by Veronica A. Arntz | Homiletic & Pastoral Review
A Model for Marriage and the Universal Church
The world is facing a crisis: the family, seen as the fundamental unit of society since the days of Cicero and Aristotle, is now crumbling at its very foundations. But this is not only a crisis for the world, as the secularization of the family unit has also entered into the Church, not necessarily in her teachings, but into the young couples who are seeking marriage and even, one might say, into the pastoral praxis within the Church. I do not mean here only in reference to the potential for the divorced and remarried to receive Communion, but also in the way couples understand the sacrament of matrimony, and how it is preached from the pulpit. Therefore, it is clear that we need a renewal in how we, as Catholics, teach the sacrament of matrimony.
How we proceed in that task is a difficult question, for many couples do not even know the basics of the Catholic faith. As a beginning for a resolution, I propose that we need to look to the very root of the problem in our misunderstandings of marriage. While we certainly cannot deny the modern world’s influences on how even Catholics view marriage, where do our misunderstandings originate? I argue that the fundamental reason we misunderstand the sacrament of matrimony lies in our misunderstanding of the Church as the universalChurch, the Mystical Body of Christ. If we can regain a proper understanding of the Church, based upon Christ’s words in the Gospels, and the teachings of our recent popes, then we will also regain a proper understanding of marriage.
To pursue this thesis to its end, we shall look at the first letter to the Corinthians, and the letter to the Ephesians, to ground ourselves in a Scriptural understanding of the Catholic Church. On that basis, we shall look to see what our findings from these letters mean for both the Church herself, and the sacrament of matrimony today. We shall conclude with a practical application for pastors and educators of what we have discussed about the relationship between marriage and the Church.
The Church at Corinth
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians points to a problem within the Church at Corinth. There is dissension within the Church there, for the people are not “united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). He then points to quarreling among the members: “Each one of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ’” (1 Corinthians 1:12). The problem is that the newly baptized Christians adhere to one particular teacher of the faith as the “only” true teacher, creating division within the people themselves. If a certain group will only listen to Cephas, and another group says they are the ones who listen to Christ directly, then there is no real unity within the body of believers. While it is true that these teachers all teach the same faith, the Christians believed they were receiving a “better” or “truer” form from one teacher as opposed to another.
Moreover, St. Paul notes three major sins that have crept into the Church at Corinth, in addition to the division among the teachers.
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