Theology of the Body 6: God Loves Marriage

It’s always nice when a long running series converges with the liturgical year.

For lo these past several months, I’ve been using this space to explore the themes in St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. So far we have talked about the dignity of every human person as created in the image and likeness of God and loved by Him, and about the fact that the only appropriate response to a human person is love, and that living that love is the source of the only real human fulfillment. And finally, we spent several weeks exploring our dual creation as male and female, and the complementarity that reminds us that we were intended to go through this life together, and not alone.

Today, as I write this, the Church is observing Good Friday. And we have reached the point in the Theology of the Body where St. John Paul II unpacks perhaps the most interesting verse in the entire creation account:

And the man and his wife were naked and not ashamed. (Gen 2:25)

It’s time to talk about marriage. But what does marriage have to do with Good Friday? St. John Paul II seemed to think the two were closely related. From his apostolic letter Familiaris Consortio:

This revelation [of the original truth of marriage] reaches its definitive fullness in the gift of love which the Word of God makes to humanity in assuming a human nature, and in the sacrifice which Jesus Christ makes of Himself on the Cross for His bride, the Church. In this sacrifice there is entirely revealed that plan which God has imprinted on the humanity of man and woman since their creation; the marriage of baptized persons thus becomes a real symbol of that new and eternal covenant sanctioned in the blood of Christ. (FC 13)

In other words, Christian marriage echoes the crucifixion. On the cross, Jesus gave himself completely, down to his last drop of blood, for his bride the Church. And, in marriage, spouses give themselves completely, “down to the last drop of blood” for each other and for their families.

We here in 21st century America tend to think of marriage as simply a contract between two people. Like it’s our invention. But that has never been the Church’s position. Marriage goes clear back to the Beginning, to Adam and Eve. It was the man and his wife who were naked and not ashamed. Adam’s gaze toward Eve, as we have discussed previously, was a gaze of unmitigated love. He looked at her and saw a human person created by God out of love. And all he wanted was to do what was absolutely best for her. And Eve likewise saw Adam only through the lens of love. Their lives were a complete and total gift to each other.  A marriage.

Of course, we don’t necessarily believe that the book of Genesis is literal history, or that two people named Adam and Eve lived in a garden and talked to a snake. But, especially given Christ’s frequent references to Genesis and “the beginning,” we know that the spiritual truth it imparts is real. And one of those truths is that marriage goes back to the very beginning, and that it was instituted by God, not man.

Scripture is rife with marital imagery. Isaiah says “For as a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; And as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” (Is 62:5) In Jeremiah, “Go, cry out this message for Jerusalem to hear! I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a bride.” (Jer 2:2) The entire book of Hosea is the story of Hosea’s faithfulness to his faithless (and unfortunately named) wife Gomer — an allegory reflecting God’s steadfast love for the fickle and wavering nation of Israel.

And in the New Testament we find frequent references to Christ as the Bridegroom of His bride the Church, the Church he founded and to which he will be faithful to the end of time.

The message is clear. Christian marriage is not just a contract, to be renegotiated at will. It is a covenant. A contract is an exchange of goods and services — “I will do this for you if you do that for me.” A covenant is an exchange of persons — “I am yours and you are mine.” But the “my” here isn’t a “my” of domination (“I own you”) but rather of reciprocity (“Your heart is in my hands, you well-being is my responsibility.”)

So all of this sounds lovely in theory. And it indeed was lovely for Adam and Eve, before they sinned and messed everything up. Before the fall, Adam and Eve operated under a different composition of forces. They were “wired” differently. As St. John Paul II describes it, “the ethos and the ethic were one.” Ethos, to put it simply, is what we are naturally inclined to do, what we want to do. And our ethic is what we are supposed to do. So, in a world without sin, there was no tension between desire and duty. They were naturally inclined to do the right thing.

So it was easy for Adam and Eve to love each other perfectly. But it isn’t so easy for us. We, living under concupiscence, struggle to love even adequately, much less perfectly. And yet, even in our imperfect state, God still deems the marriage of baptized persons a symbol of the new Covenant “sanctioned in the blood of Christ.”

Jesus knew the difficulty. When the disciples asked him about divorce, he said “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed divorce. But from the beginning it was not so.” (Mt 19:8). Allowances were made for weak human nature. But, in elevating marriage to a sacrament, and to a symbol of his new Covenant with the Church, Christ set the bar high again. Marriage could once more be what it was from the beginning — a permanent union of self-donating love, reflecting His unwavering commitment to us.

Of course, it is always important to reiterate that Christ’s unwavering faithfulness to His Church is not an invitation for a spouse to be abused, or to remain in a situation where abuse continues. And someone who enters into a “marriage” with no intent to be faithful, or with no intent to commit to a permanent union, or under some other form of manipulation, is not truly marrying at all. The Church’s teaching on that has always been clear.

But what about the rest — the ones who marry with good intentions, but find human nature getting in the way in big and small ways? How could total self donation be possible in such a sinful world?

It is made possible by Christ, by graces he won for us on the cross. Whenever we love well, whenever we put another’s needs ahead of our own, whenever we truly give ourselves, we are accessing the activity of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And the best way to increase that love is to follow him, to ask him to make us into the “new creation” that the redemption promised.

And so, in this Easter season, rejoice in the gift of new life that He has won for you. And ask him, through that gift, for the grace to grow in love for everyone around you.

Especially your spouse.

Old Thoughts on Embryo Adoption

Note: I wrote the following article sometime in 2003. Apparently it no longer exists anywhere online. And a recent Facebook dust-up has brought requests to see it. So, 17 years later, here it is . . .

I just read the most fascinating article.

Apparently, the Bush administration is planning to offer nearly one million dollars in federal grant money to promote “embryo adoption.”

You read it right.  Embryo adoption.

Apparently, there are tens of thousands of human embryos currently in “cold storage” in the United States.  These are actual, fertilized, need-nothing-but-nutrition-to-grow, tiny human persons who were created during their parents’ in vitro fertilization procedures, but are now regarded as “excess” because their parents have had all the children they want.  Nobody seems to know what to do with these embryos.  There are several options, of course.  They could be destroyed.  They could be left frozen indefinitely.  They could be “used” for stem cell research.

Or they could be implanted into other women and brought to term.

The Bush administration is pushing for the latter, earmarking grants to be given for the express purpose of raising public awareness of the “adoption” option.  It seems to me that, once awareness is raised, a lot of infertile couples will be interested in investigating this procedure.  It has a lot of advantages over traditional adoption.  The adoptive mother would be able to experience pregnancy and childbirth, and the bonding that comes from that experience.  The natural mother wouldn’t have experienced the pregnancy and the bonding, and would thus be less likely to change her mind and try to gain custody of the child.  And, in a world with long waiting lists for adoptions, tens of thousands of embryos would go a long way to satisfy the demand.

Those are the practical issues.  Personally, I’m much more interested in the ethical issues.  Because I think there’s a dilly of an ethical dilemma buried in this situation.

On one hand, in vitro fertilization is wrong.  Situations like this, in fact, make it abundantly clear why in vitro is wrong.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that, “The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person.”  (CCC 2377)  That’s what has happened.  Look what it’s left us – tens of thousands of tiny human persons frozen in suspended animation.  We hear talk of “destroying” them, of “donating” them to be used for medical research.

This hasn’t exactly enhanced our respect for human life, has it?

So what about a Catholic couple?  Say they’re unable to have children.  They’re moved by the “plight” of these embryos.  They’d like to do what they can to bring one (or several) of them into a full, family life.  Would it be licit for the wife to implant some of these eggs into her own uterus?  Or would that be participating in in vitro fertilization, and therefore sinful? 

I’m not sure I have the final answer here.  But I have some observations.

First of all, it strikes me that it is the fertilization itself that is immoral.  It is wrong to “play God” and create life outside of the marital sexual act.  But, wrong as it was, that’s already been done.  Now what do we do?  The life has already been created.  Do we finish the process, or do we just leave the life frozen, or destroy it, just because it was started in the wrong way?  Is it immoral to implant an already fertilized embryo into the uterus of a woman willing to bring it to term and raise the child as her own?

It seems to me that such an act would be moral, even morally admirable.  It would be a rescue situation – rescuing a human person from a non-life in suspended animation.  I understand, on that level, why the Bush administration is encouraging it.  It’s a very pro-life thing to do.

But here’s what bothers me.  This is a heroic thing to do in an extraordinary circumstance.  But I’m afraid that, if it’s seen as the “perfect solution” for infertility, it will be more likely to become the norm.  The demand could fuel the supply.  If infertile couples start clamoring for fertilized eggs, it will help to further “institutionalize” the practice of in vitro fertilization.  

If in vitro fertilization were going to stop tomorrow, I know what I’d do.  I’d encourage every woman with a husband and functioning uterus to “adopt” one of these embryos.  But in vitro isn’t going away.  So what now?  “If we can’t beat ’em, join ‘em?”  Do we go into business with the “fertilizers”?  Should we open “Embryonic Adoption Agencies,” indefinitely striving to finish the process the doctors and biologists have wrongly started? 

I honestly don’t know.

I always like to end a column with a neat little answer.  But I don’t have one here.  The best I can do is to open the discussion.  I’m anxious to hear what the real experts have to say.

Because, to me, this looks like a heck of a conundrum.