THE BEAUTY OF BIBLICAL MARRIAGE | KAIROS GLOBAL | MARCH 2024

Author:  Omana Jacob

Intro: Reflecting on Ephesians 5, Omana Jacob points out the role of a husband and wife in a Catholic marriage.

What is the Catholic view of marriage? Is it an outdated one? Does the Catholic Church profess a counter-cultural ethic on this subject?

Youngsters often seek answers to these questions. Why they ask these questions is very clear. Most of them do not want to enter into marriage, for they fear it will take away their freedom. They think that the responsibilities associated with married life will rob them of their joy and happiness. In this scenario, I think it is our duty to unfold the beauty of married life and encourage youngsters to fulfil God’s will in their life.

Ephesians 5:21-32 is the most dreaded passage for this generation. A superficial reading of this passage leads one to think that St Paul is supporting male supremacy in marriage. ‘Be submissive to your husbands’ is a horrible thing to think of and we skip the passage. But Ephesians 5 is certainly a wonder-working passage for a marriage in trouble.

Often I come across couples facing odds. To rescue them is a real task. My desperate endeavour finds result when God’s will in marriage is revealed to them through Ephesians 5.

Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21). There is a holy triangle in marriage – Christ, husband, and wife. The husband and wife are submissive to Christ; it is Christ who is uniting them together, a holy communion.  Just like the Trinity, this holy triangle is a bonding of love.

Wives should be subordinate to their husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of his wife, just as Christ is the head of the church, he is himself the saviour of the body (Ephesians 5:22-23). 

This does not intend that the husband is the master of his wife and can dominate her. The couple should correlate the union of Christ and his Church to the perfect union of the head and the body of a person. The one flesh union of the man and his wife stands complementary to each other, without any dominator, but rather, it is impossible to have a separate existence. 

As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything (Ephesians 5:24). The husband and wife discover their relationship in a new light in which they find themselves as head and body of a single entity. This is the essence of marriage. This is not at all a one-sided submission as St Paul goes on to say, Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleaning her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendour without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

The Church standing at the cross of Christ is in an ecstasy as she learns the extent of love that her Beloved bestowed on her. At the foot of the cross, she finds herself in a new light. She is being loved with a love that no words can describe. In marriage also, the wife who encounters the selfless love of her husband is at a point of trance in which she automatically casts away her self-centredness and readily submits herself to her beloved.

Pope John Paul II says, ‘The community or unity that the couples constitute because of marriage is realised through a reciprocal gift which is also a mutual submission.’ But many couples fail to practise the concept of mutual submission to the discipline of love. The couple more used to self-centredness have to strive very hard to practise true submission to LOVE.

Submission to love does not mean submission to violence or a grudging acceptance. The couple chooses to love each other in practical ways with a gift of the heart. Sometimes it takes time for them to make such choices to love.

Once, a father of three girls shared his experience:

He was doing business when he got married, his wife was a nurse in a private hospital. Three daughters were born to them and they were a joyful family. Then came the chance for his wife to go abroad. She went there and later on the family moved to the new place. The husband also got a job there. Slowly the wife and the three girls got accustomed to the posh lifestyle and they found it very difficult to respect their father as he was not up to the standards of society. The man suffered silently. He even though of a divorce. He came back to Kerala. 

It so happened that he could attend a retreat and there he had a chance to talk to a priest. Hearing his painful story, the priest asked him one pertinent question, ‘What did God the Father do when Jesus submitted himself to the will of his father in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; not my will but yours be done”?’ The man was silent. The priest repeated, ‘What happened immediately after that prayer?’ The man replied, ‘Jesus was handed over to the soldiers who persecuted him to death.’ The priest looked up at his face, ‘Doing the will of God is not to have an escape but to submit oneself to the will of our Father.’ We are not alone, Abba is always watching over us.

Marriage is not an invention of man. It was our loving Abba who instituted marriage. God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them saying, ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it’ (Genesis 1:27, 28). Jesus also asserted, Have you not read that from the beginning the creator made them male and female and said, ‘For this reason, the two shall become one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human must separate.’

The priest was silent then. The man stood up, his eyes widened and face radiant. It was visible that the purpose of his life was revealed to him. The priest continued with Ephesians 5 and it worked. The man was ready to be a Christ for his family. 

For everyone, there is an altar to make a sacrifice. In married life, the altar is always set apart for each one to sacrifice his portion. The cross of Christ never fails to inspire the couple towards true love as in Romans 13.

Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love) clearly brings out the beauty of married life. It is the foretaste of heaven where we unite with Christ.

Ephesians 5 is an answer to a hardened relationship or fractured marriage which is related to sin. Mother Mary will help us to be filled with grace. The couple can always look up to the Holy Family as it is a model of reciprocal submission. The Holy Spirit will empower the marriage to be a blissful experience. Our Abba’s blessings are always there with every marriage.

Our married life, with its ups and downs, striving towards the shore of heaven will always be an inspiration to all youngsters to enter into marriage and our joy will free them from their fear and scepticism. 

Omana Jacob is a retired junior superintendent of the Irrigation Department of Kerala. She lives with her husband and their three children in Trichur, India.