Union, Marriage, Unity

Putting on a wedding ring - Petar Milošević

"Holy Scripture opens with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God () and ends with the vision of the " wedding feast of the Lamb". From beginning to end, Scripture speaks of marriage and its "mystery," of its institution and the meaning God gave to it, of its origin and its end, of its varied achievements throughout the history of salvation, of its difficulties arising from sin and of its renewal "in the Lord", in the new Covenant of Christ and the Church (-).

In "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me"

Spiritual Union

• Wedding Feast of Love of John - Union with God.
• Union with God as a condition for the miracle.

Marriage, spouses

• Chastity of the spouses.
• Joseph’s understanding of his role as husband and spouse.
• Love of the wife - conjugal love.
• Different degrees of love: of God, of parent, of spouse - of neighbor, of science, of work.
• Institution of the seven sacraments: Marriage.
• During the banquet of the 3rd Passover, Jesus establishes the status of his Kingdom: … to be good wives, good husbands …
• The man must be a leader but not a despot, neither for his wife, nor for his children, nor for his servants, and at the same time, he must be the king, the true king, in the biblical sense of the word.
• Let the woman be just in the home towards her husband, her children, and her servants. To her husband she must give obedience and respect, comfort and help. Obedience as long as it does not imply consent to sin. The wife must be submissive but not degraded.
• Marriage is a union intended to elevate and comfort the man and woman, beyond procreation. It is a duty, it is a ministry, it is not a market, it is not a suffering, it is not a degradation of either spouse. It is love, not hate.
• Turn to the Lord your God who created marriage so that man and woman may not be alone and love each other forming forever one single flesh and indissoluble.
• How different, oh wives, is your language now! But also how different is what you receive from God and from your husband. And the families are being destroyed more and more.

Unity

• You are like one family. When is a family prosperous and admired by the world? When there is union and harmony [...] Be united. Love one another. Love one another to provide mutual help.

In other works of Maria Valtorta

Notebooks of 1944

• June 21, 1944: This is how the time you call "engagement" goes, and we Hebrews "betrothal"; it was not a consummated marriage but, at heart, an official and extremely rigorous engagement, to such a degree that the woman was called "widow" if her husband died before the marriage was consummated, leaving her virgin.

In fundamental Christian texts

In the Bible

Marriage, spouses

• Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well! Let your springs never dry up, your streams of water never fail. Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers! Blessed be your fountain! Rejoice in the wife of your youth: a graceful deer, a lovely doe! May her breasts satisfy you always, may you always be captivated by her love! Why, my son, be captivated by an adulterous woman and embrace the breast of an enemy?
• The beauty of a woman delights the eyes, it is the greatest of all man’s desires. If kindness and mildness are on her lips, her husband is the happiest of men. Whoever acquires a wife gains a good thing, obtains favor from the Lord. A lack of enclosure leaves a domain vulnerable to pillage; without a wife, a man groans and wanders. How can one trust a highway thief who runs from town to town? Likewise, a man without a home, who stops wherever the night overtakes him.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• "Holy Scripture opens with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God () and ends with the vision of the "wedding feast of the Lamb". From beginning to end, Scripture speaks of marriage and its "mystery", of its institution and the meaning God gave to it, of its origin and its end, of its varied achievements throughout the history of salvation, of its difficulties arising from sin and of its renewal "in the Lord", in the new Covenant of Christ and the Church (-).
• Nevertheless, the order of creation remains, even if it has been gravely disturbed. To heal the wounds of sin, man and woman need the help of grace that God, in his infinite mercy, has never refused them (). Without this help, man and woman cannot realize the union of their lives for which God created them "at the beginning".
• In his preaching, Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman, just as the Creator willed it from the beginning: the permission given by Moses to divorce one’s wife was a concession to hardness of heart (); the matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble: God himself has joined them: "Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate."-
• Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage, the bodily intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Among the baptized, the bonds of marriage are sanctified by the Sacrament. ()
• There is "free union" when man and woman refuse to give a legal and public form to a relationship involving sexual intimacy. The term is misleading: what can a union mean in which the people involved do not commit to each other and thus express a lack of trust, in the other, in themselves, or in the future? The expression covers different situations: cohabitation, refusal of marriage as such, inability to bind oneself by long-term commitments (cf. FC 81). All these situations offend the dignity of marriage; they destroy the very idea of the family; they weaken the sense of fidelity. They are contrary to the moral law: the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage; outside of it, it is always a grave sin and excludes from sacramental communion.