von Hildebrand‘s writings. In order to do this, one must first begin with what von
Hildebrand does not mean when he refers to love as the primary meaning of marriage.
Schemenauer makes three points in this regard. In the first place, he contends that von
Hildebrand does not hold that conjugal love is arbitrarily related to marriage. According
to Schemenauer, in the German edition of Marriage there is a key word included that is
absent in the English translation. The German edition includes the word schöpfung
(created).15
Thus, the above sentence ―Conjugal love is the primary meaning of marriage‖
should read, ―Conjugal love is the primary, created meaning (schöpfungsinn) of
marriage.‖ According to von Hildebrand, conjugal love is primary in God‘s intention for
marriage. This meaning is something objective because one must be faithful to God‘s
intention.
Second, von Hildebrand does not mean that conjugal love is a synonym for
marriage. The existence of marriage is not dependent upon conjugal love. However, he
would hold that a definition of marriage must include conjugal love. In fact, von
Hildebrand even goes so far as to say that there is a moral requirement of the spouses to
cultivate conjugal love.
Finally, von Hildebrand does not contend that conjugal love is the primary end of
marriage. In fact, in the preface of Marriage he makes this clear, ―In stressing the
primary end of marriage – procreation – certain theological treatises have overlooked the
primary meaning of marriage, which is love.‖16
Von Hildebrand was simply critical of a
15
Schemenauer, Conjugal Love and Procreation, 41. 16
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, xxvi.
11
point of view that reduced marriage to a vehicle for procreation and the remedying of
concupiscence.
There are two principal views that attempt to address what von Hildebrand
positively means when he states that conjugal love is the primary meaning of marriage.
Schemenauer argues that meaning is that which constitutes a thing or that which is
necessary to render a thing intelligible (i.e. without meaning, something is
unintelligible).17
Consequently, conjugal love is what renders the marriage communion
intelligible. In his work Conjugal Love and the Ends of Marriage, Rolando Arjonilla
defines the word ―meaning‖ as the value which is inherent and ontological to marriage,
independent of the ends of marriage.18
There is, however, another possible interpretation of what meaning means. This
interpretation has ramifications for the sacramentality of marriage. As already mentioned,
when von Hildebrand speaks of conjugal love as the ―meaning‖ of marriage he uses the
German word sinn, a word that could also be translated as ―significance‖ or
―signification.‖ Not only does von Hildebrand apply the use of the word sinn to marriage,
he also uses it when referring to the conjugal act, which he sees as the expression and
fulfillment of conjugal love.19
The English translation of his work In Defense of Purity (Reinheit und
Jungfraülichkeit) translates sinn, not as ―meaning‖ but as ―significance.‖ Thus we read:
―The act of wedded communion has indeed the object of propagation, but in addition the
17
Schemenauer, Conjugal Love and Procreation, 45. 18
Rolando B. Arjonilla, Conjugal Love and the Ends of Marriage: A Study of Dietrich von Hildebrand and
Herbert Doms in the Light of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes (Bern: Peter Lang, 1998), 113. 19
Dietrich von Hildebrand, In Defense of Purity: An Analysis of the Catholic Ideals of Purity and Virginity
(Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1970), 12-13.
12
significance [Sinn] of a unique union of love.‖20
Later in the same book, he states: ―The
significance [Sinn] of sex consists in its being the specific sphere in which wedded love
finds its expression and fulfillment.‖21
Consequently, on the basis of ―significance‖ or ―signification‖ as alternative
translations of sinn, and the fact that translators have actually translated sinn in this
manner, we propose an interpretation of meaning that does not contradict the thought of
Schemenauer or Arjonilla but expands it. When von Hildebrand refers to conjugal love as
the primary sinn of marriage, we interpret this to mean that marriage is created to signify
conjugal love. In addition to this, the conjugal act is meant to be a sign of spousal love.
From this perspective, it could be argued that there is within marriage, and by extension
the conjugal act, an inherent sacramentality. Marriage has been created to be an outward
sign of an invisible reality, namely, conjugal love. Furthermore, as a sign, marriage
participates in the reality (conjugal love) that it makes present. The full extent of this
signification will be developed in the last chapter.
Thus the two central texts of von Hildebrand‘s thought on marriage could now be
read:
But this primary end [procreation] is not the only signification of the physical act.
Subjectively speaking, it is not even its primary signification…Its signification is
primarily the realization of the sublime communion of love in which, according to
the words of our Savior, ―They shall be two in one flesh.‖
And;
20
Von Hildebrand, In Defense of Purity, 12; Reinheit und Jungfraülichkeit, 12. ―Der Akt ehelicher
Gemeinschaft hat einmal den Zweck der Fortpflanzung, außerdem aber den Sinn einer einzigartigen
Liebesvereinigung.‖ 21
Von Hildebrand, In Defense of Purity, 69; Reinheit und Jungfraülichkeit, 101. ―Die sinnliche Sphäre ist
in ihrem Sinn, wie wir sahen, ein besonderes Ausdrucksund Erfüllungsfeld der ehelichen Liebe.‖
13
Love is the primary created signification of marriage just as the birth of new
human beings is its primary end.
When von Hildebrand speaks of love as the primary sinn of marriage, typically he
delineates the content of this signification as the ―highest communion of love.‖ Thus we
read:
As the communion of love represents the deepest meaning (sinn) of marriage.22
[T]he primary meaning (primären Schöpfungsinn) of marriage…consists of that
closest communion of love whereby two persons become one.23
The fact that the Sacrament is actualized through mutual consent to that union
(which is an image of the union of Christ and His Church), and that in the
administration of the Sacrament both spouses act with respect to one another,
reveals in an admirable manner the primary meaning (primäre Sinn) of marriage
as a communion of love.24
In summary, von Hildebrand considers the created meaning of marriage to be the
signification of the love of communion. This concept will have enormous consequences
for the Second Vatican Council‘s theology of marriage.
1.3. The Characteristics of Conjugal Love
Von Hildebrand applies his phenomenological analysis to explicate the essential
characteristics of conjugal love. These characteristics will be taken up verbatim in
Gaudium et Spes and then later in the writings of John Paul II. They are foundational in
22
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 32; Die Ehe, 25. 23
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 41; Die Ehe, 30. 24
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 54-55; Die Ehe, 38.
14
addressing the question of the nature of a conjugal spirituality as they specify the very
essence of conjugal love.
In the first place, conjugal love reveals the whole being and person of the beloved.
Consequently, love is not blind for von Hildebrand, rather it gives ―sight‖ to the beloved.
In comparing natural love with the supernatural love of neighbor, von Hildebrand writes:
Just as in supernatural love of our neighbor we penetrate at one glance to that
innermost, mysterious essence of the other person in which, through all his
imperfections, pettiness, arrogance, and triviality, he reflects God, so in natural
conjugal love the real individuality of the partner is mysteriously revealed…One
understands, so to speak, the divine plan underlying the creation of this particular
individuality…25
Therefore, conjugal love can be described properly as personal, it embraces the
other completely in his or her psychosomatic subjectivity, and in the case of Christian
marriage, his or her supernatural vocation.
Second, conjugal love involves mutual self-giving. In this love alone is the entire
person given so that he may belong completely to his beloved. For von Hildebrand, both
the heart and entire personality of the beloved is given up to the other. Thus, conjugal
love is literally a donation of one self. One must not understand this as a fusion of the
spouses whereby each spouse loses his identity. Spouses still maintain their subjectivity
which therefore makes possible authentic union.26
This mutual self-giving could also be
termed a mutual belonging. Von Hildebrand writes:
In conjugal love there is an aspiration not merely for a return of affection in
general, but for the unique love whereby the beloved belongs to the lover in an
entirely exclusive manner, as he in turn wants to belong to the beloved.27
25
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 11-12. 26
Dietrich von Hildebrand, Man and Woman: Love and the Meaning of Intimacy (Manchester: Sophia
Institute Press, 1992), 22. 27
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 8.
15
Furthermore this mutual belonging is irrevocable. The yearning for union (intentio
unionis) involved in love is given expression in the consent of spouses in marriage that
creates a permanent union. The conjugal act is a particular expression of this mutual and
indissoluble self-giving. As such the conjugal act is truly a consummation of the
relationship.28
Third, conjugal love is, in its very essence, the most profound I-thou relationship.
Von Hildebrand distinguishes between two different types of relationship. The first is the
―we‖ relationship in which two individuals are joined in a common interest. In this
relationship the individuals share the same attitude toward a person or object. In effect
they are described as walking ―side-by-side.‖29
The other type of relationship involves a
turning toward the other. In this case the two are said to be ―face-to-face.‖ This is a most
profound communion through which the person lives with and for the other.30
For von
Hildebrand, the purest form of this I-thou relationship exists between Christ and the soul,
thus the goal of Christian marriage is to live this communion for Christ.
Fourth, conjugal love is only between a man and a woman. Thus the body, created
male and female, is integral to marriage. Von Hildebrand contends that this love cannot
be reduced simply to the sexual sphere (i.e. it is not friendship plus sexual relations)
rather it is based upon the fact that there is a metaphysical difference between man and
woman. ―Man‖ and ―woman‖ cannot be reduced to biological categories for von
28
Von Hildebrand, Man and Woman, 42-43. 29
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 9. 30
Ibid., 9-10. Carl Anderson and Jose Granados, Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II‟s Theology of
the Body (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 47: The Hebrew word for ―helpmate‖ that is used in reference to
Eve in the Book of Genesis is kenegdo. This literally means ―to stand face-to-face with another.‖
16
Hildebrand; they are relational categories.31
They are two manifestations of the person
who complement each other. Von Hildebrand explains it thus:
These two types, man and woman, have a unique capacity for complementing
each other. Their meaning for one another is something quite unique. They are
made one for the other in a special way, and they can, purely as spiritual persons,
form a unity in which they reciprocally complement one another.32
In addition to these characteristics of conjugal love, von Hildebrand presents two
ethical considerations. The first is that ―being in love‖ is an element of this type of love.
Being in love, which is not the same as infatuation, involves a ―full spiritual grasping of
the beloved person, in which the charm of the other being is completely unfolded, the full
bliss of the I-thou community is realized.‖33
Whereas infatuation is a reduction of the
object of love, being in love, awakens the lover to perceive the true value of the beloved.
Being in love is not a reduction it is fullness.34
The second ethical aspect of conjugal love
is the duty for the spouses to protect this love. Von Hildebrand writes, ―As the
communion of love represents the deepest meaning of marriage…Love is also a task and
a duty for both partners.‖35
In thus delineating the essence and ethical requirements of conjugal love, von
Hildebrand has not yet spoken of marriage per se. He does argue that there is a real
distinction between conjugal love and marriage.36
Conjugal love does not create
marriage; consent does. However, consent is the full and valid expression of the
irrevocable union that is implied in the intentio unionis of conjugal love. Consequently,
31
This point, grounded as it is in personalism, will be developed more fully by Pope John Paul II. 32
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 15. 33
Ibid., 15. 34
Von Hildebrand, Man and Woman, c.f. 40-41. 35
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 32. 36
Ibid., 21-22.
17
love brings the spouses to freely give their consent by which they wholly and completely
give themselves to each other.
The celebration of the sacrament of Marriage converts into reality what is
contained in conjugal love. Ultimately, in creating this reality of conjugal love,
sacramental marriage transforms and perfects conjugal love, as grace and perfects
transforms nature in a radical way. Von Hildebrand states: ―In this way, conjugal love in
its entirety is deeply transformed. It acquires new and extraordinary solemnity, an
unexpected depth, for in loving the partner we love Christ simultaneously. In the beloved,
we love Christ.‖37
Furthermore, the ultimate logos of Christian conjugal love which is
transformed in the sacrament is ―participation in that eternal love which Jesus holds for
the soul of the beloved‖38
; thus it is not simply the love of the spouses which is operative
in marriage, it is Christ‘s love itself. Conjugal love in Christ is based on Christian charity;
the love that is characterized in St. Paul‘s First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13).39
1.4. The Consequences of the Signification of Marriage for a Conjugal Spirituality
The foundation has now been set by von Hildebrand for an understanding of
marriage in the Council and the post-conciliar period, especially as it pertains to a
conjugal spirituality. The focus on conjugal love as the signification of marriage has two
consequences on the magisterial teaching on the sacrament of Marriage. First, there is the
notion of spousal communion‘s participation in Divine Communion. This is clearly
37
Ibid., 45-46. 38
Ibid., 47. 39
Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Nature of Love, trans. John F. Crosby (Southbend: St. Augustine‘s Press,
2009), 248.
18
anticipated by von Hildebrand. Second, there is the prophetic witness of married love.
Von Hildebrand does not consider marriage from this prophetic aspect; he does so more
in terms of the priestly mission of marriage, however, it is a logical consequence of his
thinking.
For von Hildebrand, marriage is the primary signification of a love that sees the
whole person, involves a mutual self-giving, whereby the spouses enter into the most
intimate communion. This is a created (schöpfung) signification. Furthermore, as
marriage is a reality with a created meaning, the author of this meaning is God.
This view of marriage anticipates in a remarkable manner the theology of marriage
portrayed in the Second Vatican Council‘s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. Rather than describing marriage in juridical terms,
Gaudium et Spes employs strongly personalist language. The Pastoral Constitution
describes marriage as an ―intimate partnership of life and conjugal love‖40
(intima
communitas vitae et amoris coniugalis). Furthermore, marital consent is presented ―as the
mutual giving of two persons‖ (utpote mutua duarum personarum donatio) and the ―most
intimate union of persons‖ (intima personarum atque coniunctione), whose author is God
himself (Ipse vero Deus est auctor matrimonii).
Gaudium et Spes does not use the term ―communion‖ unlike von Hildebrand,
however, there is sufficient basis in the document‘s usage of terms such as communitas,
mutua duarum personarum donatio, that the concept of ―communion‖ can readily be
applied to Gaudium et Spes‟ theology of marriage. In fact, in his commentary on
40
NB. Latin texts of Vatican II documents are from, Index Verborum cum Documentis: Concilii Vaticani
Secundi, ed. Xaverius Ochoa (Roma, Commentarium pro Religiosis, 1967), ―Gaudium et Spes‖ no. 48. All
translations are my own.
19
Gaudium et Spes, then Cardinal Wojtyla, discusses the Pastoral Constitution‘s
presentation of marriage under the aspects of covenant, institution, and communio.41
Like von Hildebrand, the focus in Gaudium et Spes is on the persons of the
spouses and conjugal love. In fact, in the five paragraphs dedicated to marriage, the term
―love‖ is mentioned forty-seven times.42
Despite this emphasis in Gaudium et Spes,
conjugal love is not presented as an end of marriage. Marriage is referred to twice as
having an intrinsic ordination to procreation43
; however, reference to ―mutuum
adiutorium‖ is only passingly made within the context of the intima personarum atque
coniunctione.44
Marriage as a ―remedium concupiscentiae‖ is not mentioned at all.
By shifting the language from primary and secondary ends to the focus on
conjugal love, mutual self-gift, and communion, terms which are predicated of the love
within God himself45
, von Hildebrand has opened the door to discuss marriage within the
context of Divine Communion. Furthermore, through understanding the sacramentality of
marriage as a signification of love, von Hildebrand has also laid the groundwork for a
theology of marriage that delineates conjugal love as a sign of and a participation in
Trinitarian love made manifest on the Cross. This is precisely the understanding that is
presented in Gaudium et spes:
41
Karol Wojtyla, ―The Family as a Community of Persons,‖ in Person and Community: Selected Essays,
Catholic Thought from Lublin Vol 4, ed. Andrew Woznicki, trans. Theresa Sandok, OSM (New York: P.
Lang, 1993), 325. 42
Second Vatican Council, ―Gaudium et Spes: the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern
World,‖ in Vatican II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents (Rev. ed. Vol. 1.), ed. A. Flannery OP
(Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1996), (GS) nos. 47-52. 43
GS, nos. 48 and 51. 44
GS, no. 48: ―Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love ‗are no longer two, but
one flesh‘, render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of
their actions.‖ 45
C.f. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Second Edition) (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997),
(CCC) no. 221; John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem: On the Dignity and Vocation of Women (Homebush,
NSW: St. Paul Publications, 1988), (MD) no. 7.
20
Christ the Lord abundantly blessed this many-faceted love, welling up as it does
from the fountain of divine love and structured as it is on the model of His union
with His Church. For as God of old made Himself present to His people through a
covenant of love and fidelity, so now the Savior of men and the Spouse of the
Church comes into the lives of married Christians through the sacrament of
matrimony. He abides with them thereafter so that just as He loved the Church
and handed Himself over on her behalf, the spouses may love each other with
perpetual fidelity through mutual self-bestowal.46
This description of marriage reaches its highpoint in the reference to married love as
redemptive and a participation in divine love:
Authentic conjugal love (amor coniugalis) is caught up into divine love and is
governed and enriched by Christ‘s redeeming power and the saving activity of the
Church, so that this love may lead the spouses to God with powerful effect and
may aid and strengthen them in the sublime office of being a father or a mother.47
As already-mentioned, the sacramentality of marriage, as the foundation of a
conjugal spirituality, has a prophetic component. This theme is explicit in all magisterial
teaching regarding marriage since the Second Vatican Council. The prophetic mission of
married love forms the basis of the ecclesial role of marriage and the family. This theme
is especially prominent in John Paul‘s theology of the body and essential in order to
understand the spousal meaning of the body as it pertains to married persons.
The prophetic witness of marriage is absent in the writings of von Hildebrand.
The notion of the baptized faithful‘s participation in the munus triplex of Jesus Christ is a
relatively late development in Catholic theology. It began with John Henry Newman and
then develops with the Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi and Mediator Dei.
From these two encyclicals the notion of the Church, and by extension the Christian,
sharing in Christ‘s mission as Priest, Prophet, and King, enters the documents of the
46
GS, no. 48. 47
GS, no. 48.
21
Second Vatican Council.48
As it is a late development it would be unfair to criticize von
Hildebrand‘s exclusion of it. Nevertheless, there is some reference in his writings to
marriage as sharing in the priestly mission of Christ. For example, he writes:
But Jesus…raised [marriage] to the rank of a Sacrament. He made of this sacred
bond a specific source of grace. He transformed marriage…into something
sanctifying.49
And:
Marriage is the most intimate communion of love in Jesus and for Jesus, a
community which belongs to Jesus and brings about sanctification of both
spouses.50
This focus on marriage as contributing to the holiness of the spouses was
revolutionary for its time. The manualist approach to marriage often denied the notion
that marriage was, in itself, a path to holiness.51
Nevertheless, the prophetic mission of
the spouses is noticeably absent from von Hildebrand‘s thought.
Vatican II and subsequent papal teaching has taught that this prophetic witness is
a consequence of sacramental marriage. Christian marriage has the duty to bear witness
to faithful and fruitful love. In signifying conjugal love, and through their participation in
48
Aidan Nichols, Holy Order: Apostolic Priesthood from the New Testament to the Second Vatican
Council (Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1990), 127-128. 49
Von Hildebrand, Marriage, 53. 50
Ibid., 63. 51
C.f. David S. Crawford,. Marriage and the Sequela Christi: A Study of Marriage as a “State of
Perfection” in the Light of Henri de Lubac‟s Theology of Nature and Grace (Rome: Lateran University
Press, 2004), 47-51. For example, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange wrote: ―Holy Virginity is immediately
ordered to God, whereas marriage is ordered to the conservation of the human species in active life‖, The
Love of God and the Cross of Jesus, vol. 1, trans. Sr. Jeanne Marie, O.P. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co.,
1947), p. 348 quoted in Crawford, 48. Furthermore, an early schema of the Second Vatican Council would
have condemned ―the opinion which declares matrimony to be a specific means for attaining that perfection
by which man is truly and properly an image of God and the most Holy Trinity‖ De castitate, virginitate,
matrimonio, familia (Schema Propositum a Commissione Theologica, 5/7/62), Pars Alter, cap. 1, par. 16, in
Acta Concilio Oecumenico Vaticano II Apparando, Series II (Praeparatoria) vol. 2, Pars 3, pp. 893-937, at
910, quoted in Crawford, 47.
22
Christ‘s love for the Church, Christian spouses become prophets of the Good News of the
Gospel and therefore witness to Christ‘s saving death and resurrection. Thus we read in
Gaudium et Spes:
Authentic conjugal love will be more highly prized, and wholesome public
opinion created about it if Christian couples give outstanding witness to
faithfulness and harmony in their love, and to their concern for educating their
children.52
Thus, following Christ who is the principle of life by the sacrifices and joys of
their vocation and through their faithful love, married people can become
witnesses of the mystery of love which the Lord revealed to the world by His
dying and His rising up to life again.53
Pope Paul VI, takes up this theme in Humanae Vitae:
For by this sacrament [marriage] they are strengthened and, one might almost say,
consecrated to the faithful fulfillment of their duties. Thus will they realize to the
full their calling and bear witness as becomes them, to Christ before the world.
For the Lord has entrusted to them the task of making visible to men and women
the holiness and joy of the law which united inseparably their love for one another
and the cooperation they give to God‘s love, God who is the Author of human
life.54
Finally, John Paul II, makes the prophetic witness of Christian spouses, an
integral aspect of his thinking as it pertains to marriage:
Through marriage as a sacrament of the Church, man and woman are explicitly
called to bear witness – by correctly using the ―language of the body‖ – to spousal
and procreative love, a testimony worthy of ―true prophets.‖ In this consists the
52
GS, no 49. 53
GS, no. 52. 54
Paul VI, Humanae Vitae: Encyclical Letter on the Regulation of Birth (Washington, D.C.: United States
Catholic Conference), (HV) no. 25.
23
true significance and the greatness of conjugal consent in the sacrament of the
Church.55
This sacrament [marriage], in essence, is the proclamation in the Church of the
Good News concerning married love.56
The deepest reason is found in the fidelity of God to his covenant, in that of Christ
to his Church. Through the sacrament of Matrimony the spouses are enabled to
represent this fidelity and witness to it.57
1.5. Conclusion
It is difficult to exaggerate the contribution that Dietrich von Hildebrand has made
to the importance of conjugal love as the primary sign of marriage. Vatican II, Paul VI,
and John Paul II will draw upon much of his language and develop it. In a particular way,
John Paul will expand on the notion of the prophetic witness and marriage while
following the path of von Hildebrand in focusing on communion, mutual belonging, and
the affirmation of the person in conjugal love.
In the next chapter it will become clear that it is not just marriage that has a
meaning or signification. According to Pope John Paul, the body, created male and
female, also has a meaning. The meaning of the body will become a central theme in the
pontificate of John Paul II and foundational in order to understand a spirituality for
married persons.
55
TOB, 544. 56
FC, no. 51. 57
CCC, 1647.
25
Chapter 2.
Pope John Paul II: The Significance of the Body
2.1. Introduction
The original contribution of Pope John Paul II to a conjugal spirituality is the
understanding that the body, created male and female, has a significance or meaning.
While this is fundamentally an anthropological truth, it has profound ramifications for the
sacrament of Marriage. The bodily gift of self is integral to the sacrament for without it
the marriage is only ratified but not consummated.
For Pope John Paul, the body has a spousal meaning, that is, it reveals that the
human person, created in God‘s image and likeness, is made for self-gift. This chapter
will examine the meaning of the body. In doing this, it will become clear that the body
ultimately has a filial, spousal, and procreative meaning.1 Furthermore, these meanings of
the body when understood from a theological perspective reveal who the human person is
in relation to the Divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Thus the body becomes a
Trinitarian reality. Finally, this chapter will consider the specificity of the meaning of the
body as it pertains to marriage due to the body‘s insertion into Christian marriage.
1 Anderson and Granados, Called to Love, 168.
26
2.2. Original Solitude: The Filial Signification of the Body
In his work, originally titled, Man and Woman He Created Them, known
popularly as ―Theology of the Body‖, Pope John Paul II reflects on three original
experiences found in biblical anthropology: solitude, unity, and nakedness. The first
experience, original solitude, is described in the second creation account. Pope John Paul
notes that the first original experience is not simply applied to man as male (in Hebrew
îš) but of humanity in general (ādām). Thus solitude does not simply refer to the man
who as a male lacks woman but to ―humanity‖ understood in the generic sense.2 As such,
for John Paul, solitude is an anthropological problem before it is an issue of sexuality.
Man‘s solitude is a somatic reality since the man becomes aware, through his body, of his
non-identification with the rest of creation (c.f. Gen 2:19-20).3 In his solitude, man is
conscious of his transcendent vocation that calls him beyond the visible world.
It is man, in his original solitude, whom God addresses with the commandment
regarding the tree of good and evil (c.f. Gen 2:16-17). He is able to receive God‘s
command concerning life and death and is thus constituted as a subject of the covenant.4
In John Paul‘s words, man is ―partner of the Absolute‖ and therefore ―set into a unique,
exclusive, and unrepeatable relationship with God himself.‖5 This relationship is one of
submission to God‘s command and the dependence of a creature upon his Creator. Thus,
2 TOB, 147.
3 Ibid., 157: ―Although in its normal constitution, the human body carries within itself the signs of sex and
is by nature male or female, the fact that man is a „body‟ belongs more deeply to the structure of the
personal subject than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female. For this reason, the
meaning of original solitude, which can be referred simply to ‗man,‘ is substantially prior to the meaning of
original unity; the latter is based on masculinity and femininity, which are, as it were, two different
‗incarnations,‘ that is, two ways in which the same human being, created ‗in the image of God‘ (Gn 1:27),
‗is a body.‘‖ 4 Ibid., 151.
5 Ibid.
27
it can be said that while the first creation story portrays man as imago Dei (c.f. Gen 1:26-
28), in the second story man is delineated as capax Dei.
The first point that can be established from man‘s original solitude is that the
human person is defined theologically, that is, in reference to God. From the outset, a
biblical anthropology is therefore a theological anthropology. Relative to God, man is a
subject whom God addresses. However, with his capacity for God, man is also created
with a receptivity toward God. Consequently, man is not neutral in relation to God.
The second point noted is that this receptivity of man takes the form of filiality.
Man is created, destined later to be an adopted son, in the Son (c.f. Eph 1:4-5). Later, in
the Theology of the Body, John Paul makes it clear that the theological definition of man
is in the first place filial; God is Father, and then only is a biblical anthropology to be
considered spousal.6
John Paul does not use the term ―the filial meaning of the body‖; however, the
concept is nevertheless faithful to John Paul‘s thought. In the Theology of the Body, he
refers to the reality of the creation of man as having already been ―permeated by the
perennial election of man in Christ: called to holiness through the grace of adoption as
sons.‖7 The priority of the filial meaning of the body over that of the spousal meaning is
an ontological or existential priority.8
6 Ibid., 497: ―When we compare the text of Isaiah with Ephesians and observe the continuity with regard to
the analogy of spousal love and marriage, we must as the same time highlight a certain difference of a
theological perspective. Even in the first chapter, the author of the letter speaks about the mystery of love
and election, with which ‗God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ‘ embraces men and women in his Son,
above all as a mystery ‗hidden in God‘s mind.‘ It is the mystery of fatherly love, the mystery of election to
holiness…and of adoption as sons in Christ…The first dimension of love and election, as a mystery hidden
from ages in God, is a fatherly dimension and not a „conjugal‟ one.‖ 7 Ibid., 505.
8 Ibid., 148. See also Joseph Ratzinger, ―The Dignity of the Human Person,‖ in Commentary on the
Documents of Vatican II, vol. 5, ed. H. Vorgrimler et al (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 122: [T]he
sexual differentiation of mankind into man and woman is much more than a purely biological fact for the
28
In positing a filial meaning to the body, we see that it is Christ himself, the Son,
who most fully reveals this meaning. As the first-born of creation, the Son reveals man‘s
existence: he is always from another and thus for another. This is brought about most
concretely through the sacramental life. In the filiation of baptism, the Christian shares in
the Son‘s life as Son and, therefore, in his relationship with the Father. It is Christ himself
who reveals the full meaning of human existence, created to be sons in the Son. This truth
is primarily of theological-anthropological importance since it defines who man is. Man
is created for God with an openness toward God.
The form of this filiality is concretely expressed in virginity. This is not virginity
understood simply as the absence of sexual relations; rather it is virginity as the
unrestricted availability to the will of God. As such, the exemplars of filiality and
virginity are Christ and Mary.
The filial signification of the body, as revealed in man‘s solitude, has importance
for those called to the sacrament of Marriage. In the first place, filiality does not
contradict spousality, on the contrary, the former forms the basis of the latter. In fact,
Christ‘s spousal gift of self to the Church which he made on the Cross is a consequence
of his gift of self to the Father. Secondly, virginity forms the basis of the gift of self in
marriage taking the form of radical availability and receptivity before God. On a practical
level this is expressed through abstinence before marriage. Abstinence forms the
foundation of the freedom of spouses to make a total yes to the other in marriage. This
purpose of procreation but unconnected with what is truly human in mankind. In it there is accomplished
that intrinsic relation of the human being to a Thou, which inherently constitutes him or her as
human…The likeness to God in sexuality is prior to sexuality, not identical with it. It is because the human
being is capable of the absolute Thou that he is an I who can become a Thou for another I. The capacity for
the absolute Thou is the ground of the possibility and necessity of the human partner.‖
29
confirms not only the ontological priority of the filial over the spousal but also the non-
contradiction between these two meanings.
2.3. Gift and Communion: The Spousal Meaning of the Body
An integral component of Pope John Paul‘s theological anthropology is his
concept of the ―hermeneutic of the gift.‖ Through original solitude, man discovers that he
is called to a filial and covenantal relationship with God as described above. Man sees in
the gift of creation a fundamental and radical giving. Thus the hermeneutic of the gift
establishes a relationship between the Giver (God) and the receiver (man). The
fundamental and original gift given by God to man is the gift of creation.
Furthermore, man is conscious that this gift must come from Love itself. For John
Paul, God creates out of love as it is love alone that gives a beginning to the good and
delights in the good (c.f. Gen 1:31).9 Thus a new element is added to the biblical
anthropology already delineated. This new element is that man is the one who is called to
receive the gift. This further specifies the filial meaning of the body which is the
revelation of man‘s capacity for God. Man‘s receptivity to the gift reveals that man not
only has this capacity for the Divine but was created to receive God through the gift of
grace.10
Man receives the world as a gift and because he alone is able to understand the
gratuity of creation the world also receives man as a gift.11
The fundamental means
through which man discovers creation as a gift that originates from love is the body. John
9 Ibid., 180.
10 Ibid., 190-192: John Paul writes that ―Grace‖ which is the ―communication of holiness‖ and ―the
irradiation of the Spirit‖ is God‘s gift to man. It enables him to live the gift. It is also God‘s self-gift to man.
It determines man‘s fullest dimension as a creature. 11
Ibid., 180-181.
30
Paul states it thus: ―This is the body: a witness to creation as a fundamental gift, and
therefore a witness to Love as the source from which this same giving springs.‖12
John Paul‘s hermeneutic of the gift must be viewed through the lens of Gaudium
et Spes, paragraph 24, which is one of his most oft-quoted passages of the Second
Vatican Council.13
This paragraph states: ―This likeness [between the union of the divine
Persons, and the unity of God‘s sons in truth and charity] reveals that man, who is the
only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except
through a sincere gift of himself [emphasis added].‖ Thus the body, which reveals man‘s
creation as a gift, also reveals that man must respond to this gift through an act of self-
donation in order to truly find himself. Original solitude (filiality) where man discovers
that he has received the gift now opens man to become a gift (spousality).
We now add a second meaning of the body that stems from the body‘s filial
signification and the hermeneutic of the gift. This second meaning is the ―spousal
significance of the body.‖ The body‘s spousal or nuptial significance reveals that ―alone‖
(c.f. Gen 2:1) man does not completely realize his essence. Man needs another to help
him fulfill his call to make a gift of self. In his solitude man is called to live with and for
someone.14
Man is now conscious of the creative giving, originating from Love and his call to
become a gift in response to that Love. John Paul describes this as the discovery of the
body‘s spousal meaning, a meaning which is the body‘s ―power to express love: precisely
12
Ibid., 183: ―Masculinity-femininity – namely sex – is the original sign of a creative donation and at the
same time the sign of a gift that man, male-female, becomes aware of as a gift lived so to speak in an
original way. This is the meaning with which sex enters into the theology of the body.‖ 13
George Weigel, Witness to Hope: The Biography of John Paul II (New York: Cliff Street Books, 1999),
846. ―No two conciliar texts have been so frequently cited in the teaching of John Paul II as sections 22 and
24 in Gaudium et Spes…‖ 14
TOB, 182.
31
that love in which the human person becomes a gift and – through this gift – fulfills the
very meaning of his being and existence.‖15
The creation of man, created male and female as the imago Dei, has now reached
its definitive state: ―the unity of the two.‖ As John Paul states: ―Man becomes an image
of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion.‖16
Therefore, John Paul will argue that the Divine image is ultimately posited in the ―male-
female‖ union. This is both an anthropological and theological statement – the body
reveals man and woman‘s call to communion and enables them to enter into it, therefore
imaging in some way the Communion of God. The body has inscribed within it a
sacramentality that reveals communion:
The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is
invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the
visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to
be a sign of it.17
As a sign of the mystery hidden within God, the body is a sign of communion.
The man discovers in the woman one who is identical, sharing a common humanity
(―bone of my bone…‖). Everything that belongs to the man, as a person and therefore in
his filial relationship with God, also belongs to the woman. And yet there is an
ontological difference between man and woman and as such sexual difference is not
symmetrical; man and woman are not just ―two halves‖ of a whole. Woman is completely
other to man and as such the reciprocal gift between man and woman is always
asymmetrical.18
This identity and difference, inscribed in the human person created as
15
Ibid., 185-186 16
Ibid., 163. 17
Ibid., 203. 18
Angelo Scola, The Nuptial Mystery (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids MI, 2005), 74.
32
man and woman, is the foundation for the spousal communion of persons. This
communion through which man and woman exist in relation to one who is wholly other is
a prelude to the definitive revelation of the Communion of the Blessed Trinity, a relation
of pure identity-difference.19
From the above, a biblical anthropology can be outlined in this manner: creation
out of love, awareness of this creation as gift, the reception of this gift and a call to make
a gift of self in response which establishes the communion of persons through the body‘s
spousal meaning.
Therefore, man and woman are first given (creation-solitude) and then they give
(gift-unity). The asymmetrical nature of the man-woman unity reveals that original
solitude, while being overcome by original unity, does not disappear.20
As such, the
spousal meaning of the body is not the denial of the body‘s filial meaning but its
completion.21
In fact it is proper to speak of man and woman as having a double solitude
or to use John Paul‘s term a ―bi-subjectivity.‖
John Paul states that the foundation of the communio personarum is this bi-
subjectivity. Thus the anthropological truth that man and woman are called to be adopted
sons and daughters of God becomes the basis for the communion of persons. It is only
because man first is the receiver of the gift (filial) that he is then able to make a sincere
gift of self (spousal). The ontological openness of spousal communion to Divine
Communion is an essential reality to convey in the pastoral care of marriage.
19
MD, no. 7. 20
TOB, 162: ―In this way, the meaning of man‘s original unity through masculinity and femininity
expresses itself as an overcoming of the frontier of solitude and at the same time as an affirmation – for
both human beings – of everything in solitude that constitutes ‗man.‘‖ 21
Ibid., 182.
33
With the filial meaning of the body we saw that this established the truth about
man from a theological-anthropological perspective. The spousal meaning of the body
reveals the truth about the human person from a Christological-ecclesial perspective. This
truth of the body is not restricted solely to those Christians called to the vocation of
marriage. For John Paul there is no contradiction between the reality that the body has a
spousal significance and that some are called to celibacy for the kingdom.22
As it pertains
to marriage, the spousal meaning of the body reveals that the person is made for
communion and radical giving in which he finds himself. This is made concrete in the
vows of marriage as they become a sacramental expression of the totality of married life.
John Paul takes St. Paul‘s Letter to the Ephesians as his starting point for his
discussion of the Christological foundations of the spousal meaning of the body. It is St.
Paul who brings together the two ―signs‖, marriage and the union of Christ and the
Church, in order to establish the sacramentum magnum.23
By quoting the words of
Genesis 2:24 (the definitive expression of the spousal meaning of the body), Paul has
united marriage, the most ―ancient sign‖, with the definitive sign of the union Christ and
the Church.24
22
Ibid., 395: The reciprocal gift of oneself to God—a gift in which man will concentrate and express all the
energies of his own personal and at the same time psychosomatic subjectivity—will be the response to
God's gift of himself to man. In this reciprocal gift of self by man, a gift which will become completely and
definitively beatifying as a response worthy of a personal subject to God‘s gift of himself, ‗virginity‘ or
rather the virginal state of the body will manifest itself completely as the eschatological fulfillment of the
‗spousal‘ meaning of the body, as the specific sign and the authentic expression of personal subjectivity as
a whole. TOB, 399: In man‘s original situation ―[T]he meaning of being a body and, in particular, of being
male and female in the body, is linked with marriage and procreation (that is, with fatherhood and
motherhood). Yet, the original and fundamental meaning of being a body, as well also of being, as a body,
male and female—that is precisely that ‗spousal‘ meaning—is united to the fact that man is created as a
person and called to a life ‗in communione personarum.‘ Marriage and procreation in itself do not
definitively determine the original and fundamental meaning of being a body or of being nor of being, as a
body, male and female. Marriage and procreation only give concrete reality to that meaning in the
dimensions of history.‖ 23
Ibid., 503. 24
Ibid., 487.
34
The relationship between these two signs works by way of analogy. The first
direction of the analogy, according to John Paul, is to understand marriage from a
Christological-ecclesial perspective (―Husbands love your wives as Christ…‖). It must be
noted that since this is the language of analogy, the words of the Fourth Lateran Council
pertaining to the relation of God and the world are especially relevant. For every likeness
between God and the creature there is always a greater unlikeness (maior dissimilitudo in
tanta similitudine). This distinction is essential as it avoids granting to marriage an undue
primacy from an eschatological perspective that has been a criticism of the predominant
commentators of the theology of the body.25
The love that unites Christ with the Church is the love of communion. The
spousal meaning of the body reveals that the human person is made for the communion
of Christ and the Church. The Christian lives this communion through participation in the
sacramental life of the Church, a life that is given to her by Christ through his gift of the
Holy Spirit (c.f. Jn 20:22) who is the Communion of the Father and the Son. The Church
is therefore a communion through her union with Christ and in the unity of the Holy
Spirit shares in Divine Communion. Thus, the first Christological-ecclesial truth of the
human person established by the spousal meaning of the body is his call to participate in
the life of the Blessed Trinity through the communion of the Church.
Secondly, there is a supplementary analogy also at work in the Letter to the
Ephesians. This analogy is contained in the language of Christ as the ―Head‖ who gave
himself up for his body, the Church. The Head-body analogy is an important one for John
25
William Mattison, ―‗When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage‘:
Marriage and Sexuality, Eschatology, and the Nuptial Meaning of the Body in Pope John Paul‘s Theology
of the body‖ in Cahill, Lisa Sowle; Garvey, John; Kennedy, T. Frank (ed) Sexuality and the U.S. Catholic
Church: Crisis and Renewal (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2006), 32-51.
35
Paul. The Church, as the body of Christ, receives everything from him so that she may
become his body. This analogy expresses God‘s irrevocable and radical self-gift to man.
John Paul notes that ontologically speaking, man cannot receive the total gift of God,
nevertheless, through allowing man to participate in Divine nature (through the
sacramental life of the Church) God gives the person all that can be given.
As body, the Church lives in a relationship of complete dependence on Christ, a
relationship of ―faith‖ or ―fidelity‖ that binds her to the Bridegroom. Therefore, the form
that redemptive love takes in salvation history is spousal love26
:
The Pauline image of marriage, inscribed in the ‗great mystery‘ of Christ and the
Church, brings together the redemptive dimensions of the love with its spousal
dimension. In some sense it unites these two dimensions in a single one. Christ
has become the Church‘s Bridegroom, he married the Church as his Bride
because ―he gave himself up for her.‖27
The spousal meaning of the body, the call to communion that is definitively
revealed by the union of Christ and the Church, has significance for the communion of
persons in marriage. In the first place, when marriage is lived according to the truth of the
body, the form that spousal love takes is that of communion made possible through a
sincere gift of self. This is the meaning of the spousal consent of marriage. Through the
exchange of vows, spouses give themselves to one another, a mutual self-gift that is then
consummated by the conjugal act. The immediate effect of the sacrament (the res et
sacramentum) is the bond of marriage, a communion of life and love that signifies the
mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption.28
26
TOB, 478. 27
Ibid., 527. 28
FC, no. 13.
36
Secondly, the characteristics of conjugal love described by Dietrich von
Hildebrand can be seen as a thumbnail sketch of the spousal meaning of the body as lived
in marriage. Marriage is the most intimate I-thou communion that affirms the person of
the spouses and involves a mutual self-giving that ultimately signifies conjugal love.
However, it is only possible for Christian spouses to signify this love through marriage‘s
participation in the salvific love of Christ for his Church.
This leads to the final point of the ramification of the body‘s spousal signification
for marriage. Through the spouses‘ participation in Christ‘s love for the Church, spouses
are led to that radical giving by which Christ loved the Church to the end. It is the Cross
that reveals the true form of the spousal meaning of the body. Through the death that is
involved in love, Christian spouses become, in the words of John Paul, ―the permanent
reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross.‖29
This radical self-gift is made possible through the gift of the Holy Spirit who
bestows upon the spouses the gift of a new heart and ―renders man and woman capable of
loving one another as Christ has loved us.‖30
The Holy Spirit ―shapes‖ the spouses‘ love
so that they may be conformed more and more to Christ who gave himself on the Cross.
The Holy Spirit operates within the mutual self-donation of the couple and directs this
love toward Christ who is its archetype and goal.31
The gift of the Holy Spirit opens the
couple to Christ so that they may participate in Christ‘s love for the Church. In this way,
spousal love becomes redemptive, just as redemptive love becomes spousal.32
Thus the
29
Ibid. 30
FC, no. 13. 31
Marc Ouellet, Divine Likeness: Toward a Trinitarian Anthropology of the Family (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006), 89. 32
TOB, 527: ―Through marriage as a sacrament…both of these dimensions of love, the spousal and the
redemptive, penetrate together with the grace of the sacrament into the life of the spouses.‖
37
radical giving of spouses in marriage becomes the source of holiness for the married
couple and, through them, their family.33
2.4. The Procreative Meaning of the Body
The third significance of the body of which John Paul speaks is the ―paternal‖ or
―procreative‖ meaning of the body. This signification of the body, created male and
female, is only explicitly mentioned five times34
however the concept is found implicitly
throughout the Theology of Body. In fact, in the conclusion of the Theology of the Body
John Paul describes this work as being permeated entirely by Pope Paul VI‘s encyclical
Humanae Vitae35
that reaffirmed the unbreakable connection between the unitive and
procreative meanings [significantionem] of the conjugal act.
John Paul sees this procreative meaning as the crowning of the first two
meanings, the filial and the spousal:
Man became the image of God not so much through his own humanity, but also
through the communion of persons…On the basis of the original and constitutive
―solitude‖…man has been endowed with a deep unity between what is, humanly
and through the body, male…[and] female in him. On all this, right from the
beginning, the blessing of fruitfulness descended…36
Furthermore, just as the spousal meaning of the body belongs to the truth of the
human person so too does its procreative meaning. Therefore, those who are called to the
vocation of celibacy, who live the spousal meaning of the body according to that state,
33
FC, no. 56. 34
TOB, 211; 285; 400; 542; and 655. 35
TOB, 660: ―In some sense, one can even say that all the reflections dealing with the ‗Redemption of the
Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage [John Paul‘s own title for the Theology of the Body] seem to
constitute an extensive commentary on the doctrine contained precisely in Humanae Vitae.‖ 36
Ibid., 163-164.
38
must also crown this love with fruitfulness as spiritual fathers and mothers. As such,
biological fecundity does not exhaust the procreative meaning of the body, in fact,
physical generation only attains its full meaning when it is completed by spiritual
parenthood.37
The source of the fruitfulness of spousal love, both in marriage and celibacy, is
the Holy Spirit. John Paul reflects on the virginal marriage of the Blessed Mother and St.
Joseph as the perfect communion of persons that has a supernatural fecundity, through its
fruitfulness in the Holy Spirit.38
Thus, the procreative meaning of the body is ultimately a
Pneumatological truth of the human person.
This has profound consequences for a conjugal spirituality. In the first place, the
source of conjugal love is the Holy Spirit. Citing The Letter to the Romans, John Paul
writes that the fundamental element of conjugal spirituality is the love poured out into the
hearts of the spouses as a gift of the Holy Spirit (c.f. Rom 5:5).39
This understanding of the Holy Spirit as the fount or source (fons) of spousal love
has been made explicit in the addition of an epiclesis inserted into the nuptial blessing in
the editio typica altera of the Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium. In this epiclesis, the Father
is petitioned to send forth upon the spouses, ―the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that, with
your love diffused in their hearts, they may remain faithful in the conjugal covenant.‖40
37
Ibid., 432. 38
Ibid., 420-421. 39
Ibid., 652-653. 40
Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium, editio typica altera (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1991), no. 74, p. 36.
―…emitte super eos Spiritus Sancti gratiam, ut, caritate tua in cordibus eorum diffusa, in coniugali foedere
fideles permaneant.‖ My translation.
39
The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes similar reference to the Spirit as the
fons amoris. With reference to the epiclesis in the sacrament of Marriage, the Catechism
states:
[T]he spouses receive the Holy Spirit as the communion of love of Christ and the
Church. The Holy Spirit is the seal of their covenant, the ever available source of
their love (fons semper oblatus eorum amoris) and the strength to renew their
fidelity.41
Secondly, as the source of spousal love, a love that is both unitive and
procreative, the Spirit is the source of the fruitfulness of the couple. John Paul teaches
that ―Life according to the Spirit‖ in marriage is expressed in the opening up of the
conjugal act to the blessing of procreation.42
Consequently, in opening spousal
communion to the gift of life, spouses open their marriage to be blessed by the One who
gives the gift, the Lord, the Giver of Life (Dominum et vivificantem).
Finally, as we saw in the last chapter, the prophetic witness of fruitful conjugal
love has been a central feature of magisterial teaching in the post-Conciliar period. The
procreative meaning of the body is essential to the prophetic vocation of Christian
marriage. This is brought out in a particular fashion in the second Collect of the Ordo
Celebrandi Matrimonium: ―Deus…ut quos in caritate fructificare largiris ipsius caritatis
testes esse concedes‖43
(O God…so that, as you make their love fruitful, they may
become, by your grace, witnesses to charity itself). Thus the Holy Spirit, as the source of
spousal love and fecundity enables spouses to fulfill their mission in the Church. This
will be dealt with in greater detail in Chapter Four.
41
CCC, no. 1624. 42
TOB, 523. 43
Translation is from The Roman Missal: English Translation According to the Third Typical Edition
(Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011)
40
2.5. Conclusion
From the thought of Dietrich von Hildebrand and Pope John Paul II we are able to
complete the picture of married love in the post-conciliar period. Predominantly in his
Theology of the Body, John Paul has established that the human person, as an embodied
spirit, is constituted theologically-anthropologically, Christologically, and
Pneumatologically. In summary, the person is made for communion with the Blessed
Trinity. This truth is expressed within the somatic structure of the person through the
body‘s filial, spousal, and procreative meaning.
As these meanings pertain to married persons, we see that the filial meaning of
the body is expressed through spouses opening their love to the Source of Love-
Communion. This openness to God himself is life according to the hermeneutic of the
gift in which spouses first receive themselves and, in continually returning to the source
of Love, are able to give themselves.
The spousal meaning of the body in marriage is the means by which spouses find
themselves in a sincere and radical gift of self. This self-giving takes place in and through
the Son, who gave himself up for his Bride. Christian spouses participate in the Son‘s
self-gift enabling their love to take the form of communion through this participation.
Finally, the procreative meaning of the body is manifested through the spouses‘ openness
to life and the prophetic witness that is a consequence of this openness.
When spouses live according to the truth of the body, it is only then they are able
to signify conjugal love, Christ‘s own love for the Church. In signifying this love, they
therefore participate in it and witness this love to the world in a prophetic manner.
41
The truth of the body establishes the person in relation to the Blessed Trinity. It is the
same Trinity who comes to spouses in the sacrament of Penance. The next chapter will
examine the Trinitarian foundations of Penance in order to ultimately delineate the
contribution of confession to a spirituality for married persons.
42
Chapter 3.
The Sacrament of Penance
3.1. Introduction
In the previous chapter it was established that according to Pope John Paul II the
human person, who is made for God as an embodied spirit, is constituted theologically-
anthropologically, Christologically, and Pneumatologically. As the Catechism states,
―[T]he whole Christian life is a communion with each of the divine persons, without in
any way separating them.‖1 When the Christian falls into sin he ruptures this communion
with God. As he is made for God who is a Trinity of Persons, the Christian will be
restored to communion with God by the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This
forgiveness and reconciliation is brought about ritually by the sacrament of Penance.
This chapter will examine the Trinitarian foundations of Penance in the thought of
Pope John Paul II. It will delineate the work of each Divine Person as expressed in the
words of absolution. It must be said, however, that in distinguishing between the works
of the Divine Persons in Penance this is not to deny the inseparability of the Divine
Persons in the sacramental economy.2
1 CCC, no. 259.
2 CCC, nos. 258 and 259: ―The whole divine economy is the common work of the three divine persons.
However, each divine person performs the common work according to his unique personal
property…Being a work at once common and personal, the whole divine economy makes known both what
is proper to the divine persons, and their one divine nature.‖
43
3.2. Theological and Anthropological Aspects of the Sacrament of Penance:
“God, the Father of mercies…”
In the prior chapter, a theological anthropology was delineated. In his original
solitude, the human person is created as ―partner of the Absolute‖, and according to Pope
John Paul ―set into a unique, exclusive, and unrepeatable relationship with God
himself.‖3 The human person is never neutral in his relationship with God, in fact he is
created with a receptivity toward God. Finally, this receptivity of the human person takes
the form of filiality; man is created to be an adopted son in the Son.
In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, John
Paul provides further specificity to his theological anthropology. He begins with a
reflection on the words of St. John, ―If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our
sins‖ (1 Jn 1:8-9). Pope John Paul saw in this the reality that sin is an integral part of the
historical truth about man.4 Each person must acknowledge his or her sin and consider it
within the context of one‘s personhood.5 When this personhood is understood as
primarily filial, sin becomes understood as the rupture of this relationship with God.
In his encyclical, Dives in Misericordia, Pope John Paul analyzes the parable of
the Prodigal Son precisely within the framework of this ruptured filial relationship.
Whereas initially the prodigal son had focused on his material losses (c.f. Lk 16:17), only
3 TOB, 151.
4 John Paul II, Reconciliatio et Penitentia: Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Reconciliation and Penance
(Washington, D.C.: Office of Publishing and Promotion Services United States Catholic Conference,
1984), (RP) no. 13. 5 Ibid.
44
later does he discover the deeper tragedy; it was not so much his possessions that he had
squandered but his sonship.6
If the human person is created for sonship and this is ruptured, then sin introduces
the most profound wound within the heart of man.7 Man is truly lost ontologically, that is,
within his most innermost being. Furthermore, with such a profound wound within the
core of his being, he is unable to stop himself from inflicting this wound on others. Pope
John Paul describes this wound and its consequences thus:
As a rupture with God, sin is an act of disobedience by a creature who rejects, at
least implicitly, the very one from whom he came and who sustains him in life. It
is therefore a suicidal act. Since by sinning man refuses to submit to God, his
internal balance is also destroyed and it is precisely within himself that
contradictions and conflicts arise. Wounded in this way, man almost inevitably
causes damage to the fabric of his relationship with others and with the created
world.8
This is the anthropological truth of the sacrament of Penance. However, it must be
stated that since man is never neutral to God the human dimension must always be
understood within the divine dimension, ―Where sin is countered by the truth of divine
love.‖9 Because sin and suffering have entered human existence, the form that this Divine
love takes is that of mercy. John Paul states it thus: ―It is precisely because sin exists in
the world, which ‗God so loved...that he gave his only Son,‘ that God, who ‗is love,‘
cannot reveal Himself otherwise than as mercy.‖10
Pope John Paul treats the concept of mercy in great detail in three documents:
Dives in Misericordia, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, and Dominus et Vivificantem. Each
6 John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia: Rich in Mercy Encyclical (Washington, D.C.: Office of Publishing
and Promotion Services United States Catholic Conference, 1980), (DM), no. 6; RP, no. 2. 7 RP, no. 2.
8 RP, no. 15.
9 RP, no. 13.
10 DM, no. 13.
45
subsequent document makes reference to the prior document and develops its themes.
John Paul‘s most extensive treatment of mercy is ultimately found in Dives in
Misericordia, his encyclical on the mercy of God the Father, revealed in the life and
death of Jesus Christ. In his discussion on the Old Testament treatment of mercy, John
Paul focuses on two Hebrew words that are employed to describe the mercy of God. The
first is hesed (חסד). John Paul describes hesed as fidelity and responsibility. It is a love
that is faithful, and when used to refer to God, is expressed in fidelity to himself.11
The
second term is rahamim ( ), which is a particular love that one has for a child; it is
expressed in tenderness and a readiness to forgive.12
The Chosen People experienced concretely God‘s mercy – whether it was through
suffering inflicted upon them or caused by themselves – and as such, they knew that they
could invoke God‘s mercy. The image of the spouse was often employed by the prophets
to show God‘s faithful and everlasting love (hesed) (c.f. Jer 31:3; Isa 54:10). His Chosen
People could call upon God‘s mercy for he always heard their cry and delivered them
(rahamim).13
These different concepts of mercy converged upon this single point: those
who are weighed down by sin are encouraged to appeal to God‘s mercy and to trust in
it.14
When God, the Father of mercies, sends his Son to reconcile the world to himself,
the Father gives the full and definitive revelation of this mercy. Through his life and
teaching Christ the reveals the Father. In a particular way his preaching, especially his
parables, focuses on the mercy of God. Also the many healings and miracles of Christ are
11
DM, footnote 52. 12
DM, footnote 52. 13
DM, no. 4. 14
DM, no. 4.
46
a revelation of this mercy.15
John Paul summarizes the fundamental content of Christ‘s
message as constituted by mercy.16
Athough, John Paul sees that the Paschal Mystery is
the ultimate revelation of God‘s mercy:
[R]edemption involves the revelation of mercy in its fullness. The Paschal
Mystery is the culmination of this revealing and effecting of mercy, which is able
to justify man, to restore justice in the sense of that salvific order which God
willed from the beginning in man and, through man, in the world.17
The mercy of God is also taken up in the document Reconciliatio et Paenitentia.
Again, John Paul wishes to affirm the richness of the Father‘s mercy; God‘s love is a love
that is more powerful than sin, it is stronger than death. In this letter John Paul develops
the concept of mercy from an anthropological perspective. He writes:
When we realize that God‘s love for us does not cease in the face of our sin or
recoil before our offences, but becomes even more attentive and generous; when
we realize that this love went so far as cause the Passion and Death of the Word
made flesh who consented to redeem us at the price of his own blood, then we
exclaim in gratitude: ―Yes, the Lord is rich in mercy‖, and even: ―The Lord is
mercy.‖18
Thus, not only does God reveal his mercy, he shows that he is mercy itself. According to
John Paul, mercy has the interior form of agape, therefore God, who is love, is also
mercy. Whereas in Dives in Misericordia, John Paul refers to mercy as love‘s ―second
name‖19
in Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, God is mercy.
Finally, in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominus et Vivificantem, John Paul
provides a further deepening of this understanding of mercy both from a theological and
anthropological perspective. In the document, John Paul expresses that it is only through
15
DM, no. 7. 16
DM, no. 6. 17
DM, no. 7. 18
RP, no. 22. 19
DM, no. 7.
47
the Spirit‘s searching the ―depths of God‖ that the true evil of sin is made manifest. God
responds to man‘s sin with a seeming regret for the creation of man; however, God‘s
response to man‘s sin more often than not takes the form of compassion, ―as though
sharing his pain.‖20
God‘s response to man‘s suffering is to suffer with man, but also responding with
a fresh outpouring of salvific love. He writes:
Whereas sin, by rejecting love, has caused the ‗suffering‘ of man…the Holy Spirit
will enter into human and cosmic suffering with a new outpouring of love, which
will redeem the world. And on the lips of Jesus the Redeemer, in whose humanity
the ―suffering‖ of God is concretized, there will be heard a word which manifests
the eternal love full of mercy: ―Misereor.‖21
This development in his teaching on mercy intensifies both in its theology and
anthropology. Each time man sins – God who loves us with the love that is both hesed
and rahimim, a love which is fully revealed in the life, death, and resurrection, of his Son,
and shows that God is mercy itself – God responds with a fresh outpouring of love as a
response of compassion and mercy. This is the love that the human person, created for a
filial relationship with God, encounters in the sacrament of Penance, which in its most
profound essence is the sacrament of mercy.22
20
John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem: On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World
(Boston: St. Paul‘s Editions, 1986), (DV) no. 39. 21
DV, no. 39. 22
John Paul II, ―Letter to Priests for Holy Thursday 2001,‖ Vatican webpage www.vatican.va (accessed
November 23, 2011), no. 4.
48
3.3. Christological Aspects of the Sacrament of Penance: “…through the death and
resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself…”
In order to delineate the Christological aspects of the sacrament of Penance, it is
important to note that Penance continues the healing and salvific mission of Christ.23
It is
Jesus Christ, who is the mercy of God made flesh24
, acting in the minister,25
who
encounters the penitent.
In the previous section, reference was made to Pope John Paul‘s claim that sin is
an integral part of the truth about fallen man. Nevertheless, John Paul further adds that
sin is neither the main principle nor victor in the economy of salvation. It is Jesus Christ
himself who, through his death and resurrection, reveals the truth about sin and man.
Consequently, the mysterium iniquitatis is ultimately conquered by the mysterium
pietatis, that is, Christ himself.26
John Paul, commenting upon Paul‟s Letter to Timothy,
describes the mystery of pietas as the summary of the Incarnation and Redemption. As
such, it is the mystery of God‘s loving kindness27
, and by extension, one could add the
mystery of the mercy of God.
Thus, the Christian, who has fallen into grave sin encounters the mercy of God in
Jesus Christ. We see that the sacrament of Penance is inherently personalist.28
The
person, in his subjectivity, is the one who has committed sin and therefore, bearing
responsibility for his sin, must confess it. Christ does not approach man as part of a
23
CCC, no. 1421: ―The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the
paralytic and restored him to bodily health…has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy
Spirit, his work of healing and salvation…This is the purpose of…the sacrament of Penance.‖ 24
DM, no. 2. 25
RP, no. 29. 26
RP, no. 20. 27
RP, no. 20. 28
RP, no. 16.
49
collective, rather he calls each person by name to repentance, and saves him precisely as
a person. The personalist nature of Penance belongs by right to the Christian, but also to
Christ himself as the redeemer of each person. John Paul expresses it thus:
In faithfully observing the centuries-old practice of the sacrament of Penance —
the practice of individual confession with a personal act of sorrow and the
intention to amend and make satisfaction — the Church is therefore defending…
man‘s right to a more personal encounter with the crucified forgiving Christ, with
Christ saying, through the minister of the sacrament of Reconciliation: ―Your sins
are forgiven‖; ―Go, and do not sin again.‖ As is evident, this is also a right on
Christ‘s part with regard to every human being redeemed by him: his right to meet
each one of us in that key moment in the soul‘s life constituted by the moment of
conversion and forgiveness.29
John Paul‘s anthropology is never individualistic as such it would be an error to
understand the personalist nature of the sacrament of Penance as a closed relationship
between Christ and the penitent. To understand fully both the Christological and
anthropological elements of the sacrament, a second element needs to be addressed: the
relational character of Penance. The fact that the sacrament has this relational character or
dimension reveals a profound anthropological truth: the human person is inherently made
for communion. He is made for communion with God (the filial meaning of the body)
and with others (the spousal meaning of the body).
Regarding the relational aspect of Penance, John Paul states that it is
reconciliation with God that is the most ―precious result of the forgiveness obtained in the
Sacrament.‖30
He then adds that this vertical element of the sacrament also has a
horizontal element: ―The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being,
where he regains his own true identity. He is reconciled with his brethren whom he has in
29
John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1979), (RH)
no. 20. 30
RP, no. 31, V.
50
some way attacked and wounded. He is reconciled with the Church. He is reconciled with
all creation.‖
In the sacrament of Penance, Christ, fully reveals man to himself by revealing the
mystery of the Father and his love.31
Christ reveals that the person is created for
relationship (and when he has sinned he stands in need of the restoration of relationship)
first with God and then with man through the Church. This is because the human person
as capax Dei and therefore for love.32
Christ entrusts his mission of reconciliation to the Church. Consequently, the
ecclesial nature of Penance can be added to the relational character of the sacrament. The
Church is defined in Lumen Gentium, a definition which is taken up by Pope John Paul
repeatedly, as a ―sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and
of unity among all people.‖33
The Church has the mission, as Christ‘s Body, to preach the
message of reconciliation but she is also to practice this reconciliation within herself.34
Through his Church, Jesus Christ, comes to the penitent in the sacrament of
Penance. In so doing, he reconciles the world to the Father through his death and
resurrection. Christ‘s role as the reconciler of God and man through his Paschal Mystery
is the third Christological element of Penance.
In Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, John Paul refers to Christ as both Reconciler and
Liberator of man from all sin. He goes even further to describe the mission of Christ as
one of reconciliation: ―[W]e can therefore legitimately relate all our reflections on the
whole mission of Christ to his mission as the one who reconciles. Thus there must be
31
C.f. GS, no. 22. 32
C.f. RH, no. 10. 33
LG, no. 1. 34
RP, nos. 8-9.
51
proclaimed once more the Church‘s belief in Christ‘s redeeming act, in the Paschal
Mystery of his Death and Resurrection, as the cause of man‘s reconciliation, in its
twofold aspect of liberation from sin and communion of grace with God.‖35
God is completely faithful to himself and to his covenant with man. This fidelity
is such that God will not recoil from the demands of his fidelity. In fact, to fulfill the
demands of justice the Son, who knew no sin, was made sin for man‘s sake. Christ‘s
death, as an act of justice, superabundantly compensates for the sins of mankind.36
Furthermore, in his Paschal Mystery, and through the extent to which he would go
to reconcile God and man, Christ has revealed the depth of God‘s mercy and love. Pope
John Paul referred to the mysterium Crucis ―as the loftiest drama in which Christ
perceives and suffers to the greatest possible extent the tragedy of the division of man.‖37
Thus, Christ not only fulfills the demands of justice, but in his mercy, shows himself to
be in complete solidarity with man. This solidarity is both condescension and elevation.
As the former, we see in the Cross, the ―most profound condescension of God to man and
to what man-especially in difficult and painful moments-looks on as his unhappy destiny.
The cross is like a touch of eternal love upon the most painful wounds of man‘s earthly
existence.‖38
As elevation, the Cross reveals the dignity of man: ―How precious must
man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he ‗gained so great a Redeemer‘, and if God ‗gave
his only Son‘ in order that man ‗should not perish but have eternal life.‘‖39
35
RP, no. 7. 36
DM, no. 7. 37
RP, no. 7. 38
DM, no. 8. 39
RH, no. 10.
52
3.4. Pneumatological Aspects of the Sacrament of Penance: “…and sent the Holy
Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins…”
We will now consider the work of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Penance.
The principle source of this consideration is Pope John Paul‘s encyclical letter on the
Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and the world, Dominum et Vivificantem.
The starting point for John Paul regarding the Pneumatological foundations of
Penance is Christ‘s words in the Gospel of John‘s account of the Last Supper. John Paul
sees the principal mission of the Holy Spirit ―to convince the world concerning sin.‖40
The Holy Spirit reveals sin within the context of the Cross and therefore God‘s definitive
judgment of sin. As such, the convincing the world of sin is not so much a condemnation
of the world rather it is to convince the world concerning the Father‘s pouring out of the
Spirit in order to forgive sin.
There are two fundamental points made by John Paul in reference to the
convincing of sin that can be applied to the Pneumatological aspects of the sacrament of
Penance. The first is that in order to convince the world of sin, the Holy Spirit reveals to
the world the evil that sin contains by searching the depths of God. Secondly, the Holy
Spirit, becomes the ―light of hearts‖ calling the person to conversion, the fundamental
criterion for the life of holiness.
In Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, John Paul diagnoses the fundamental illness of
contemporary culture as the loss of the sense of sin.41
In Evangelium Vitae, he refers to
the source of this phenomenon: the eclipse of the sense of God and of man.42
40
DV, no. 28. 41
RP, no. 18.
53
It is impossible for man to understand the reality of sin. In fact, John Paul,
drawing upon St. Paul, speaks of sin as a mystery (mysterium iniquitatis). Even the well-
formed conscience does not fully understand sin in its essence. Furthermore, in our own
time secularism, moral relativism, and an overly legalistic approach to morality, have all
led to the eclipsing of the sense of sin.43
What the age requires is for moral consciences to
once again rediscover the reality of sin.
The mysterium iniquitatis has its origins in the first sin; in man‘s disobedience
and a complete falsification of the truth about God. In the beginning, the human person
created imago Dei was therefore created capax Dei. The Spirit of God who is present in
creation (c.f. Gen 1:1-2), is a witness to the love out of which God created the world, and
is himself this Love. Man‘s creation in the image of God is also a gift of the Spirit. This
image, which is given as a gift to man from the Spirit who is Gift-Love, is described by
John Paul as ultimately a call to friendship in which the ―depths of God‖ is opened to
participation by man.44
Later, in the same document, John Paul will refer to the gift of
faith as ―openness of the human heart to the gift: to God‘s self-communication in the
Holy Spirit.‖45
The original sin is the rejection of this gift through disobedience. This act of
disobedience is more than the transgression of a moral precept, it was the rejection of
man to participate in the source of the moral law, God himself. This is ultimately a
42
John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae: on the Value and Inviolability of Human Life (Washington, D.C.: United
States Catholic Conference, 1995), (EV) no 21: ―In seeking the deepest roots of the struggle between the
‗culture of life‘ and the ‗culture of death‘, we cannot restrict ourselves to the perverse idea of freedom
mentioned above. We have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man: the eclipse
of the sense of God and of man.‖ 43
RP, no. 18. 44
DV, no. 34. 45
DV, no. 51.
54
separation from participation in God‘s own life. It is also consent to the first temptation
which, in its very essence, is a complete falsification about who God is (c.f. Gen 3:5).
In the second chapter of this thesis, reference was made to a key aspect of the theology of
the body, namely, John Paul‘s hermeneutic of the gift. The falsification that takes place is
the casting of doubt on the gift. Furthermore, a gift creates a relationship between the one
who gives and the one who receives whereby to receive the gift ultimately means to
receive the giver of the gift. Thus when doubt is cast in man‘s heart regarding the gift, he
places God under suspicion.46
God himself is the one accused and placed in a state of suspicion; God becomes
the imagined enemy of the creature he had created out of love to participate in Divine
life. Thus what begins as an untruth about God leads to an untruth about man. Man is not
capax Dei or imago Dei; he is adversarius Dei.47
In rejecting the source of his origin,
man himself is the one who dies as a consequence (c.f. Gen 2:15).
The Holy Spirit, who is the source of the gift for he is the Love of the Father and
the Son, alone can reveal what the rejection of sin is in reality; he alone can convince the
world of the evil of sin and its consequences. This convincing of sin is not, as has already
been mentioned, a word of condemnation. In the economy of salvation, the convincing of
sin reveals that sin is conquered by Christ‘s death on the Cross and his resurrection.
Again, it is the Spirit alone who searches the depths of God who can reveal the extent to
which God‘s Love (for he is this love) will go to redeem man.
The second manner in which the Holy Spirit convinces of sin is through the
purification of conscience and the call to conversion. Christ‘s first gift to the Church is
46
TOB, 236-237. 47
DV, no. 38.
55
the gift of the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins (c.f. Jn 20:22). The power to forgive
sins presupposes that the Holy Spirit is at work in man‘s heart, calling him to repentance
and to seek forgiveness. This repentance is the fundamental criterion for conversion so
much so that without repentance (which implies contrition) one‘s sins are not forgiven.48
Conversion and repentance can only take place if the penitent realizes the good that he
has rejected and the evil he has done. Therefore, the foundation of conversion is the
proper formation of conscience.49
The Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin through the
enlightening of conscience so that man may see and call evil for what it is.
John Paul describes all of this as a dramatic struggle; however, he reminds us that
Christ has come to set man free and to strengthen him for this battle.50
Also, when the
Spirit who convinces the world concerning sin comes into contact with the efforts of man
in this struggle the Spirit works in man‘s heart to bring about man‘s salvation. The
suffering in man‘s heart, which he experiences due to authentic remorse, is a gift of the
Holy Spirit to share in the suffering of the Cross.51
Man shares in God‘s own suffering
over sin and the Spirit transforms the penitent‘s suffering into salvific love. This is when
true conversion takes place.
Finally, the Father‘s sending of the Spirit is for the purpose of bestowing upon
man new life through man‘s sanctification. All sacraments signify and give life since they
are the work of the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life.52
In particular, the sacrament of
Penance restores man to friendship with God, the Author and source of life itself. The
48
C.f. DV, no. 42; RP, no 31, III. 49
DV, no. 43. 50
DV, no. 44. 51
DV, no. 45. 52
DV, no. 63.: ―This sacramental ministry, every time it is accomplished, brings with it the mystery of the
‗departure‘ of Christ through the Cross and the Resurrection, by virtue of which the Holy Spirit comes. He
comes and works: ‗He gives life.‘ For the sacraments signify grace and confer grace: they signify life and
give life.‖
56
Catechism refers to this as a true ―spiritual resurrection.‖53
This friendship is also a
participation in God‘s life for which man, created in God‘s image, was made. Therefore,
while the most precious effect of the sacrament of Penance is restoration to friendship
with God,54
by extension, the Pneumatological aspect of the sacrament is the giving of
life which had been lost.
Thus we can summarize the work of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Penance.
The Spirit convinces the penitent concerning sin. The Spirit reveals to the penitent the
reality of the evil of sin and its essence as the rejection of God himself. The human
person is created for communion with God and therefore wounded to his very core.
However, the confessional is a tribunal of mercy and the place in which God‘s response
of mercy and the fresh outpouring of love is encountered. The sorrow and contrition for
sin which are the foundations for true conversion, are also gifts of the Spirit, who purifies
the conscience. Lastly, the Spirit gives the penitent life through the sacrament.
3.5. Conclusion
In conclusion, the sacrament of Penance is an encounter with the Persons of the
Blessed Trinity. When the penitent participates in this sacrament he encounters mercy
itself. It is mercy that defines God‘s relationship with man. In the person of Christ who is
reconciling God and the world, and who is acting in the priest, the penitent experiences
the affirmation of his inestimable worth as a person. The penitent is also restored to
53
CCC, no. 1468. 54
RP, no. 31, V.
57
communion with God and the Church. Finally, the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of sin and
gives life to those who are spiritually dead.
It is now possible to determine in the final chapter, the ―infallible and
indispensable‖ contribution that Penance makes to a conjugal spirituality. This will be
done according to the filial, spousal, and procreative significations of the body, which the
sacrament of Marriage takes up in order to signify conjugal love and prophetically
witness to this love to the Church and the world.
58
Chapter 4.
Sacrament of Penance and the Significations of the Body and Marriage
4.1. Introduction
In the preceding chapter the Trinitarian and anthropological foundations of the
sacrament of Penance were discussed. As a bodily being, created male and female, the
human person is made for participation in the Communion of the Blessed Trinity. Thus,
as a Trinitarian-anthropological reality, Penance operates within the very structure of the
human person according to the meaning of the body.
The sacrament of Marriage, whose source is God himself, is one particular path to
participate in Divine Communion for which the human person is made. As with Penance,
marriage is a Trinitarian reality that is constituted upon the somatic structure of person.
Spouses are called to live the filial, spousal, and procreative meanings of the body in such
a manner that they signify conjugal love through participation in Christ‘s own love and to
witness to this love in a prophetic way.
As an encounter with the mercy of God, Penance introduces into marriage a new
hermeneutic of the gift: mercy itself. This final chapter will examine the particular and
indispensable contribution that Penance makes to a conjugal spirituality. It will do this
within the context of the signification of the body as it is taken up in marriage. Finally, it
will consider the role of Penance in enabling spouses to signify conjugal love.
59
4.2. Penance and the Filial Meaning of the Body
In Chapter Three we saw that the sacrament of Penance is an encounter with the
God who is mercy itself. It is Christ, the mercy of the Father, who reveals the
anthropological truth that the human person needs mercy. This truth has particular
ramifications for spouses in order that they might fully live the filial meaning of the body.
In the first place, spousal love is never a closed circle in which husband and wife
separate themselves from the world. By contrast, such a separation is a characteristic of
the marriage that even seeks to protect itself from children through contraception or
sterilization. This exclusion of others from spousal love is ultimately exemplified in the
separation of conjugal love from God himself. These marriages tend to view their
relationship as self-sufficient and consequently in need neither of God nor others. By
nature the human person is open to God, therefore should spousal love cut itself off from
the Father, marriage would ultimately become severed from the source of love itself.
For spouses to live as though separated from the Father, is to live as though they
were orphans. This is a radical contradiction of the body‘s filial meaning. The parable of
the prodigal Son vividly describes this state of living without a father.1 In fact, Cardinal
Angelo Scola refers to the absence of paternity as the defining characteristic of post-
modernity. Fatherlessness is the loss of the sense of origins and the past. Without an
understanding of one‘s ―being-from‖ and therefore ―being-for‖, the person becomes
directionless and his authentic freedom simply disappears.2 Without a memory, one
cannot truly choose where he is going for he does not know who he is now and from
1 Ouellet, Divine Likeness, 135.
2 Scola, The Nuptial Mystery, 151-152.
60
where he came. It is especially dangerous for those persons called to the vocation of
Marriage to live as though estranged from the Father of mercies.
Freedom is essential in marriage so that one may freely choose the other (in the
questions before consent, the priest or deacon asks: ―have you come here without
constraint but [with] freedom…‖3). When spouses are separated from God they lose their
identity and the awareness of the human need for mercy. The consequence of this
ignorance of the fundamental need for mercy is a subsequent disillusionment when one
spouse discovers that the other is not perfect. There is the other danger that one is not
aware that he himself is imperfect and therefore in need of conversion.
Conjugal love requires the affirmation of the whole person of the beloved,
including his or her need for mercy. This yes to other is not a sentimentalizing of one‘s
beloved, but an authentic knowledge of the spouse including his or her weaknesses, both
moral and spiritual. It is essential to be aware of one‘s own failings and utter dependence
upon mercy. This ontological poverty is what it means to stand in relation to the Father of
mercies in confession.
Christ has not left us orphans. Through granting the Christian a sharing in his
Sonship, Christ has enabled us to call his Father, our Father; a Father who is rich in
mercy. Christ has revealed that man is radically dependent upon this mercy which has the
interior form of agape, and which as it were, is love‘s second name.4
In the confessional, the human person lives his original solitude in the most
profound way. Everything that was stated in Chapter Two regarding this solitude: imago
Dei as capax Dei and man‘s openness to God lived as total availability, is incorporated in
3 Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium, editio typica altera, no. 60, p. 17. ―N. et N., venistísne huc sine coactióne,
sed líbero…‖ My translation. 4 DM, nos. 6-7.
61
Penance. In a sense, the original nakedness of man and woman in creation, which
symbolized this solitude, becomes the spiritual disposition of the penitent. The penitent
stands before God in total vulnerability in order to receive mercy.
This total openness to God is most fully lived by Mary, the Mother of Mercy. She
is the exemplar for Christian spouses of the filial meaning of the body and its relationship
with the sacrament of Penance. The Blessed Virgin received mercy ―in a particular and
exceptional way, as no other person has.‖5 She is thus the model of the one who has
received God‘s mercy. Mary participated in that mercy in the most profound manner,
receiving it into her heart at the foot of the Cross and responding with her yes in her total
self-surrender. She declares that this mercy is from ―generation to generation.‖ Mary is
the one who is blessed, (blessed are you among women) of whom the Beatitudes say,
―Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy‖ (Matt. 5:7).
4.3. Penance and the Spousal Meaning of the Body
In Pope John Paul‘s theological anthropology, the foundation of an authentic
understanding of the spousal signification of the body is, as was discussed in Chapter
Two, the prior filial signification of the body. This applies also to the relationship
between Penance and Marriage.
In Man and Woman he Created Them, John Paul asserts that man is established in
the dimension of the gift in creation and the origin of this gift is love. In the new creation
brought about through the Paschal Mystery, it is the same faithful love from which
5 DM, no. 9.
62
redemption flows. It is this love, which takes the form of mercy, that spouses encounter
in the confessional.
Furthermore, in creation love establishes a hermeneutic of the gift calling man to
respond with his own self-gift. So too in redemption, the suffering Christ‘s gift of his
own self on the Cross establishes a new hermeneutic of the gift, founded upon mercy,
that calls the spouses to respond with faith.6
As such, the Cross reveals that mercy is at the heart of redemptive love. This love
by which the Son loved those who were his own to the end is spousal. Consequently,
mercy is placed right at the very heart of Christian marriage as a real participation in
Christ‘s love for the Church. It is from this perspective that Penance, the sacrament of
mercy, contributes most profoundly to a spirituality for married persons.
Thus, mercy becomes the foundation of the communio personarum as it becomes
a source of a new hermeneutic of the gift in marriage. It therefore properly establishes the
dignity of the persons of the spouses so that they may truly form the most profound I-
thou communion in which man and woman mutually belong to one another and so live
the spousal meaning of the body as spouses.
Consequently, it is precisely as a communio personarum that marriage stands in
greatest need of the Christological dimension of Penance. This is because sin strikes
doubly at the very heart of marriage. First, sin wounds the spouses personally in their
hearts. There is a ―de-personalization‖ that takes place with sin.7 The one who commits
6 DM, no. 7: ―The Paschal Mystery is the culmination of this revealing and effecting of mercy…The
suffering Christ speaks in a special way to man…And yet the divine dimension of the Paschal Mystery
goes still deeper. The cross on Calvary, the cross upon which Christ conducts His final dialogue with the
Father, emerges from the very heart of the love that man, created in the image and likeness of God, has
been given as a gift, according to God‘s eternal plan.‖ 7 C.f. TOB, 259.
63
sin is affected by his actions. This so-called ―intransitive‖ effect of sin is the resultant
wound that the sinner incurs when he turns away from God through sin.8
In marriage sin also wounds the other spouse. In a very real sense there is no
private sin in marriage due to the profound intimacy of the relationship whereby the two
become ―one flesh.‖ However, when the sin of one spouse is committed against the
person of the other, then this depersonalization takes the form of a reduction of the one
who is offended. This leads to the second manner in which sin strikes at the heart of
marriage.
Marriage is in its deepest essence a communion of life and love. Sin has the effect
of rupturing unity and communion. Marriage, according to both von Hildebrand and John
Paul II, is a relationship involving mutual self-gift and belonging. However, with sin this
relationship changes from a relationship of gift to one of appropriation especially as it
affects the spousal meaning of the body.9 No longer do spouses mutually belong to one
another, now the relationship becomes one of suspicion and possession.
In his analysis of concupiscence and the spousal meaning of the body, John Paul
is referring to the danger of sins of the sexual sphere, however, the threat that sin poses to
marriage as a communion is obviously broader than this. There are many ways in which
spouses can be unfaithful to their baptismal and marital vows but sexual sin becomes
8 C.f. Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, trans. Andrzej Potocki (Boston: D. Reidel Pub. Co., 1979), 150:
―[Action] is both transitive and intransitive with regard to the person. . . . In the inner dimension of the
person, human action is at once both transitory and relatively lasting, inasmuch as its effects, which are to
be viewed in relation to efficacy and self-determination, that is to say, to the person‘s engagement in
freedom, last longer than the action itself.‖ 9 TOB, 260. In these passages John Paul is specifically speaking of concupiscence of the flesh. In the
tradition, concupiscentia, does not have a negative meaning. However, John Paul II, following the Vulgate
translation of 1 John 2:16 does view concupiscence in a wholly negative way as it comes not from the
Father but from the world. John Paul is not a dualist; as such his reference to the ―world‖ as the source of
concupiscence is not a condemnation of the created order. When he refers to the ―world‖ in this sense, he
understands it to mean ―the consequence of sin, as a fruit of the breaking of the covenant with God in the
human heart...[whereby] the ‗world‘ of Genesis became the ‗world‘ of the Johannine words…the place and
source of concupiscence.‖ See TOB, 234-236.
64
paradigmatic of sins committed in marriage. This is not an undue ultimizing of the role
that sexual intimacy plays in marriage which is a criticism of John Paul‘s Theology of the
Body. Rather, it is due to the sacramentality of the body and the conjugal act.
The conjugal act is the sacramental expression, that is to say, the signification of
the total gift of self made in conjugal consent. Inscribed into the very structure of the
conjugal act is the language of gift and communion that is crowned with fecundity.
Sexual sin, with its language of appropriation, violates this intrinsic structure. All sin in
marriage, taking sexual sin as its paradigm, harms the person of the spouses and their
communion. Thus, the conjugal act is not incidental to marriage, it consummates and
brings to completion spousal consent. This explains the specific immorality of methods
of artificial reproduction (ART). It is not due to the fact that these technologies are
―artificial‖ that renders them are immoral, rather there is no authentic personal gift and
communion.10
As sin wounds spouses both at a personal and relational level, an additional
indispensability of Penance to marriage becomes clear. In the sacrament of Penance,
spouses encounter Christ personally. He reveals their true dignity through the Paschal
Mystery and his gift of the Holy Spirit.11
This encounter is truly personal since the
freedom of the penitent encounters the Freedom of God. Sacred Scripture is replete with
examples of this encounter. Christ healed and forgave sins only when the person ask for
10
This is evidenced by the fact that the persons of the spouses are completely replaceable in ART. A man
can have a child with another woman who provides the gamete and yet have that child develop in his wife‘s
body. On the other hand a woman may become pregnant through ART while her husband is in another
room or country or even dead (as is the case with the Attorney General of Israel‘s decision to allow the
removal of sperm from a man‘s body at the request of his wife or common law wife). See Judy Siegel-
Itzkovich, ―Israel allows removal of sperm from dead men at wives' request,‖ British Medical Journal 327
(22 November 2003): 1187. 11
RH, no. 10. ―How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he ‗gained so great a Redeemer‘,
and if God ‗gave his only Son‘ in order that man ‗should not perish but have eternal life.‘‖
65
healing and forgiveness. The penitent had to state his ailment and demonstrate faith.
Christ required that the person take responsibility for what he had done or what he
needed. After the individual had confessed his sin, Christ bestowed upon him the free gift
of forgiveness. This encounter between these two freedoms in Scripture and in
confession is a ―personal‖ relationship with God in the truest sense and brings about
authentic healing of the person.
The personal encounter with Christ who restores the spouses‘ dignity deepens the
communion of the spouses. This occurs in two ways. First, freedom is foundational for
the gift of self made in marriage. There is true healing that is given to the penitent in the
sacrament of Penance.12
As sin is caused by man‘s freedom13
then the healing of Penance
must also restore this freedom (c.f. Gal 5:1). Thus, the sacrament brings healing to the
spouses‘ capacity to give themselves in marriage and deepens their capacity to live the
spousal meaning of the body which comes from the freedom of the gift.
From this perspective, the frequent use of the sacrament is beneficial to spouses.14
The ―Vademecum for Confessors‖ directly addresses the importance of the sacrament of
Penance for the growth of holiness for married persons:
The moment in which the spouses ask for, and receive the sacrament of
Reconciliation represents a salvific event of the greatest importance for accepting
the demands of authentic love and of God‘s plan in their daily life. It provides an
illuminating occasion for deepening their faith and a concrete aid in carrying out
God‘s plan in their lives.15
12
RP, 31, II. 13
RP, 14. 14
CCC, no. 1458: ―Without being strictly necessary, confession of everyday faults (venial sins) is
nevertheless strongly recommended by the Church. Indeed the regular confession of our venial sins helps
us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies, let ourselves be healed by Christ and progress in the
life of the Spirit. By receiving more frequently through this sacrament the gift of the Father's mercy, we are
spurred to be merciful as he is merciful.‖ 15
―Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life,‖ in Pontifical
Council for the Family, Enchiridion on the Family: A Compendium of Church Teaching on Family and Life
Issues from Vatican II to the Present (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2004), 779-799, Introduction.
66
There is a second way in which the personal encounter with Christ strengthens
conjugal communion. Those who have been granted the gift of mercy are to bestow this
mercy and forgiveness upon others. Christ exhorts his followers to be merciful as their
heavenly Father is merciful (c.f. Lk 6:36). Spouses need the mercy of God in order to be
merciful to the other.
Mercy is essential in marriage. John Paul II describes mercy as an ―indispensable
element for the shaping of mutual relationships.‖ He further states that mercy is
―supremely indispensable‖ for husbands and wives.16
Through receiving mercy in the
sacrament of Penance, spouses are able to participate in Christ‘s love for the Church in
the most profound and sacramental manner. As such, they are able to mediate this love of
mercy to each other.
Spouses mediate this love to one another first in the very consent made in
marriage. Spousal consent, insofar as it is a real participation in the love with which
Christ loved the Church, contains the inner logic of merciful love. The pledge to
faithfully love and honor the other; through all of the trials and joys of life, is a concrete
expression of the love of fidelity (hesed) and tenderness (rahamim) discussed in Chapter
Three. Cardinal Scola writes that the sacrament of Penance, originating at is does in the
Paschal Mystery, ―likewise determines the interior rhythm of spousal love.‖ He goes on
to describe the link between consent and mercy in this manner:
The limitations [of each spouse], resistance to each other, and sins…cease to be
counter to love. Here every human measure gives way to make space for mercy as
the ultimate form of the love relationship which is shaped by Christ‘s redeeming
grace.17
16
DM, no. 14. 17
Scola, The Nuptial Mystery, 269
67
Thus spousal love is shaped from within to become mercy so that through his gift of the
Spirit, Christ transforms the hearts of the spouses in order that they might radiate the
Father‘s love more fully to each other.
In this way, mercy, received as a gift, forms the foundation of the dignity of the
person and spousal communion. Mercy becomes a new hermeneutic through which
spouses may see each other and their call to respond with their own gift of self. This is
precisely the necessary protection against appropriation and use that strikes at the heart of
the spousal relationship.18
Secondly, spouses are able to mediate this love to their children. Consequently,
mercy becomes the foundation upon which the family is built. John Paul II expresses the
link between mercy and familial communion thus:
The celebration of this sacrament [of Penance] acquires special significance for
family life.[…] the married couple…[is] led to an encounter with God, who is
―rich in mercy,‖ who bestows on them His love which is more powerful than sin,
and who reconstructs and brings to perfection the marriage covenant and the
family communion.19
Finally, Christian spouses give witness to merciful love, not only to each other
and their children but to the world. In receiving the gift of mercy and thus becoming a
―saved community‖ marriage and the family communicate this merciful love to others
and become a ―saving community.‖20
It is in this way that spouses truly stand as
18
Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans. H. T. Willetts (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981), 28-
30. Wojtyla describes love as the opposite of using another, that is, treating him as a means to an end. He
argues that in marriage there is a particular danger that one or both of the spouses is reduced to an object of
utility, for example, used merely for the attainment of a selfish end. Love (and mercy as love‘s ―second
name‖) safeguards the dignity of the person. 19
FC, no. 58. 20
FC, no. 49.
68
reminders of what happened on the Cross21
as they live according to the truth of the
spousal meaning of the body and the freedom of the gift.
4.4. Penance and the Procreative Meaning of the Body
The role of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Penance is to convince the penitent
of sin and to call the sinner to conversion. This same Spirit enables spouses to live in
conformity with the truth of the procreative meaning of the body. This meaning is
ultimately fruitfulness as life according to the Spirit. As such, the Spirit works with and
through spouses in confession to overcome sinfulness and hardness of heart so that they
may be truly fruitful. One particular obstacle to conjugal fecundity that the Magisterium
of the Church has repeatedly warned against is contraception. This issue will now be
addressed as it is fundamental to the issue of the procreative meaning of the body.
For married persons, contraception is not one sin among many. It has been argued
that if there is an overall openness of the marriage to life and holiness that the deliberate
intention to close the conjugal act to life is somehow permissible.22
However, in many
ways contraception is the archetype of sin against conjugal holiness. It is a violation of
the most profound truth of the human person and his call to find himself in the gift of
spousal love. First, the act of contraception is an antithesis of the already-discussed
significations of the body. Regarding the filial meaning of the body and the spouses‘
relation with the Father, John Paul stated that Humanae Vitae is the response to a single
question:
21
FC, no. 13. 22
HV, no. 3.
69
[W]hat must conjugal love be like in order to discover God‘s eternal plan of love
in it? under what conditions does conjugal love reflect its prime exemplar, God as
Love and God as Father?23
In reference to the spousal meaning of the body he argued that contraception is
not just a denial of the procreative meaning of the conjugal act, but also the unitive. For
John Paul, the act of contraception violates the ―inner order of conjugal communion, a
communion that plunges its roots into the very order of the person.‖24
Finally, commenting on the procreative meaning of the body, John Paul teaches
the importance of the truth of the sign of marriage as a communion of life:
Into this truth of the sign, and consequently into ethos of conjugal conduct, there
is inserted, in a future-related perspective, procreative meaning of the body…To
the question, ‗Are you willing to accept children lovingly from God and bring
them up according to the law of Christ and of the Church? the man and the
woman reply: ―Yes.‖25
Secondly, contraception is also the antithesis of the vision of conjugal love
anticipated by Dietrich von Hildebrand and developed in the Second Vatican Council.
The mutual self-giving of husband and wife is meant to be total. And yet, when the two
become one and consummate the gift of self spoken in spousal consent, contraception
introduces a contradictory language. John Paul refers to this contradiction as a
―falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love.‖26
Furthermore, the prophetic witness of spouses requires that the language of the
body, which is taken up in conjugal consent, expresses the truth of God‘s plan for
23
Karol Wojtyla, ―The Teaching of Humanae Vitae on Love,‖ in Person and Community: Selected Essays,
Catholic Thought from Lublin Vol 4, ed. Andrew Woznicki, trans. Theresa Sandok, OSM (New York: P.
Lang, 1993), 304. 24
TOB, 633. 25
TOB, 541-542. 26
FC, no. 32.
70
marriage. This plan, Humanae Vitae states, includes the inseparable God-willed
connection between the procreative and unitive meanings of the conjugal act.27
Thus
spouses are called to faithfully and prophetically witness to this connection between love
and life.28
Since the act of contraception is so contrary to the signification of marriage and
the body, it is essential that confessors raise the topic of contraception for Christian
spouses in the confessional.29
This leads to the next point regarding the mission of the
Holy Spirit to convince the world of sin in relation to the procreative meaning of the
body.
The Holy Spirit, who is Gift itself30
, is the manifestation of the logic of Divine
fruitfulness. John Paul II said of the Spirit as the personification of Gift and Love:
It can be said that in the Holy Spirit the intimate life of the Triune God becomes
totally gift, an exchange of mutual love between the divine Persons and that
through the Holy Spirit God exists in the mode of gift. It is the Holy Spirit who is
the personal expression of this self-giving, of this being-love. He is Person-Love.
He is Person-Gift.31
As the ―personal expression‖ of Gift-Love in the Blessed Trinity, this same Spirit
is the source of conjugal communion.32
The Holy Spirit shapes spousal communion
according to the logic of Divine Love, whereby love becomes gift and is ultimately
fruitful.
27
HV, no. 12. 28
TOB, 630-633. 29
C.f. Pontifical Council for the Family, ―Vademecum for Confessors,‖ under heading ―Guideline for
Confessors.‖ 30
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Volume 7, Father, Son and Holy Ghost: 1a. 33-43, ed. T. C.
O‘Brien (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 95: Q. 38, Article 2 ―Taken as a personal name,
‗Gift‘ is proper to the Holy Spirit.‖ 31
DV, no. 10. 32
FC, no. 21.
71
The Spirit enables spousal communion to abide more fully in Christ, the true vine.
Christian spouses are pruned through conversion and a continual turning towards the
Lord so that as branches of the vine they may bear an abundance of fruit. When spouses
open their hearts to the movements of the Holy Spirit who is poured into their hearts in
marriage, spousal love becomes purified and redeemed as a fruit of the Spirit.33
Consequently, it is vitally important that there be proper catechesis for married
persons on the meaning of marriage and the body. This catechesis will assist in the
formation of conscience for spouses so that they may be better prepared to cooperate with
the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Penance. A well-formed conscience
is precisely the ―good soil‖ that is able to receive the seeds of the Spirit‘s convincing in
order to bring forth the fecundity of holiness through fulfilling the procreative meaning of
the body (c.f. Matt 13:8).
4.5. The Pulchra Dilectio and Prophetic Witness
We now arrive at an understanding of the specific contribution that Penance
makes to a conjugal spirituality.
For John Paul, the essential element of a conjugal spirituality is the love of the
Holy Spirit planted in the hearts of Christian spouses in the sacrament of Marriage.34
This
33
FC, no. 63: ―[The] guide and rule of life [for spouses] is the Spirit of Jesus poured into their hearts in the
celebration of the sacrament of Matrimony. In continuity with Baptism in water and the Spirit, marriage
sets forth anew the evangelical law of love, and with the gift of the Spirit engraves it more profoundly on
the hearts of Christian husbands and wives. Their love, purified and saved [purificatus et redemptus], is a
fruit of the Spirit acting in the hearts of believers…‖ 34
TOB, 641: ―This then is the essential and fundamental ‗power‘: the love planted in the heart (―poured out
into our hearts‖) by the Holy Spirit.‖
72
is the love of election (diligam) which is pledged on their wedding day.35
Since they are
not the source of this love, spouses must always first receive it in order to give it to each
other. This is the same love with which God so loved (dilexit) the world that he gave his
only Son (Jn 3:16); and the love of the new commandment that Christ gave to his
disciples (c.f. Jn 13:34).36
The sacrament of Penance is an encounter with the love of God that, pro nobis,
takes the form of mercy. Penance is a Trinitarian reality although since it is ―for us‖ it
corresponds to the very structure of the human person in conformity with the meaning of
the body, a meaning that is filial, spousal, and ultimately procreative. For spouses,
Penance shapes conjugal love to take the form of mercy. Spouses receive this mercy and
they give it to one another according to the hermeneutic of the gift.
For spouses, whose primary task in marriage is to signify conjugal love, the
encounter with mercy itself in Penance is a participation in Divine Love. Through sharing
in this love spouses form their communion according to the logic of Penance and signify
this merciful love to others as a permanent reminder of the Cross. Regarding this
contribution of Penance to conjugal communion within the context of signification, John
Paul II stated that it is through Penance that ―essential and spiritually creative „power‟ of
love reaches human hearts…this love allows the spouses to build up their whole life
together according to the ‗truth of the sign.‘‖37
35
Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium, editio typica altera, nos. 62 and 63, p. 17. ―Ego N. accípio te N. in
uxórem/marítum meam et promítto, me tibi fidem servatúrum, inter próspera et advérsa, in ægra et in sana
valetúdine, ut te, díligam et honórem ómnibus diébus vitæ meæ.‖ 36
―A new commandment I give to you, that you love (diligatis) one another; even as I have loved (dilexi)
you, that you also love (diligatis) one another.‖ St. Augustine does argue that there is an essential unity to
the love of amor, caritas, and dilectio. Nevertheless, there is a distinction made between these types of
love. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Book XIV, Chapter 7. 37
TOB, 641.
73
Finally, we see the contribution of marriage to the new evangelization encouraged
by Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. In Dives in Misericordia, John Paul
charged the Church with the task of proclaiming the Father‘s merciful love.38
As such,
spouses participate in the mission of the Church when they receive mercy, allow it to
become the source of their conjugal communion, and mediate it to others. Thus the
sacrament of Penance is indispensable in enabling spouses to fulfill their prophetic role.
For John Paul, the contemporary context in which this prophetic mission takes
place is the building of the ―civilization of love.‖ To this end, in his Letter to Families he
speaks of the ―fairest love‖ (pulchra dilectio). This is the love that finds its source in
God. This love focuses on the dignity of the person, it is the love in which the person
finds himself through a sincere gift of self in a communio personarum, and it is the love
that grows as a result of the pruning of Spirit so that it may bear more fruit.39
In a word,
the ―fairest‖ or most beautiful love, is the love signified by marriage and the body.
Through Mary, the ―Mater Pulchrae Dilectionis‖, and her spouse, Joseph, the fairest love
comes to be ―profoundly inscribed in the spousal love of husband and wife.‖40
In the
sacrament of Marriage, this love is poured out as a gift into the hearts of the spouses
through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Spouses participate in it through their yes to each
other in spousal consent. Finally, they are called to grow daily in it throughout the course
of conjugal life.41
38
DM, no. 13. 39
John Paul II, Letter to Families (Washington, D.C.: Office of Publishing and Promotion Services United
States Catholic Conference), (LF) no. 13. 40
LF, no. 20. 41
C.f. LF, no. 20: ―For love to be truly ‗fairest‟, it must be a gift of God, grafted by the Holy Spirit on to
human hearts and continually nourished in them (cf. Rom 5:5).‖
74
This is what Penance contributes in marriage through the grace of the Blessed
Trinity. The sacrament of Penance transforms the water of spousal love (diligam) into the
fine wine of merciful and beautiful love (pulchrae dilectionis). It makes spouses fruitful
with joy and radiates that joy and life to their families, the Church, and to the world.
4.6. Conclusion
This thesis began with a consideration of the deepening of an understanding of
marriage in the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent shift in terminology from the
language of ends to the persons of the spouses and conjugal love. The Council sought to
speak to all peoples of the mystery of Christ in order to ―shed light on the mystery of
man.‖42
In relation to marriage, the Council established its foundation within Divine
Communion and the love of Christ for the Church thus revealing the source of the
mystery of married love.
It is the beauty of Christ, Dostoyevsky says, that will save us.43
It is the beauty of
Christ that marriage and the body are to signify. It is the beauty of the crucified Christ,
who is the mercy of God, that spouses encounter in Penance. Spouses are to witness to
Christ‘s love poured out on the Cross so that his beauty may shine ever more
resplendently within spousal love by the grace of Holy Spirit. The sacrament of Penance
transforms spousal love that it may radiate the beauty of mercy.
42
GS, no. 10. 43
C.f. Joseph Ratzinger, On the Way to Jesus Christ (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 41.
75
We will conclude with a reflection from Blessed John Paul II‘s last significant
document on marriage and the family, Letter to Families. In this quote John Paul II gives
a moving description of the beauty of spousal love:
When we speak about ―fairest love‖, we are also speaking about beauty: the
beauty of love and the beauty of the human being who, by the power of the Holy
Spirit, is capable of such love. We are speaking of the beauty of man and
woman…as husband and wife. The Gospel sheds light not only on the mystery of
―fairest love‖, but also on the equally profound mystery of beauty, which, like
love, is from God. Man and woman are from God, two persons called to become a
mutual gift. From the primordial gift of the Spirit, the ―giver of life‖, there arises
the reciprocal gift of being husband or wife…44
44
LF, no. 20.
76
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