A Nuptial Sacrament: The Eucharist and Marriage

Paper presented at the Fourth Truth of Love Conference “The Eucharist and the Logic of the Gift,” organized by the Franciscan University of Steubenville and the Veritas Amoris Project, Steubenville, OH, June 21, 2024

           This paper addresses the topic, “A Nuptial Sacrament: The Eucharist and Marriage,” not primarily by considering marriage in light of the Eucharist, but by considering the Eucharist in light of marriage, arguing that the Eucharist itself is a nuptial sacrament. Marriage and nuptial love help us to understand the gift of self that the Lord Jesus offers us in the Eucharist, and a nuptial approach highlights the Eucharist as the most intimate personal offering that responds to the yearning for nuptial love that lies deep within every human heart.

           In order to enter into this discussion, the best place to start is with a word about the place of marriage in God’s overall plan of salvation, because approaching the Eucharist as a nuptial sacrament makes sense if the entire story of salvation is read in terms of nuptial or spousal love. The story of salvation that we find in Scripture begins and ends with marriages. In the first book of Scripture, Genesis, we have the marriage of Adam and Eve (see Gen 1:27-28; 2:21-24). In the final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, we are told that all of salvation history culminates in the wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-8; 21:9; 22:17). In between these first and last books of the Bible it is possible to see that God’s plan – the whole plan of salvation history – is to wed humanity to Himself. The prophets of the Old Testament often presented God as Israel’s Spouse (e.g. Isaiah 54:5-10; 62; Jer 2:1-2; 31:31-34; Ez 16:8; Hosea 2:15-20), and the whole history of the Old Testament people is presented as the up-and-down relationship between Yahweh, the ever-faithful spouse, and the People He has chosen to be His own.[1] The Song of Songs is a whole book of the Old Testament that praises the passionate love between spouses, which is an allegory for God’s spousal love for His People.[2]

When we come to the New Testament, John the Baptist points to Jesus as the Bridegroom (Jn 3:28-30), Jesus presents himself as the Bridegroom (Mk 2:18-20), and St. Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians, elaborates how Christ the Bridegroom has come to offer himself for the sanctification of his Bride, the Church (Eph 5:21-32). The Book of Revelation then presents this union of the Bridegroom and his Bride as culminating in an eternal wedding feast. So, in God’s infinitely wise design, marriage exists in order to remind us of the greatest of all love stories – God’s nuptial plan of salvation! If we ask, “Why does marriage exist?” the answer is that God created man and woman and called them together in marriage in order to be the first sign, and a constant sign, of the type of personal love that God wants to share with us, a love which is steadfast, faithful, and irrevocable. From “the beginning,” marriage has served as a living sign of God’s plan to wed humanity to Himself and to draw us into His Life of Love for all eternity. As marriage is this sign of God’s love from the dawn of human history, this is why, in his Theology of the Body, Pope St. John Paul II calls marriage the “primordial sacrament” (see TOB 96).[3]

The particular type of love that God offers to persons and into which He beckons and woos us is the love of the covenant. In an Address to 5,000 participants in the International Meeting of the Teams of Our Lady in 1982, John Paul II, reflecting on the Sacrament of Marriage in light of the Eucharist, said, “From the beginning, God’s gift to man has been life and love,” noting:

This grace, this gift of love and life, is only a first stage. The Lord wants to bind himself to humanity, “to be in harmony” with it. He makes a covenant with his Chosen People … But this covenant is neither a simple contract nor a political alliance: as the Lord engages his word and his life in it, so it calls for love and tenderness.[4]

The love and tenderness that John Paul II mentions as typifying the Covenant between God and His People points to the essence of this Covenant as an intimate relationship that entails personal gift. This is encapsulated in the words that God speaks to His People when He says through Moses and the Prophets: “I will be your God. You will be my people” (Jer 7:23; Lev 26:11-12, Zech 2:10-11; Ps 46:4; Ez 43:7). In other words, in the offering of the Covenant, God says to his People, “We will belong to each other, you and I.”

This covenantal love of total mutual self-giving and reception that God offers to His People possesses four distinctive qualities or characteristics – it is free, it is faithful, it is indissoluble, and it is fruitful.[5] Of all the types of love that we can experience in this life, marriage between a man and a woman is the only context within which this type of love, with all four of its qualities, can be experienced. Thus, marriage is rightly called a covenant – a mutual exchange of persons, with each spouse giving all that he or she is, the totality of the self, to the other and receiving the fullness of the other in return, so that they truly do belong to each other. The marriage rite in the Catholic Church makes it clear that spouses are exchanging this type of covenantal love, with all four of its qualities, in the questions that are asked of the engaged that precede their consent to marriage. The questions are as follows:

N. and N., have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?

Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?

Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?[6]

The marriage rite also testifies that God created humanity with the intrinsic complementarity of the sexes that allows a man and a woman to give themselves so totally and completely to each other that their union points to the personal Covenant that God wants to share with us. In the rite of marriage, one of the nuptial blessings states:

O God, who, to reveal the great design you formed in your love, willed that the love of spouses for each other should foreshadow the covenant you graciously made with your people…. (OCM, 242)

Thus, the love of the Covenant that God wants to share with humanity is, by way of analogy, a nuptial love that was foreshadowed from “the beginning” with God’s creation of marriage (see Gen 2:24). In his Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II stated:

The communion of love between God and people, a fundamental part of the Revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds a meaningful expression in the marriage covenant which is established between a man and a woman…Their bond of love becomes the image and the symbol of the covenant which unites God and His people.[7]

In his address to the International Meeting of the Teams of Our Lady, John Paul II stated more succinctly, “The covenant [of God with humanity] expresses itself through the sign of marriage.”[8] Pope Benedict XVI, in his Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, said, “Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa” (DCE, no. 11). Thus, Brant Pitre, in his beautiful book, Jesus the Bridegroom: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, rightly notes:

In every case the new covenant between God and Israel is a marriage covenant, in which God showers his wife with the bridal gifts of “steadfast love” (Hebrew hesed), “compassion” (Hebrew rahamim), and “faithfulness” (Hebrew ‘emuna). …The God of Israel is…the Bridegroom who wants his bride to “know” (Hebrew yada’) him intimately, in a spiritual marriage that is not only faithful and fruitful, but “everlasting” (Hebrew “olam”).[9]

This nuptial love of the covenant that God wishes to share with His People is offered to every human person in Jesus Christ. John Paul II highlighted the fact that God has permanently wed himself to humanity in the Incarnation when he said, “Christ espouses the human condition in the womb of the Virgin Mary. “The Word is made flesh.” An indestructible covenant, for nothing will ever again be able to separate man and God, united forever in Jesus Christ (cf. Rom 8:35-38).”[10] As he reflects on Christ’s espousal of himself to humanity, John Paul II goes on to explain:

It is once more in terms of nuptials that the mystery is told: Jesus performs his first sign at the marriage at Cana (cf. Jn 2:11); then the Gospel gives us to understand that he is the true bridegroom (cf. In 3:29. Eph 5:31- 32). Jesus sees his love through to the end (cf. Jn 15:13. 13:1); he seals the Covenant in the blood of his cross and gives up his spirit (Jn 19:30) to the Church, his Bride.[11]

Therefore, from the beginning, human marriage foreshadowed the New and Eternal Covenant that Christ established between himself and his Church. Salvation is in fact brought to us through the nuptial union of Jesus with his Church. As Brant Pitre has aptly noted, Jesus is, “the divine Bridegroom come in person, to fulfill the prophecies of a new marriage covenant.”[12]

In his Theology of the Body, along with referring to marriage as the “primordial sacrament” that is present from “the beginning,” John Paul II also calls marriage the “sacrament of redemption” (TOB 97:2). Explaining that redemption comes to us through the nuptial offering of Jesus to his Bride, John Paull II says that marriage serves as “the foundation of the whole sacramental order” (TOB 95b:7), because “all the sacraments find their prototype in some way in marriage as the primordial sacrament” (TOB 98:2). John Paul II explained that each of the seven Sacraments comes “forth from the spousal gracing of the Church by Christ” (TOB 98:4).[13] In other words, it is from the complete self-oblation and outpouring of Christ’s spousal love for the Church, that the Sacraments are “born.” The Sacraments, and the Church herself as a sacrament of communion,[14] issue forth from Christ’s nuptial gift of self on the Cross, a gift which Benedict XVI called “love in its most radical form” (DCE, no. 12). The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes that just as Eve was formed out the side of the First Adam, so the Church, the Bride of the New Adam, came forth “from the pierced heart of Christ hanging on the cross” (CCC, no. 766). Therefore, Christ’s nuptial gift of self is truly “the foundation of the whole sacramental order” (TOB 95b:7), and marriage truly serves as the “sacrament of redemption” (TOB 97:2) and the model of all the Sacraments in which the Bridegroom pours himself out to encounter and purify his Bride.

It goes without saying that the nuptial dynamic of the Sacraments is most obvious in the Sacrament of Marriage. The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear that “Christian marriage…[is]…an efficacious sign, the sacrament of the covenant of Christ and the Church” (CCC, no. 1617). As an efficacious sign, the Sacrament of Matrimony, through grace, makes present the covenantal nuptial love that exists between Christ, the Bridegroom, and his Bride, the Church. It is the Sacrament of Marriage that allows Christian spouses, as John Paul II said, to be “inhabited” by Christ.[15] In Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II noted, “Marriage of the baptized thus becomes the real symbol of the new and eternal Covenant, sealed in the blood of Christ. The Spirit, which the Lord pours out, gives them a new heart and makes the man and the woman capable of loving one another as Christ has loved us” (FC, no.13). As Brant Pitre has commented, “Christian marriage is a living icon of the sacrificial spousal love between Christ and the Church. It is (or it is supposed to be) an outward sign of the invisible mystery of Jesus’ love for his bride and the bride’s love for him.”[16] This means that marriage is an effective sign of Christ’s love in every aspect of married life, in joys and in sorrows, and primarily through husbands and wives living a life of self-sacrifice for each other.

However, the nuptial reality of the Sacraments that is most apparent in the Sacrament of Matrimony, is also made present in the Eucharist, which John Paul II said celebrates and fulfills the covenant in a distinctive and perfect way.[17] The Eucharist, by making God’s covenantal love accessible to us and drawing us into communion with God,[18] is our participation in the nuptial offering of the Heavenly Bridegroom to his Bride. In Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II stated that in the Eucharistic sacrifice “Christian spouses encounter the source from which their own marriage covenant flows, is interiorly structured and continuously renewed” (FC, no. 57). This points to the fact that the nuptial covenant of love between Christian husbands and wives participates in the nuptial covenant between Jesus and the Church that is made present in the Eucharist. The sacrificial offering that Christ made of himself on the Cross for his bride, which is re-presented in an unbloody manner at every Mass, is a nuptial offering of the Bridegroom for his Bride.[19] Brant Pitre points out that, “If Jesus is the Bridegroom and the Church is his bride, the Lord’s Supper is not just a memorial, or a banquet of ‘thanksgiving,’ or a sacrifice; it is also a wedding banquet in which Jesus gives himself entirely to his bride in a new and everlasting marriage covenant.”[20] Therefore, we can say, as Bishop Peter Elliott has pointed out, that Christ’s nuptial union with his Bride is “consummated” in his sacrifice on the Cross and that in the Sacrament of the Eucharist Christ continues this act of consummation.[21] It is in the Eucharist that the Bridegroom offers himself completely for his beloved Bride,[22] and is united to His Bride in both spirit and flesh.[23] In the Eucharist Jesus gives his Bride absolutely everything that he has to give. Thus, Benedict XVI could say, “The imagery of marriage between God and Israel is now realized in a way previously inconceivable: it had meant standing in God’s presence, but now it becomes union with God through sharing in Jesus’ self-gift, sharing in his body and blood” (DCE, no. 13).

In his Apostolic Letter, Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women), St. John Paul II went as far as to say:

The Eucharist is the Sacrament of our Redemption. It is the Sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride. The Eucharist makes present and realizes anew in a sacramental manner the redemptive act of Christ, who “creates” the Church, his body. Christ is united with this “body” as the bridegroom with the bride.[24]

In his Theology of the Body, John Paul II teaches that it is in the Eucharist that the Bridegroom offers himself completely for his beloved Bride, nourishing and feeding her with his very Body and Blood (TOB 92:8). While a normal bridegroom can only offer the “food” of compassion, care, mercy, forgiveness, and tenderness to his bride, Jesus, our Heavenly Bridegroom, offers his very self to his beloved as inexhaustible food. In Dominicae Cenae, his Letter to the Bishops of the Church on “The Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist,” John Paul II stated that the Eucharist, “is the greatest gift in the order of grace and sacrament that the divine Spouse has offered and unceasingly offers to His spouse.”[25]

John Paul II also stated in his Letter to Families: “The liturgical crowning of the marriage rite is the Eucharist, the sacrifice of that ‘body which has been given up’ and that ‘blood which has been shed,’ which in a certain way finds expression in the consent of the spouses.”[26] Thus, the consent, and also the consummation, of the union of Christian spouses expresses the outpouring of Jesus’ sacrificial gift of self in spirit and in flesh that we experience in the Mass. In his Post-Synodal Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis (The Sacrament of Love), Pope Benedict XVI noted that “in the theology of Saint Paul, conjugal love is a sacramental sign of Christ’s love for his Church, a love culminating in the Cross, the expression of his ‘marriage’ with humanity and at the same time the origin and heart of the Eucharist.”[27] And previously, in the book Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, Joseph Ratzinger wrote:

…receiving the Eucharist means blending one’s existence, closely analogical, spiritually, to what happens when man and wife become one on the physical mental-spiritual plane. …To receive Communion means becoming the Church, because it means becoming one body with him. Of course, this “being one body” has to be thought of along the lines of husband and wife being one: one flesh, and yet two; two, and yet one. The difference is not abolished but is swallowed up in a greater unity.[28]

Thus, when we celebrate the Eucharist, we are blending our existence with Jesus Christ and becoming one body with him, participating in the nuptial offering of Jesus for his Bride – the greatest of personal gifts and blending of existences this side of heaven!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, echoing the Second Vatican Council, teaches that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian faith” (CCC, no. 1324; Lumen Gentium, no. 11) and “the sum and summary of our faith” (CCC, no. 1327) because “it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross” (CCC, no. 1366). This sacrifice is the nuptial offering of Christ for his Bride, by which the Lord Jesus accomplished our salvation (CCC, no. 1366). In the Eucharist, Jesus the Bridegroom is present body, blood, soul, and divinity (CCC, no. 1374) to make “it possible for all generations of Christians to be united with his offering” (CCC, no. 1368). Thus, the Catechism says that “The entire Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church,” and the Eucharist is “the wedding feast” (CCC, no. 1617). The Catechism goes on to say that “In the Eucharist the memorial of the New Covenant is realized, the New Covenant in which Christ has united himself for ever to the Church, his beloved bride for whom he gave himself up” (CCC, no. 1621).

As we contemplate the Eucharist as a nuptial sacrament, it should be emphasized, as mentioned earlier, that we are speaking by way of analogy. Ultimately, anything we say in theological language is analogical speech. According to the principles of analogical speech, we can affirm (the way of affirmation) truths about God based upon the perfections of creatures, especially the perfections of the human person who is made in God’s image and likeness (CCC, no. 41). Yet, as we affirm truths about God, we acknowledge that Divine Mysteries exceed our ability to articulate them fully in human language, and that “Our human words will always fall short of the Mystery of God” (the way of negation) (CCC, no. 42). Finally, while we can affirm perennial and timeless truths about God, and our language “really does attain to God himself” (CCC, no. 43), God’s Mysteries will always exceed our expressions (the way of eminence) (CCC, nos. 43, 48). So, when we speak of the nuptial meaning of the Eucharist there is not a one-to-one comparison between human spousal love and Christ’s spousal love that is made present in the Eucharist. In particular, we need to overcome any over-sexualized notions of Christ’s nuptial love for humanity. Instead, we are saying that the intimate personal communion of human marriage points to and is a sign of the type of intimate, personal love that God has for humanity, and that ultimately, it is Christ’s nuptial love that is the reality of which human married love is but a reflection. As St. Paul says, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has the human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor 2:9). Married love is a sign of Christ’s union with the Church in body and spirit, but the one-flesh union of man and woman in marriage is only an approximation or shadow of Christ’s union with the Church, and His total offering of Himself to Her in the Eucharist.

There are several reasons why understanding the Eucharist in this nuptial vein is important. Clearly, reflecting on the Eucharist as a nuptial Sacrament is of inestimable importance for Christian spouses. The re-presentation of Jesus’ sacrifice in the Mass shows married couples the essence of nuptial love, namely that spousal love reaches its fulfillment in self-gift and self-sacrifice. This is why Angelo Scola can say that for Christian spouses the Eucharist is “the primary path of education in the gift, and therefore of education in how to live reality.”[29] It is the willingness of spouses to be gift for each other, to sacrifice for each other, and to share in each other’s sufferings, nothing else, that leads to a truly joyful marriage. Christian spouses need to know, and the Eucharist teaches them, that a lived reality of self-gift and Eucharistic self-sacrifice seeking the good of the other is the key to a happy marriage.

Another reason, among many, why Christian spouses should contemplate the Eucharist as a nuptial sacrament is that it should help them to avoid the temptation to absolutize or ultimatize their marriages. When spouses begin to understand the Eucharist as the complete offering of the love of the Bridegroom, that love of which their sacramental marriage is a living sign, they can put their love for each other in its proper perspective. As the “source and summit of the faith” it is Christ’s nuptial gift of self in the Eucharist that is both the source and telos of Christian marriage. The highest and most intense intimacy that every human heart seeks is found in union with Christ, and we experience a foretaste of this union in the Eucharist. This is crucially important in a culture where Christian spouses can be lulled into thinking that they can make each other happy, or fulfill each other’s deepest desires, or “complete” each other. Their nuptial union must instead be subordinated to their union with Christ (see Eph 5:31) who alone is their happiness and their ultimate fulfillment. Not to realize this about one’s marriage will inevitably lead to disappointment, disenchantment, and heartache. But to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21; NRSV) brings joy.

Yet, this nuptial understanding of the Eucharist is important for everyone, not just for married folk. Approaching the Eucharist as nuptial highlights the “spousal meaning of the body” about which John Paul II wrote in his Theology of the Body. John Paul II explained that the human body is a visible sign that manifests the human person’s capacity for love and communion, that we were made to be gift (TOB 15:1). Consistent with the Second Vatican Council’s statement in Gaudium et Spes that, “man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself,”[30] John Paul II said the “the spousal meaning of the body…constitutes the fundamental component of human existence in the world” (TOB 15:5). Everyone, married or not, must realize him or herself as gift and actualize the spousal meaning of the body. It is in the Eucharist that the spousal meaning of the body is fully revealed, as Jesus says, “This is my body which is given up for you” (Lk 22:19). With these words, Jesus teaches all of us that far from leaving us empty, undertaking self-sacrifice out of love for another breaks us out of isolation, self-centeredness, and solipsism and fills us with the joy of realizing ourselves in the freedom of being a gift, which is the goal of our humanity – to make a free gift of ourselves, body and soul, in love to God and to others!

In his nuptial gift of self in the Eucharist, Jesus shows that all of us, regardless of our vocation, are called to spousal love and a nuptial gift of self! The Marriage is that between Jesus and his Church, and we – all of us – are all called to participate in this spousal union. Sacramental marriage in this world is a sign of and a participation in the one marriage that will exist in eternity. And in the Eucharist, the wedding feast, we experience a foretaste of these heavenly nuptials, though for now, as St. Paul says, we know only in part (see 1 Cor 13:12).

           Finally, approaching the Eucharist through a nuptial lens is one way of highlighting how much the Lord desires each one of us. Let us remember that when Jesus institutes the nuptial feast of the Eucharist he says, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 22:15; NRSV). Benedict XVI pointed out in Deus Caritas Est that God’s love for us is simultaneously eros and agape (DCE, no. 9), and that the Lord desires union with us and loves each of us with a passionate love (DCE, no. 10). At the core of every human heart is a longing for nuptial union, a longing for the deepest intimacy, a longing to love and to be loved by another on the deepest level, a longing to belong to another completely and to receive another completely. A nuptial approach to the Eucharist highlights the Eucharist as the most intimate offering of love that responds to the yearning for nuptial love that lies deep within every human heart. When we realize that God loves us with such intimate, passionate love, that he offers Himself to us as our food, we should feel overwhelmed. Who am I that God should love me like this?! Yet, He does! He is the Ultimate Lover who chooses His Beloved, not because of her worthiness, but simply out of sheer goodness. And in choosing Her, he calls her to repentance and seeks to make Her holy through His gift of self. We do not have to earn or merit the Love of the Bridegroom. He loves us first (see Rom 5:8), shows us His Mercy, and invites us into a nuptial covenant of love.

Overwhelmed by this mercy and this wondrous love, how can we not then live lives of gratitude in response to this unfathomable offering of self-gift? As we humbly receive our Beloved, we are struck by the realization that the only fitting response to such an unfathomable gift is to give ourselves, body and soul, in return. We live lives of thanksgiving, of Eucharist, never wanting to be separated from the Bridegroom for one instant. Then realizing, as Benedict XVI said, that: “I cannot possess Christ just for myself; [that] I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own (DCE, no. 14),” I am compelled to love others and share the love of the Bridegroom freely and generously with them, as we are all His corporate Bride, the Church.

How beautiful is this love story?! How beautiful is our Eucharistic Lord, our Heavenly Bridegroom who offers all that He is out of love for us?! From the dawn of human existence, and in each of our individual lives, the Lord never stops trying to woo us, to romance us, even when we stray from him. He never stops trying to convince us just to let Him love us! In a society plagued by personal fragmentation, meaninglessness, isolation, loneliness, depression, and despair, the Eucharist provides the remedy. Contemplating the Eucharist as a nuptial gift of love, as a foretaste of the heavenly wedding banquet, helps to show that our belief in Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist is not too hard to understand. Rather, it is too good to be true! Yet, it is true. For we have a Heavenly Bridegroom who will stop at nothing to prove His love for us as he says, “This is my body, given up for you. Take.”

                 [1] See Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), Encyclical Letter, December 25, 2005, no. 9, accessed June 1, 2024. www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html; Further in-text citations of Deus Caritas Est are abbreviated DCE.

                 [2] Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (New York: Image, 2018), 20; see also St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Commentary on the Song of Songs.

              [3] John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006). All further citations from the Theology of the Body are from this edition, and are cited in-text with the audience number followed by the section number. For further discussion of marriage as the “primordial sacrament” see Perry J. Cahall, The Mystery of Marriage: A Theology of the Body and the Sacrament (Chicago, IL: Hillenbrand Books, 2016), especially Chapter 6, “Choosing Marriage: The Primordial Sacrament.”

              [4] John Paul II, Address of John Paul II to the Members of the “Foyers des Equipes des Notre-Dame,” Thursday, September 23, 1982, no. 1, accessed April 2, 2024: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1982/september/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19820923_foyers-equipes-notre-dame.htm

                 [5] For further comment on the qualities of God’s covenantal love and the qualities of married love see, Perry J. Cahall, The Mystery of Marriage, 104.

              [6] The Order of the Celebration of Marriage (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2012), no. 60, emphasis added. Further in-text citations of the Order of Christian Marriage are abbreviated OCM.

                 [7] John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World), Apostolic Exhortation (Nov. 22, 1981), no. 12, accessed April 21, 2024. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio.html. Further in-text citations of Familiaris Consortio are abbreviated FC.

                 [8] John Paul II, Address, no. 1.

                 [9] Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 19.

                 [10] John Paul II, Address, no. 1.

                 [11] John Paul II, Address, no. 1.

                 [12] Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 29.

                 [13] See Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 2, where Pitre states: “From St. Paul’s point of view, the torture and crucifixion of Jesus on Calvary was nothing less than an expression of spousal love.”

                 [14] Catechism of the Catholic Church (Libreria Editrice Vaticana), no. 775, accessed May 5, 2024. Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va). Hereafter abbreviated CCC.

                 [15] John Paul II, Address, no. 2.

                 [16] Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 151.

                 [17] John Paul II, Address, no. 2.

                 [18] John Paul II, Address, no. 2.

                 [19] See Marc Ouellet, Divine Likeness, 154-167; see also Angelo Scola, The Nuptial Mystery, translated by Michelle K. Borras (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 268, 296-297.

              [20] Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 145.

                 [21] Peter J. Elliott, What God Has Joined: The Sacramentality of Marriage (New York: Alba House), xxiv; see also Livio Melina, Building the Culture of the Family: The Language of Love (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 2011), xxiv-xxv, 88, 151.

                 [22] Peter J. Elliott, What God Has Joined, 24.

                 [23] Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom, 146.

                 [24] John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity of Women), Apostolic Letter (Aug. 15, 1988), no. 26, accessed April 20, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1988/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19880815_mulieris-dignitatem.html

                 [25] John Paul II, Domincae Cenae (The Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist), Feb. 24, 1980, no. 12, accessed April 20, 2024. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1980/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19800224_dominicae-cenae.html

                 [26] John Paul II, Gratissimam Sane (Letter to Families), Feb. 2, 1994, no. 11, accessed April 21, 2024. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_02021994_families.html

                 [27] Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, Post-Synodal Exhortation (Feb. 22, 2007), no. 27, accessed April 20, 2024, https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20070222_sacramentum-caritatis.html

                 [28] Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 101-103.

                 [29] Angelo Scola, The Nuptial Mystery, 302. For more on the importance of sacrifice and the Eucharist for a married life, see Perry J. Cahall, The Mystery of Marriage, 348-353.

                 [30] Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), no. 24, accessed June 1, 2024. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html