Marriage… naturally!
I HAVE encountered many good people in support of same-sex unions. They ask: Can’t same-sex couples enjoy what married people do? Isn’t it all about love?
In all epochs and cultures, there is a sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union. The aspiration to love and be loved is common to every human person created for and through love. Love is indeed every human being’s fundamental and innate vocation. This calling is integrally realized in a mutual, stable and permanent love sustained in a marital union, where the persons give and receive each other completely and in everything.
This complete mutual gift has a basis on a differentiation of persons in their modes of being (and not only trying to be). The human mode of living the personal being is configured by the sexual distinction: one is a person from and through the condition of male or female. “The sexual difference between the two is a natural fact, verifiable in the normality of spheres—physical, psychological, spiritual and social. This difference is not explained only by the cultural standards or established behaviors in a determined society, or as a fruit of a juridical artificial construct; on the contrary, it is a reality previous to all society, culture and norm.” This difference serves to relate man and woman to each other. Precisely in their differences are they naturally complementary.
We understand that in our age when men seem to forget what it means to be human, and are more self-centered, what is natural tends to be ignored or “flexed” to one’s own advantage. “There is a tendency to reduce what is specifically human to the cultural sphere. […] The natural is merely a physical biological and sociological datum to be technologically manipulated according to one’s own interests. Culture is at the mercy of will and power, without any objective foundation. This can be seen very clearly in the current attempts to present de facto unions, including those of homosexuals, as comparable to marriage, whose natural character is precisely denied” (St. John Paul II).
The “intimate partnership of life and love which constitutes the married state” based on this differentiation and complementarity of the sexes is, thus, a natural institution. “When the Church teaches that marriage is a natural reality, she is proposing a truth evinced by reason for the good of the couple and of society, and confirmed by the revelation of [Jesus Christ], who closely and explicitly relates the marital union to the ‘beginning’ (Mt 19:4-8) spoken of in the Book of Genesis.”
The data of Divine Revelation, the Sacred Scripture, attest to the wonderful truth of Creation: “It [was] not good for the man to be alone” (Gn 2:18)—in reference to his blueprint of love—and so God put the man to sleep, then created a suitable match, a helpmate and a partner for him: the woman. Only the woman could fulfill that role. The woman, who, like the man, was created in the divine image (Gn 1:27)—equal dignity, nature and origin—yet different and complementary to the man, was God’s gift for him (the husband) to be his wife. “The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes.” For God himself indeed is theauthor of marriage.
“Adam and Eve were literally made for each other. Man and woman have been made to come together in the union of marriage. The text of Genesis continues: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body [flesh]” (Gn 2:24).
Just like flesh or body, which is inseparable from mutilation (otherwise, the separated part corrupts), marriage is indivisible (indissoluble). Since this flesh is one, such a union demands exclusive (unity) and perpetual fidelity. And this “one flesh” is naturally fruitful. “From the point of view of the biological constitution of man, the fact of being man and woman points towards generation of offspring.”
The Christian faith “does not ignore anything on this earth that is beautiful, noble and authentically human” (St. Josemaría). And marriage, “a reality in nature itself,” is definitely beautiful, noble and authentically human. In a second moment, such a natural institution was to be raised and transcended to the plane and dignity of the sacrament by our Lord Jesus Christ, to signify his love for the Church.
Today’s world needs to see that marriage is indeed beautiful and noble. Because man is not the author of this reality. Because the lives of many followers of Christ and people of goodwill show marriage’s perennial splendor with their words and deeds. Because marriage is all about unselfish love based on our nature, the gift of He who loved us first in creating us male and female.
Rev. Fr. Johnpaul D. Menchavez, JCD, is chaplain of Paref-Northfield.
