pro-life love

Today, my friends Heidi and Tim* will become husband and wife. In the Catholic Church, the promises they make at the altar are the same ones Christ makes to each one of us. When lived authentically, Heidi and Tim's marriage is meant to reflect the most intimate union between Christ and His Bride, the Church[1].

The couple vows that their love will be free, total, faithful, and fruitful. God loves us freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully, and these attributes actually have a direct link to the pro-life charism. Let's briefly look at each one:

Free No one has coerced Heidi or Tim to get married. Tim has not paid Heidi to be his wife; Heidi has not manipulated Tim to be her husband. The couple is freely choosing to enter the Sacrament of Matrimony without any obligation to do so- they rather want to do so out of love.

Total Heidi and Tim will promise today to give themselves to the other unreservedly and completely: physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. No corner or segment of their lives will be held back from the other. They will love each other with no strings attached: a gift of total self-donation.

Faithful Marriage is a sacrament of fidelity, just as Christ is faithful to each of us. The couple will vow to be faithful to one another- that is, to love and cherish exclusively that one other person until death, no matter how their feelings might change.

Fruitful A married man and woman share life-giving love: physically, as the foundation of a family (and also society) when they have children, promising to receive any and all children as a gift and not a burden; and spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, too, as their love gives birth to blessings and growth in these personal areas.

But when Heidi and Tim say "yes" to loving each other in these ways at the altar today, that is only the beginning. They will renew these vows with their bodies every time they become one flesh. Pope John Paul II made this clear: "Indeed, the very words 'I take you to be my wife + my husband can be fulfilled only by means of conjugal intercourse"[2]. Sexual intercourse is the most complete and perfect gift of free, total, faithful, and fruitful love that a husband and wife can enact. Every time a couple has sex, they are renewing their wedding vows and taking in a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb[3]. In fact, the Catholic Church holds sex in such high regard that a couple is not technically married in the Church until they consummate their marriage on their wedding night.

I have presented secular arguments against artificial contraception before, but from this kind of theological perspective, one can see why its use is wrong. It turns the four wedding vows on their heads, and especially offends the vow to share life-giving, "fruitful" love. It also hinders the mutual self-gift of intercourse from being "total", as it withholds one's natural reproductive capacity. The body speaks a language, and a wife using the Pill, however well-meaning, still says: "I give all of myself to you, except my fertility." Likewise, a husband using a condom, even with good intentions, nonetheless communicates something like: "I will give you most of myself, but not my fatherhood."

Marriage is a great challenge, but a beautiful one. I am thankful to Heidi and Tim for their wedding promises today. They are living witnesses of free, total, faithful, and fruitful love: pro-life love. And on their wedding day, I would like to share with you a powerful quote by Pope Benedict XVI:

"Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: “Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Lk 17:33), as Jesus says throughout the Gospels (cf. Mt 10:39; 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lk 9:24; Jn 12:25). In these words, Jesus portrays his own path, which leads through the Cross to the Resurrection: the path of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies, and in this way bears much fruit. Starting from the depths of his own sacrifice and of the love that reaches fulfilment therein, he also portrays in these words the essence of love and indeed of human life itself."

Vita Pro Omni!

*Heidi and Tim are pictured to the left in all of their adorable glory.

[1] Eph 5:31-32

[2] January 5, 1983

[3] CCC n. 1642