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

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SEBASTIAN WALSHE, O.PRAEM.

that the primary theological reason for the inseparability of sacramental matrimony is because it signifies the inseparable union of Christ and his Church:

“Inseparability belongs to marriage both insofar as it is a sign of the perpetual union of Christ and the Church, and insofar as it is for the duty of nature ordained to the good of offspring, as was said. But since the separation of marriage is more directly repugnant to the signification [of the sacrament] than to the good of the offspring (to which it is repugnant from the things which follow it, as was said); the inseparability of marriage is more understood in the good of the sacrament than in the good of offspring, although in either one it can be understood.”60

Therefore, when spouses fail to maintain fidelity, this leads to a failure in faith about Christ and his Church. It is not surprising then that in an age where many spouses divorce and remarry the teaching that there is only one Church, outside of which there is no salvation, is widely denied.

It is also not surprising that there is a movement to separate marriage from the reception of sacramental communion. The truth, however, is that the Sacraments of Matrimony and the Eucharist are inseparably united. Just as the natural order is unified and internally harmonious, so too is the sacramental order. Through sacramental communion. Christ gives himself in an act of spousal love and fidelity to his Church.61 But when someone has broken their marriage bond, they are signifying by that act that Christ and the Church are no longer united and are not faithful to one another.62 So it is this same spousal love and fidelity signified in the Eucharist which is objectively and sacramentally denied when spouses break their marriage bond and enter into a new union. And just as the conjugal act is forbidden when two persons are not indissolubly united in marriage, so also sacramental communion is forbidden to those who deny in their actions that Christ is indissolubly united with his Church. So the Church’s discipline forbidding sacramental communion to those who have not been faithful to their marriage is not only because they are in an objectively sinful state. This is a general reason for forbidding communion applicable to any case of serious sin. But the specific and proper reason why the Church forbids sacramental

60 S. Thomae Aquinatis, In IVSent., d. 33 q. 2 art. 1, ad. 2. Cf., CCC n.I647.

61 Pope Francis underlines this in Evangelium Gaudii when he asserts that the priesthood is “a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist” {EG 104).

62 “The Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist.” Familiáris Consortia, 84.