MERCEDES B. SULEIK l June 30, 2022 l Business Mirror
For many people, June has been traditionally observed as a month to get married. There’s a lot of hoopla in preparing for the wedding—looking for a church, not necessarily their parish church, some even look for an exotic place such as a garden or a beach, where to hold a reception, where to go for the honeymoon, whom or which personages to get for their “ninongs/ninangs” whose assistance for future needs such as jobs may be had, etc. All the extraneous things that go with the wedding, but consideration of marriage and not just the festival is hardly ever discussed or even thought of.
What follows the wedding feast? What does being married mean? What is marriage? Marriage is not simply the legalization or legitimation of sexual congress between a man and a woman. If there is one word that defines marriage, it is love. We have to go back to why man exists. And the reason for that is God created man in his own image and likeness, and called him into existence through love, and at the same time for love.
Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, said that God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the capacity and responsibility of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.” He further states that because man is both body and spirit, he is called to love in his unified totality, and love ensures the sharing of body and soul.
Moreover, he states that “sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts that are proper and exclusive to spouses, is by no means purely biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and a woman commit themselves totally to one another until death. Indeed, the love that spouses share is a clear reflection of the love that God has for his creatures, which is total and forever.
At this point let me state my unequivocal stand on two matters that directly impinge on the integrity of marriage. The first is divorce, the second is “marriage between two persons of the same sex.” I have written in previous articles about my position in these matters, suffice it to say that my stand is buttressed by the Scriptures. “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mark 5:6-9)
Marriage has two aspects. The first is the mutual self-giving between the spouses. The second is the family which is born of the communion of persons, the personal relationship of the “I” and the “You” to create a “We”, which is the framework of society as we know it. St. Pope John Paul II said that the family, as a community of persons, is the first human society. “It arises whenever there comes into being the conjugal covenant of marriage, which opens the spouses in a lasting communion of love and life and it is brought to full completion in a full and specific way with the procreation of children.”
Likewise, Pope Francis, in his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, said that love always gives life, and that conjugal love “does not end with the couple…the couple in giving themselves to each other, give not just themselves, but also the reality of children, who are a living reflection of their love, a permanent sign of their conjugal unity and a living and inseparable synthesis of their being father and mother.”
The Holy Father said: “For this reason families and local communities must be encouraged to transmit to our young the values and the vision which can help to bring about a culture of integrity—one which honors goodness, truthfulness, fidelity and solidarity as the firm foundation and moral glue that holds society together.”
Thus June should be about the uniqueness of marriage and the family, which can make its contribution to the good of society and the nation as a whole.
*** The opinion expressed herein does not necessarily reflect the views of the Business Mirror. Know more about #FINEXPhils through www.finex.org.ph.