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.

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This is not to assert in an unqualified way that the relationship itself between two spouses or persons in communion are in the image of the Triune God.26 Rather, it is to point out that inter-personal communion is a direct and necessary consequence of the image of God found within each person. The activities of knowing and loving God in the mind of each individual, human person (according to which each person is said to be in the image of God) falls short of the full reality found in the Trinity, wherein the terms of the processions of knowledge and love are distinct and real persons. So as a way of supplementing this shortcoming, man enters into communion with other, real persons (albeit, persons outside of his own being and nature). What is united in God is found in a divided way in creatures made to the image of God. To the extent that he is able, man strives to experience life and communion in a way that is conformed to the life and communion found in the Trinity of Persons.

In summary, the divine communion is most perfect both because the kind of life God lives is most perfect, and because the way in which this same life is lived by the divine Persons is most perfect. Yet the very perfection of the divine life, unattainable as it is for creatures, serves as a goal towards which the communion among created persons must strive to reach its highest perfection. Communion among created persons, especially communion within a family, is found most perfectly where the life of each person is most freely given to and completely shared with the other persons in that communion.

III. The Trinitarian Communion Made Human through the Incarnation

Man’s communion with God takes place most perfectly through the mystery of the Incarnation. When the Word became man, he not only assumed a human nature and united it with his divine nature, but he also did this within the context of a human family. From all eternity, in fact, the Word understood himself as the Son of Mary, as a member of a human family. By being incorporated into

26 St. Thomas shows that the family is not made in the image of God, but rather the mind of the individual person is: Summa Theologien, I q. 93 art. 6, ad. 2. In addition to this, it can also be shown that the image of God is not found in the relationship of communion between two created persons. The notion of one thing having the image of another requires not only generic likeness, but also specific likeness. Within the individual soul, the acts of knowing and loving God involve this specific likeness. But the relationship of communion between two created persons, while it involves knowing and loving between them, is not specifically like the relationships among the Persons of the Trinity for three reasons. First, the object of knowledge and love is outside, rather than inside the nature of the one knowing and loving (S. Thomae Aquinatis, Summa Theologien, I q. 93 art. 6, ad. 4); second, the divine nature is not the object of the activities of knowledge and love (S. Thomae Aquinatis, Summa Theologica, I q. 93 art. 8); third, the term of these two processions of knowledge and love are the same person, not distinct persons.