Sacrament Of Marriage Research Articles

Wkład ks. prof. Adama Ludwika Szafrańskiego w rozwój teologii małżeństwa i rodziny

Father A.L. Szafranski made an original contribution to the development of the theology of marriage and family. In his reflections on marriage and family he applied, taken from St. Thomas Aquinas, the notion of mutual participation. Therefore, he exposed, within the endorsed by himself trend of the theology of marriage and family, the links between the persons of the Holy Trinity and the spouses who create the community of marriage and family. According to Fr. Szafranski, in the sacrament of marriage a man and a woman enter into a deep relation with the individual persons of the Triune God. Furthermore, through the sacrament of the Eucharist the spouses gain the power to overcome all difficulties and support of Christ in building a happy family. A family regularly receiving Holy Communion is not closed in itself, but as a living cell of the Church it is opened to the needs of other people and communities. Fr. Szafranski also undertook the issues of rights and privileges of the family, the education of children and youth. In his research he included the topics related to the ecology of the family, which implies the natural family planning and birth control. In addition, he showed the people of today that a good, religious, and morally, spiritually, physically and mentally healthy family is the best environment for the development of the young generation and for the future of the nation and the whole humanity.

Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late Medieval Champagne by Sara McDougall (review)

Reviewed by: Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late Medieval Champagne by Sara McDougall Tracy Adams McDougall, Sara, Bigamy and Christian Identity in Late Medieval Champagne (Middle Ages), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012; cloth; pp. 240; R.R.P. US$55.00, £36.00; ISBN 9780812243987. Sara McDougall’s study provocatively argues that the late medieval ‘marriage crisis’, as it manifested itself in northern France, resulted not from incestuous or clandestine marriage, as generally held, but instead from ‘an epidemic of illegal marriages’ (p. 3). She refers to such marriages as bigamous, that is, marriages in which at least one of the partners was still legally married to a living spouse. Although this sense is familiar to us, in fact, bigamy in the Middle Ages meant all remarriage, whether the previous spouse was living or dead. However, McDougall uses the term to stress the theological ambivalence embedded in canon law regarding all remarriage. Laypeople, in contrast with theologians, valued marriage highly, so highly that they were willing to risk prosecution for marrying bigamously. Bigamy contravened the sacramental concept of marriage that had been enshrined in canon law and vigorously promulgated by the clergy since the twelfth century. But if this was acknowledged throughout Christendom, northern France, especially the diocese of Troyes, ‘stands apart above all in the repeated subjection of male bigamists to public punishments and imprisonment’ (p. 43). Many more men than women were prosecuted and their penalties were harsher than those for women, because, McDougall hypothesises, men were assumed by the Church to be the moral guardians of the household. McDougall makes her case by examining some one hundred cases from the registers. The book makes its argument in five chapters, and there is also an appendix of selected cases from the registers. Following an Introduction, the first chapter surveys remarriage as a late medieval institution. ‘Bigamous Husbands’ and ‘Abandoned Wives’, Chapters 2 and 3, discuss some of the stories from the registers. Chapters 4 and 5, ‘Why Commit Bigamy?’ [End Page 389] and ‘Why Prosecute Bigamy?’, put the willingness to enter into an illegal marriage into context. To summarise McDougall’s conclusion, what she describes as ‘bigamy’ took place often in late medieval France, even though it was illegal. Men and women whose first marriages failed were willing to risk serious penalties and make new unions because the notion of sacramental marriage had been so thoroughly ingrained since the twelfth century that it formed a crucial part of Christian identity. Bigamists thus sought the sort of legitimate union that would guarantee their social acceptance. Our modern Western vision of marriage as a ‘singular bond’, even in a time of ever-increasing divorce rates, is ‘in no small way … our medieval, Christian heritage’ (p. 142). Tracy Adams The University of Auckland Copyright © 2015 Tracy Adams

Leading Birth Control Advocate Recommends Nuns Take Birth Control

Leading Birth Control Advocate Recommends Nuns Take Birth Control

Poussin’s Sacrament of Marriage : An Interpretation

A proper interpretation of Poussin’s Sacrament of Marriage , it is argued, should leave the question of the difference between “interpreting” and “describing” open. This is a particularly urgent requirement in the case of painting, whose muteness and ungrammaticalness ought to be respected in writing. A description of Poussin’s painting will need to account, at minimum, for three main aspects of the scene: its unexpected arrangement of the central trio of actors (Virgin Mary, Joseph, and the priest); its treatment of the cross on the ground made by the tiling of the temple floor; and, above all, the complex configuration of veiled woman and stone column placed at the picture’s left hand side. Bernini’s reaction to the woman and the column, recorded by Chantelou, ought to be taken seriously. The controversies and perplexities attending the theology of the marriage sacrament in post-Tridentine Rome are echoed, it is argued, in key elements of Poussin’s staging.

The Nuptial Mystery, the Sacrament of Marriage and John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them

Antiphon 18.1 (2014) 69–105 The Nuptial Mystery, the Sacrament of Marriage and John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them David H. Delaney Introduction The pre-papal manuscript Man and Woman He Created Them1 of Blessed John Paul II (to be canonized by Pope Francis on April 27, 2014) is a compelling theological anthropology that opens new pathways for investigating a broad range of theological topics and for showing their unity. One obvious topic is the sacrament of marriage, which, as a sacrament in the service of communion , is simultaneously a theme around which the unity of Catholic teaching can be expounded in an evangelical manner. John Paul II’s intellectual project is variously characterized as one of Lublin Thomism, Trinitarian personalism, Schelerian phenomenology, and Communio theology, among others. All of these capture aspects of his thinking, but I would argue that his intellectual foundation is first grounded in the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas. He situates every other philosophical and theological influence within Thomas’ metaphysical framework. In much the same way that St. Thomas integrated Aristotelian metaphysics into the 13th century Christian patrimony, John Paul II likewise incorporated many new lines of thought into the received tradition, and this is what we encounter in his catecheses on the embodied human person. With Thomist metaphysics as his foundation, he integrates new methods (foremost phenom1 Commonly called the “theology of the body” after he delivered it in the form of 129 Wednesday Audience catecheses from September 1979 to November 1984: John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006). 70 David H. Delaney enology as a tool of inquiry) and new insights (e.g., from the various schools of personalism) in order to explicate the truths of the Catholic faith to an age that has seemingly lost its ability to receive them through the classical manner of presenting them. Reading Man and Woman from the above hermeneutical perspective opens one to the profound insights John Paul II unearths. John Paul II wants to help man to rediscover himself, his greatness. He intends to provide an anthropology for a contemporary audience and so he goes to divine revelation to better understand who and what man is. Beginning with the insight that the doctrine of the Trinity reveals a Communio Personarum, a Communion of Three Persons, he considers anew the meaning of man created in the image of God. Returning to the Genesis creation narratives and using the analogia entis, he ponders the revelation that man is created in God’s image as male and female, and what this means for the human person. This becomes his personal approach to the theology of the nuptial mystery that has recently arisen from within the Communio school. But before continuing this line of thought, I should say a few words about the nuptial mystery.2 I. The Nuptial Mystery Tradition The Scottish Dominican Fergus Kerr of the English Dominican Province reluctantly points to nuptial mysticism as the theology that has become dominant in the new millennium, especially in Catholic ecclesiology and theological anthropology.3 The nuptial mystery marks much of John Paul II’s teaching, and we also see it present in his successor. Even if it is not a central theme in his theological work, as the prefect of the Congregation for the 2 It is not possible in this context to do more than provide a broad sketch of this theme. For a more detailed treatment of the nuptial mystery see Angelo Cardinal Scola, The Nuptial Mystery (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2005). For a systematic treatment of the Scriptural foundations of the nuptial mystery, see the forthcoming book by Brant Pitre, Jesus the Bridegroom: Seeing Christ and the Cross through Ancient Jewish Eyes (New York: Image Books, 2014). 3 See Fergus Kerr, O.P., Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing , 2007) viii, 201. Kerr is clearly not happy about this, pointing out numerous concerns with this state of affairs. 71 The Nuptial Mystery, the Sacrament of Marriage and John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them...

“And So He Revealed His Glory”: Cana and the Sacramentality of Marriage

“And So He Revealed His Glory”: Cana and the Sacramentality of Marriage

D. H. Lawrence’s Theology of the Body: Intersections with John Paul II’s Man and Woman He Created Them

This article examines the philosophical foundations of both D. H. Lawrence’s sexual ethics and the “theology of the body” developed by Pope John Paul II. Although Lawrence is often viewed, rightly in most cases, as a critic of Christianity, and even though his work has been scorned or outright banned by Christian groups over the years, Lawrence’s overarching view of life in his later years was remarkably amenable to Catholic Christianity. Linking Lawrence with Christian and even Catholic thought is not unique, as two books from the 1950s make claims very similar to mine. But these critical works are almost six decades past, and this article primarily contributes to this earlier criticism by aligning Lawrence with the theology of sexuality developed by Pope John Paul II. Though the Pope and Lawrence do differ on some points, they do not differ substantially in their philosophical stances regarding the mind/body relationship or the absolute necessity of full reciprocity in sexual intercourse. This essay does not claim that Lawrence was a Catholic, or even a Christian, or that if he had lived longer he would have converted to Catholicism. In his own mind, he had made a clean break with Christianity. But as some of his late essays extol the virtues of the Catholic Church’s development of the sacrament of marriage, Lawrence may not have been surprised to see how thoroughly his thoughts on sex and marriage align with those of the late Pope.

‘It is Unjust for the Law of Marriage to be Broken by the Law of Slavery’: Married Slaves and their Masters in Early Colonial Lima

This article examines the conflicts between married slaves and their masters in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Lima. An investigation of ecclesiastical court cases shows the role that slave marriage played in limiting masters’ authority by preventing sales and forced migration of married slaves. By citing the Church's insistence on marital cohabitation, slaves had success impeding their masters’ agendas. The sacrament of marriage, however, did not guarantee absolute slave autonomy. Instead, masters could also use the courts, as well as their finances, to subvert the Church's protection of slave marriage. In the end, this article demonstrates how the ecclesiastical tribunal served as a place for meaningful redress for slaves, while still providing masters with ways to maintain control over the enslaved population.

Love and Marriage in the Norwich Heresy Trials, 1428–1431

Twenty-nine of the heresy trials conducted between 1428 and 1431 by Bishop William Alnwick of Norwich involved charges that defendants had maintained heterodox positions about the sacrament of marriage; these trials comprise a significant archive for historians of marriage and love, in addition to historians of heresy. Defendants in Norwich were accused of denying the need for the exchange of spoken consent between the spouses, as well as the need for church weddings, but these were not the only reasons these defendants were perceived as threatening to church and society. Church officials may also have been concerned to rebut what they saw as the radical implications of their defendants’ views about consent and love. By setting these cases against the background of late medieval perspectives on consent, love, and marital affection, this article argues that the Norwich defendants’ claims reinforced inquisitors’ fears concerning the incursion into England of continental heresies.

’Til Death Are We Made One: Marriage and the Kingdom of God

The relationship of sacramental marriage and eschatology is not widely discussed in pastoral or theological circles. Here four ways in which this eschatological content might express itself are presented: the relationship of marriage to Christ’s union with the church, the trinitarian persons-in-communion, creativity, and ultimate joy.

The Natural Ordering to Marriage as Foundation and Norm for Sacramental Marriage

41 The Thomist 77 (2013): 41-69 THE NATURAL ORDERING TO MARRIAGE AS FOUNDATION AND NORM FOR SACRAMENTAL MARRIAGE PAUL GONDREAU Providence College Providence, Rhode Island G RACE PERFECTS NATURE, as the oft-quoted Thomist adage goes. If this is true anywhere, it is nowhere more so than in the case of marriage, an institution that belongs to the order of nature as owing to the natural law and which Christ, wishing to grant it its proper share in the economy of salvation, has at the same time elevated to the level of a sacrament. In short, all that belongs to marriage as a natural institution belongs also to sacramental marriage, even if this latter far exceeds the former in what it signifies and in its superadded elements. The intelligibility of sacramental marriage can be retained, then, only with reference to natural marriage as its norm and foundation. More specifically, since sacramental grace—which St. Thomas Aquinas calls the res tantum of the sacraments—has a twofold aim, namely, to heal and to elevate or divinize, we can understand exactly what is being healed and divinized in the particular case of the sacrament of matrimony only if we first gain a sufficient grasp of the proximate and natural ends of marriage (its natural teleology). In what follows, and taking my chief inspiration from Aquinas, I propose to accomplish this on two counts: first, by arguing that marriage (natural marriage) comprises the joint goods of procreation and unitive love as its proximate and proportionate natural ends; and, second, by arguing that the healing and divinizing power of the sacrament of marriage (the res tantum) targets these same joint goods, since both suffer acutely under the PAUL GONDREAU 42 1 This comes from the University of Notre Dame, whose Gender Relations Center, in its 2009 brochure, answers the question “What is sexuality?” with the quoted statement. This brochure boasts that Notre Dame’s Gender Relations Center “is the first and only office of its kind within collegiate student affairs nationwide.” burden of sin. In a word, I shall argue that Christ, wishing that married partners attain the happiness in marriage they desire, has given the natural institution of marriage, of which he is likewise the author, a share in the fruits of his redemption, inasmuch as the grace of the sacrament of matrimony transforms this institution’s intrinsic ordering to procreation and unitive love. Throughout, I shall attempt both to ground myself in the thought of Aquinas and to offer a faithful adaptation of the Dominican Master’s thought. I. MARRIAGE AS A NATURAL, PROCREATIVE-UNITIVE INSTITUTION Human sexuality shares in a special way in our hylemorphic constitution as body-soul composite beings. First and foremost, it is primarily as embodied that we own a sexed nature in the first place. Indeed, the very basis of the sexual differentiation between male and female, obviously the distinguishing mark of sexuality as such, is our animal bodiliness, as seen in the simple biological fact that the sex chromosomal complement determines one’s sex. In brief, without our bodiliness, without our animality, we have no truly satisfactory way of explaining the male-female sexual complement. Human sexuality implies embodied altereity, embodied complementarity. While this point may seem incontrovertible, especially as we consider it in light of the entire animal kingdom, we should not take it for granted, since one would search in vain for references to human bodiliness in certain Cartesian-styled definitions of human sexuality that are in circulation today (e.g., “Sexuality refers to an intimate aspect of identity through which human beings experience an understanding of self and connectedness to others, the world, and God”).1 The point holds as well for those well-intentioned Catholic moralists who are in good standing with the Church but who, representing the “personalist” school of thought, locate the ground of human sexuality not in our embodied animality per se, but in the Trinitarian relations; NATURAL AND SACRAMENTAL MARRIAGE 43 2 This is a very brief summary of what Aquinas argues in De ente et essentia, cc. 5-6. For a fuller treatment of this, see my “The ‘Inseparable Connection’ between Procreation and Unitive Love (Humanae...

Małżeństwo i rozwód w Kościele prawosławnym – aspekt prawno-kanoniczny

The study above shows briefly legal issues related to marriage in the Orthodox Church. It takes notes of fundamental differences regarding a sacramental marriage in the Latin and Orthodox Churches. The study is divided into two chapters separated into particular points.The first chapter discusses legal conditions to marry, i.e. marriage formalities and main obstacles. The second one approaches us to a divorce issue in the Orthodox church: its form and circumstances. The analysis of the issues mentioned above is to show differences and similarities between marriage-related legislation in both Christian Churches.

Rozum i wiara a małżeństwo. Znaczenie ścisłej tożsamości pomiędzy węzłem małżeńskim a jego wymiarem sakramentalnym w małżeństwie ochrzczonych (kan. 1055 § 2)

The article discusses the meaning of the canonical and theological principle of the identity between marriage bond and sacrament in the case of two baptized persons. First the author presents a historical and contemporary tendency to draw an artificial border line between human nature along with its requirements and positive law, for which the requirements should be one of the sources. Next he shows in what way the dissociative tendency helps separate the domain of reason from the domain of faith, which converge at the point where nature demands obedience from reason. Then the author demonstrates the impact of the dissociation on the understanding of the relation between a natural and a sacramental aspect of marriage. In this context the author discusses the specific nature of the sacrament of matrimony as compared with six other sacraments and the character of the matrimonial consent in the perspective of its object, that is sacramental marriage. Specifically, he focuses on the idea of indirectness in the “cause-effect” relation between the matrimonial consent and sacramental dimension of marriage. In the concluding part of the article the author enters into polemics with the criticism aimed at such an understanding of indirectness – called an “anti-personalist sacramental automatism” – which apparently belittles the significance of the influence of faith on the efficacy of the matrimonial consent. The polemics incorporates the theses formulated by John Paul II in his theology of the body and strives at showing a close relationship between a “sacramental” dimension of the natural marriage and the sacramental dimension of Christian marriage. This, in turn, serves the author to show the relationship between reason and faith and to formulate a brief pastoral conclusion.

Konsekwencje prawne dopełnienia i niedopełnienia małżeństwa w prawie kanonicznym

The article discuses the legal significance of consummation and non-consummation of marriage in the case of a sacramental marriage and in a marriage in which the category ratum does not apply. In the first part of the article the author presents a historical perspective on the formation of the category of consummation in marriage between baptized spouses and its significance for the absolute indissolubility of marriage. Next the author discusses consummation of marriage between a baptized party and a non-baptized party and the fact that such a consummation has no impact whatsoever on the very possibility of marriage dissolution. Furthermore, the author presents various types of the ratum et non consummatum marriage and attempts to decide who, depending on the type of such a marriage, has the competence to examine the case and submit the petition to the Supreme Pontiff requesting the favour of dissolution of the ratum et non consummatum marriage – the Tribunal of the Roman Rota or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Finally, the author discuses the meaning of the legal figure of the non ratum et non consummatum marriage.

Quelques aspects de la spiritualité conjugale selon Jean-Marie Lustiger

In his pastoral teaching Jean-Marie Lustiger repeatedly explores the subject of marital spirituality. His teaching emerged as a response to young people’s difficulty in understanding the nature of marriage as a result of being immersed in the mentality of the world. In this article the author explores two important aspects of Cardinal Lustiger’s teaching on the spirituality of marriage: marriage is presented as a vocation and there is an emphasis on the correct understanding of marital love. In the context of the decline of religious practices in Western Europe, the article contains some of Jean-Marie Lustiger’s thoughts on the sacrament of marriage as well as his role in contributing to a deeper understanding of matrimony.

A Cry for Justice: Daniel Rudd and His Life in Black Catholicism, Journalism, and Activism, 1854–1933 (review)

A Cry for Justice: Daniel Rudd and His Life in Black Catholicism, Journalism, and Activism, 1854-1933- By Gary B. Agee. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. 2011. Pp. xv, 237. $39.95. ISBN 978-1-55728975-9.)This biography of Daniel A. Rudd, an Afro-American Catholic who rose from slavery to become an important figure in nineteenth-century Catholicism, is based on a doctoral dissertation that Gary B. Agee completed for the University of Dayton, and it reads as such. As the author acknowledges, it builds on earlier scholarship of Cyprian Davis, O.S.B., and others.Agee calls attention to material in the American Catholic Tribune, the journal edited and published by Rudd, that has not been discussed in print. Among this material are comments on employment opportunities for blacks and the emergence of the New Woman. In addition, he fills in some details about Rudd's life from the demise of the newspaper to his work on the biography of Scott Bond, a wealthy black Arkansas farmer and merchant. The picture of Rudd is enriched as we see him described as an inventor, businessman, lumber mill manager, accountant, and teacher, as well as a writer, political activist, and publisher. Finally, Agee records Rudd's participation as a speaker in a Cleveland meeting of the NAACP in 1919 and notes his good relationship with Bishop John B. Morris of Little Rock. On the other hand, he does not indicate that some who were initially close to Rudd found him contentious.The words conceivable, plausible, and perhaps occur throughout the text. Sometimes the conjectures seem fair, but they are educated guesses. Others seem less than plausible. For example, on the basis of the fact that Elizabeth Rudd and her children were listed as mulatto, he suggests that she or her mother may have been victims of sexual violence (p. 8). There is no indication in anything that Rudd ever wrote that such may be the case. In commenting on the marriage of Elizabeth and Robert Rudd, he mentions that legally the master could dissolve a marriage, but he does not qualify the statement by noting that a sacramental marriage could not be dissolved in the eyes of the Church. Throughout the work there are issues like this one that need more nuance.At the same time, it seems that material extraneous to the main topic is sometimes introduced. For example, Agee devotes a chapter to Archbishop John Ireland. Clearly, Ireland was a great champion of African Americans, and Rudd admired and quoted his words. But a chapter is not necessary to make the point.In some things Agee is simply wrong. For example, he writes ... Rudd appears to have been the initiator of the interracial lay Catholic congress movement (pp. xiiii-xiv). As a matter of fact, Henry E Brownson made the suggestion for the Lay Catholic Congress, and Cardinal James Gibbons eventually accepted. Rudd was invited to be a member of the Committee on Organization by William Onaham, its chair. …

Wychowawcze znaczenie homilii ślubnej

We współczesnym społeczeństwie istnieje tak wiele małżeństw, które się rozpadło, że można mówić o prawdziwym problemie społecznym. Teoretyczne i praktyczne kontestowanie nierozerwalności małżeństwa we współczesnym społeczeństwie jest problem i wyzwaniem dla Kościoła, albowiem nawet wielu katolików żyje w partnerstwie bez sakramentalnych więzi i zobowiązań. Ponadto wielu młodych katolików nie znajduje wystarczająco dużo motywacji do podjęcia decyzji o sakramentalnym małżeństwie. Jedną z przyczyn tego stanu jest „mentalność recyklingowa” współczesnego społeczeństwa. Zgodnie z nią, łatwiej jest zmienić partnera w życiu aniżeli dbać o naprawę zaburzonych relacji we własnym małżeństwie. Rozwody są nie tylko społecznie akceptowane, ale też bardzo łatwe do uzyskania, mimo iż pociągają one za sobą niemałe konsekwencje materialne. Pozytywną cechą współczesnego społeczeństwa jest uczenie się przez całe życie, obejmujące również edukację i wychowanie religijne. Jednym zaś ze środków wspierających proces edukacji i wychowania religijnego jest homilia ślubna. Jest ona adresowana do wszystkich uczestników uczty. Sondaże organizowane przez Stolicę Apostolską wykazują, że wierni bardzo cenią sobie homilie, które słyszą podczas liturgii. Kaznodzieje nie powinni ignorować tego zapotrzebowania, które jest szansą oddziaływań wychowawczych. Obowiązkiem kapłanów działających w duszpasterstwie jest odpowiadanie na prawo wiernych do duchowego pokarmu. Wspaniałą okazję w tym zakresie stwarza także homilia ślubna. Jest ona doskonałą okazją do promowania katolickiej wizji małżeństwa i rodziny. Wyraża rzeczywistą troskę Kościoła o małżeństwo i rodzinę, a także szacunek wobec tych wszystkich, którzy doświadczają problemów. Zarówno treść, jak i forma homilii odgrywa rolę edukacyjną i wychowawczą wobec małżonków oraz ich gości, wśród których wielu boryka się z problemami życia małżeńskiego i rodzinnego.

The Sacrament of Marriage as Vocation

The Sacrament of Marriage as Vocation

Emma Lipton, Affections of the Mind: The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English LiteratureAffections of the Mind: The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English Literature. EmmaLipton. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Pp. ix+246.

<i>Emma Lipton,</i> Affections of the Mind: The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English Literature<i>Affections of the Mind: The Politics of Sacramental Marriage in Late Medieval English Literature</i>. EmmaLipton. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Pp. ix+246.

Małżeństwo - drogą świętości. Propozycje Ruchu Equipes Notre-Dame

Celem "Equipe Notre-Dame" jest pomoc parom w obszernym doświadczeniu sakramentu małżeństwa. Pojęcie małżeństwa, które można znaleźć w pismach założyciela - Caffarela - oraz w dokumentach Ruchu, skupiają się na trzech podstawowych zagadnieniach: miłości, sakramencie małżeństwa i świętości. Miłość małżeńska jest podstawą samego małżeństwa, pochodzi od Boga i prowadzi do Boga. Para ludzka jako ostatnie istoty stworzone przez Boga jest zwieńczeniem stworzenia. Są one również pełnym obrazem Boga, gdyż "Bóg jest miłością", a miłość jest relacją interpersonalną. Nie tylko sakramentalne małżeństwo jest obrazem miłości Chrystusa do Kościoła, ale również daje udział w tej miłości. Nierozerwalna jedność małżonków wypływa z sakramentu małżeństwa. Odzwierciedla on nieodłączny związek Chrystusa z Jego Kościołem. Łaska sakramentu małżeństwa nie ogranicza się do transakcji małżeństwa, ale w sposób dynamiczny wypełnia całe życie małżonków. Każdy chrześcijanin, niezależnie od ich statusu, jest powołany do świętości. W "Equipe Notre-Dame" możliwość uświęcenia poprzez małżeństwo jest silnie zaznaczona, a także udoskonalana jest na droga małżonków do świętości.