Folia Theologica et Canonica 4. 26/18 (2015)
SACRA THEOLOGIA - Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem., A sacramental theology of the family: the unity and harmony of the sacramental order
A SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY OF THE FAMILY... 133 an argument from the natural law is legitimate. Yet, St. Paul gives a more powerful argument why the faithful ought not to engage in fornication. And this argument is based upon the sacramental meaning of marriage as a sign of the union of Christ and his Church. Revealed truth gives a more profound perspective on the meaning and purpose of human sexuality. As C.S. Lewis put it: “One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures (...) we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.”67 Finally, from the fact that marriage is meant to signify the union of Christ and his Church, we can see the reason why marital intercourse ought to be done with love and should be, in itself, ordered to the begetting of new life. For the husband’s act of love begetting children through and in his wife is for the sake of signifying the act of love by which Christ begets new faithful through and in his Church. The Church cooperates with Christ in the work of evangelization, catechesis and baptism by which new faithful are born; but the primary agent in all these works is Christ himself working through the Holy Spirit who is Love. Sexual intercourse carried out in a way which is not ordered to begetting new life would be like evangelizing, catechizing and baptizing in a way that is not ordered to spiritual rebirth. Or for a husband to have intercourse with his wife without love, but out of lust, would signify not the love of Christ, but rather self-interest. From this it is obvious why contraception or unnatural forms of sexual intercourse are wrong as distortions of the meaning of the sacrament of marriage. Conclusion Marriage was the primordial sacrament, instituted by God at the origin of our race.68 Even after the original sin God willed that the goods of marriage and family continue to be bestowed upon every generation. But it is only with the definitive revelation of Jesus Christ that the full meaning of marriage and family 67 God in the Dock, Part II, chapter 11 : “Priestesses in the Church?” 68 See St. John Paul II, General Audience of Wednesday (October 6'h 1982).
