Christ as Husband of Church: Pope Benedict XVI

Today in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall the Holy Father gave a general audience where he said this:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Continuing our catechesis on Saint Paul, we turn to the “twin” letters: Colossians and Ephesians. Similar in language, they are unique in developing the theme of Christ as “head” – kephalé – not only of the Church, but also of the entire universe. These letters assure us that Christ is above any hostile earthly power. Christ alone “loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph 5:2), so that if we remain close to him, we need not fear any adversity. It was God’s plan to “recapitulate” all things in Jesus “through whom all things were created”, so that “by the blood of his Cross” we might be reconciled to the Father. Christ’s headship also implies that, in a certain sense, he is greater than the Church in that his dominion extends beyond her boundaries, and that the Church, rather than the entire cosmos, is referred to as the Body of Christ. These letters are also notable for the spousal image they use to describe how Christ has “won” his bride – the Church – by giving his life for her (cf. Eph 5:25). What greater sign of love could there be than this? Christ thus desires that we grow more beautiful each day through irreproachable moral conduct, “without wrinkle or defect” (Eph 5:27). By living uprightly and justly, may we bear witness to the nuptial union which has already taken place in Christ as we await its fulfilment in the wedding feast to come.

What I want to highlight here is that Jesus' bride is the Church and that each of us awaits the wedding feast to come when we get to heaven. Each of us is to become more beautiful as a bride as we strive to always do what is right and grow increasingly morally perfect. Christ is our husband, and the more we give ourselves entirely to Him, the more we look like Him and the more He bears good fruit in us by our good actions.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Nupital Union

Lately, the daily readings at Mass cover some key points that I want to make, and tomorrow’s reading is no exception. The passage I will examine is the first reading which comes from 1 John 3:7-10:
“Children, let no one deceive you. The person who acts in righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. Whoever sins belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the beginning. Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil. No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot sin because he is begotten by God. In this way, the children of God and the children of the Devil are made plain; no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother.”

To be saved, we have to be righteous, and to be righteous, we have to act in righteousness. Salvation is not some external imputation, for if it is merely an external imputation, then we would still be attached to serious sin, and whoever sins belongs to the Devil. The works of the Devil are to lead us into and keep us bound to sin. The work of God destroys these evil works and gives us the grace to act in righteousness, for there is no salvation apart from interior holiness. With God’s grace, we are truly God’s children with His seed within us which helps us to do and love the good, which helps us to actually love our brother. God transforms us into Himself and perfects and elevates our nature. He seeks the greatest intimacy with you and me, and the symbol of that intimacy is that of marriage.

I end tonight with some words of our beloved Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, from his general audience of Wednesday, May 2, 2007, where he quotes the early Church Father, Origen, as well as John Paul the Great:
“The prayer of the Alexandrian [Origen] thus attained the loftiest levels of mysticism, as is attested to by his Homilies on the Song of Songs. A passage is presented in which Origen confessed: ‘I have often felt - God is my witness - that the Bridegroom came to me in the most exalted way. Then he suddenly left, and I was unable to find what I was seeking. Once again, I am taken by the desire for his coming and sometimes he returns, and when he has appeared to me, when I hold him with my hands, once again he flees from me, and when he has vanished I start again to seek him...’ ”(Hom. in Cant. 1, 7).
“I remember what my Venerable Predecessor wrote as an authentic witness in Novo Millennio Ineunte, where he showed the faithful ‘how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit's touch, resting filially within the Father's heart’.”
“ ‘It is’, John Paul II continues, ‘a journey totally sustained by grace, which nonetheless demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications.... But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by mystics as ‘nuptial union' ” ”(n. 33).

God proposes to you saying, “Will you marry me?”

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.