The Priest and Spousal Love IPF Spiritual Direction Training Program 2015 Mundelein Seminary
"Every trace of blood speaks of love and of life. Especially that large mark near the side, made by blood and water that poured copiously from a great wound caused by a Roman spear, that blood and that water speak of life. It is like a spring that speaks in silence, and we can hear it, we can listen to it, in the silence of Holy Saturday. -----Benedict XVI, May 2, 2010,Turin, Visit to the Shroud)
By contemplating the pierced side of Christ, we can understand God is love. It is from there that our definition of love must begin
Spousal love is staying in communion with the one who is other than you and as such elicits a gift of self unto new life. One is to listen to that love, be renewed and restored and reordered by that love, and giving oneself completely unto depletion to that love. Spousal love is a circuit of receiving and giving if the circulation stops the reality that is that commitment dissipates and one goes looking for another source of communion. Humans cannot be alone, their solitude is intrinsically ordered toward communion.
Isolation breeds Acedia and Infidelity A deep and oppressive sense of dislocation.. What is the point I have achieved my goal but lost meaning (the great masculine tragedy). disenchantment, disillusionment difficulty in loving an overcoming sense of knowing it all, nothing new under the sun disappointment with finitude, routine.this gives rise to lust for the NEW. Everything that lasts horrifies me. (115 of Nault, Noonday Devil) Our problem is that we don t want to go deep we want to go broad. I don t want to pass beyond I just want to pass through. Such a disposition gives birth to a frenzy for novelty.
in persona Christi sponsi Ecclesiae In the mysterious call that is your lives your spousal love is both connected to the Trinity and to the one whom the Trinity has given all. Your bodies are ordered toward contemplative receiving of love in the deepest levels of prayer ( without Me you can do nothing Jn 15:5), the only level that satisfies the erotic goodness of masculine celibate love, and toward the deepest self gift as you minister to the wounds of Christ s own Bride, His church (. In virtue of this pastoral charity the essential and permanent demand for unity between the priests interior life and all his external actions of the ministry can be properly fulfilled PDV 24) 'Through this analogy,sponsi ecclesiae, the priest is seen both in his relationship with Christ, configured to Christ the bridegroom, and in his relationship with the Church, standing in the forefront of the Church representing the bridegroom.
The gift of self, which is the source and synthesis of pastoral charity, is directed toward the Church. This was true of Christ who "loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:25), and the same must be true for the priest. The priest is in a position to make this a loving choice, as a result of which the Church and souls become his first interest, and with this concrete spirituality he becomes capable of loving that part of [the church] entrusted to him with the deep love of a husband for his wife. PDV n 23
Christ is the Bridegroom because "he has given himself": his body has been "given," his blood has been "poured out" (cf. Lk 22:19-20). In this way "he loved them to the end" (Jn 13:1). The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride. Since Christ, in instituting the Eucharist, linked it in such an explicit way to the priestly service of the Apostles, it is legitimate to conclude that he thereby wished to express the relationship between man and woman, between what is "feminine" and what is "masculine." It is the Eucharist above all that expresses the redemptive act of Christ the Bridegroom towards the Church the Bride. This is clear and unambiguous when the sacramental ministry of the Eucharist, in which the priest acts "in persona Christi," is performed by a man. -On the dignity and vocation of women, n26 1988
In Christ and Christ living His Mysteries over again In You. Since the priesthood is essentially relational it has practical ramifications for how it should be lived: Pastoral poverty, celibate chastity and mature obedience can be understood as evangelical ways of being like the Bridegroom on behalf of the Bride. It is the Bridegroom who out of love for the Bride emptied himself, taking the nature of a slave (Phil 2:7) and being rich, became poor (2 Cor 8:9); It is the Bridegroom who surrenders to the Bride, this is my body given for you (Lk 22:19) And it is He who listens to the Father s mission humbling himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross (Phil 2:8), and in such demonstrates the depth of his love for the Bride and for The Father.
Priestly identity is fundamentally relational, PDV 12 John Paul II explained what he calls the nuptial meaning of the body: that written by God into the very body of every person is the capacity for expressing nuptial love. The Holy Father defined nuptial love as that love in which the human person becomes a gift and through this gift fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence. JpII Man and Woman He Created Them pg 186
Spousal imagery is God s Idea The marriage image is so central to the Scriptures that one cannot properly grasp the biblical revelation regarding God s relationship to His people without understanding this particular image. In the Old Covenant, the Lord appears as the bridegroom of Israel his chosen people, and in the New Covenant, Christ is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride.
I will take you as my own people, and you shall have me as your God (Ex 6:7). It is because Israel and her God are bound by ties of the heart and not only by those of law that the prophets will find the marriage imagery of fidelity and adultery so useful for describing Israel s relationship with God. See Hosea 1-3
Hos 2:16-22 Therefore, I will allure her now; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak persuasively to her. On that day oracle of the LORD You shall call me My husband, and you shall never again call me My baal. I will remove from her mouth the names of the Baals; they shall no longer be mentioned by their name. I will betroth you to me forever: I will betroth you to me with justice and with judgment, with loyalty and with compassion; I will betroth you to me with fidelity, and you shall know the LORD.
Ez 16:8 I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you, and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.
For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man's youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you (Isa 54:5-7).
You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you (Isa 62:4-5).
Christ in his relationship with the Church is the perfection of the Old Testament marriage relationship between Yahweh and the people. -von balthasar Christ s love for the church is not a love existing as an ideal in some remote heavenly realm or shrinking back from involvement with the world. Christ has expressed his love concretely in the flesh, sacrificing himself on the cross (Eph 2:15,16).
In Ephesians 5 death functions as a definition of the love. If you are willing to give all you are loving.
Priest as husband Metaphors are applied to two subjects based on similarities that are extrinsic to the essence of the things, and analogies are applied to two subjects based on similarities which are intrinsic to the essence of the things. In a proper analogy we name God from what we know in us, but because God contains all the perfections of our nature, we can say that it first exists in him. Thus we find an intrinsic connection between God and creatures which allows us to say something about the essence of God:
Christ is the real bridegroom and his relationship with the Church is the real marriage from which every bridegroom and every marriage take their name. The mystery of the marriage relationship of Christ and the Church is the deeper and more profound reality, the covenantal relationship, which sheds light on human marriage
The Church is indeed the body in which Christ the head is present and active, but she is also the bride who proceeds like a new Eve from the open side of the redeemer on the cross. -pdv 22
The head-body and bridegroom-bride analogies in Ephesians 5 are not simply placed side by side. The one is within the other. There is a tradition of seeing the entire symbolism as marital: the bridegroom and bride become one body through their mutual gift of self. Taken in this way, the comparison of the Church to Christ s body appears to derive from the nuptial relationship. Sarah Bulter Priest as Sacrament of Christ the Bridegroom, 510
The concept of the body of Christ needs clarification in order not to be misunderstood in today s context: it could easily be interpreted in the sense of a Christomonism, of an absorption of the church, and thus of the believing creature, into the uniqueness of Christology. Ratzinger, Mary the Church at the Source. The image of the Church as Bride corrects this danger. The Church, because she is separate from Christ, is completely dependent on him.
Seeing the priest as representing the bridegroom helps the Church understand herself as bride. It reminds the Church of her constant dependence on Christ. The priest makes present not only the head of the body, but the bridegroom, who through the sacraments is continually pouring out his life for the bride. The spousal relationship in the covenant is part of the Church s deepest nature: she is the bride of Christ as well as the body. Thus this reality must also be reflected in her self-understanding, it must be represented sacramentally in the Church through the priesthood.
It is in the contemplation of the Crucified Christ that all vocations find their inspiration. Jpii, vita consecrate 23 The gift of self, which is the source and synthesis of pastoral charity, is directed toward the Church. This was true of Christ who "loved the Church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:25), and the same must be true for the priest. With pastoral charity, which distinguishes the exercise of the priestly ministry as an amoris officium,(52) "the priest is in a position to make this a loving choice, as a result of which the Church become his first interest, and with this concrete spirituality he becomes capable of loving that part of [the church]entrusted to him with the deep love of a husband for his wife. -PDV 23
Moved by the voice of the bridegroom: Christ presence in you
End notes The priest is called to be the living image of Jesus Christ, the bridegroom of the Church. pdv 22 Jn 3:29 mk 2:19 Rev 19:7 Rev 21:2;9-10; eph 5:22; 2 cor 11:2-4; ccc 796
To rest is to stand continually at the well in Samaria (Jn 4:10), like the woman, receiving the living water of Christ. The cleric is to rest with Christ, letting Christ give him what he needs in order to become an authentic minister of the Word. The rest comes from Christ, it is always flowing from the pierced heart of Christ. It is spiritual recreation. Does the minister attend to his post at Christ s pierced side (the authentic well), receiving Christ so that he might simultaneously give Christ?
To receive anew from the original source is rest. In this receptivity a cleric s ministry becomes an expression of his prayer, his participation in the prayer of Christ, the communion Christ has with His Father. From within these interpenetrating communions we find the source of ministry, and it is rest. Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One (San Francisco: Ignatius 1986) 26.
A chaste man is someone who has driven out eros by means of eros John Climacas God is the soul s repose because He alone is goodness and truth and anything else it desires..nicholas Cabasilas see raniero cantalamessa in The charism of Celibacy ed john cavadini 2012
Ephod 5:32 Ez 16 1-63 Christ s noble nuptial bed was the very hard cross on which he leaped with more joy and ardor than a delighted bridegroom ST Mechtilde of Magdeburg d.1282
This world is so filled with God that it gives God to us the incarnation ---karl rahner Bridegrooms listen to the bride and what is the Bride saying Help me Evangelize in a secular world Card George
As Galot says about celibacy and the priesthood: 1. We must speak of a bond through suitability rather than necessity. It is an essential bond since celibacy conforms to the very nature of the priesthood. It is a bond of conformity since celibacy is absolutely necessary neither for the validity of the priesthood nor for the valid and fruitful accomplishment of priestly functions. H. Celibacy is not necessary for the priesthood, but it is so well adapted to the state as to illuminate its very nature. Another way to say this is to say that a celibate priest is more able to be a living image of Christ through celibacy: Celibacy is not required but is fitting or consistent with the nature of priesthood