496. What is the meaning of the conjugal act? (part 2 continuation)
(Comp 496 repetition) The conjugal act has a twofold meaning: unitive (the mutual self-giving
of the spouses) and procreative (an openness to the transmission of life). No
one may break the inseparable connection which God has established between
these two meanings of the conjugal act by excluding one or the other of them.
“In brief”
(CCC 2360) Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man
and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and
pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are
sanctified by the sacrament.
To deepen and
explain
(CCC 2365) Fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one's
given word. God is faithful. The Sacrament of Matrimony enables man and woman
to enter into Christ's fidelity for his Church. Through conjugal chastity, they
bear witness to this mystery before the world. St. John Chrysostom suggests
that young husbands should say to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and
I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is
nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we
may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us.... I place
your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me
than to be of a different mind than you (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in Eph. 20, 8: PG 62, 146-147). (CCC 2366) Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love
naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something
added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of
that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which "is
on the side of life" (FC 30) teaches that "each and every marriage act
must remain open per se to the
transmission of life" (HV 11). "This particular doctrine, expounded
on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable
connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break,
between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are
both inherent to the marriage act" (HV 12; cf. Pius XI, encyclical, Casti connubii).
Reflection
(CCC 2360) Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man
and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and
pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are
sanctified by the sacrament. (CCC 2369) "By safeguarding both these
essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves
in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man's
exalted vocation to parenthood" (Cf. HV 12). (CCC 2367) Called to give
life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God (Cf. Eph 3:14;
Mt 23:9). "Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to
transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that
they are thereby cooperating with the
love of God the Creator and are, in a
certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of
human and Christian responsibility" (GS 50 § 2). [END]
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