A greater mystery: Sacramental marriage is a total self-gift

    I don’t know if you are like me, but when I go on a trip, I spend hours online looking at pictures of potential hotels. My search often mimics that of Goldilocks venturing into the house of the three bears:  “Too fancy”; “Too ratty”; “Ahh, just right.”
    Ultimately, I have to set out to my destination on the wings of faith, hoping that the online pictures presented an accurate portrayal of the hotel. If you are like me, then you certainly have had the experience of showing up at a hotel that was not accurately portrayed on its Internet pages. Ugh! I refrain from using the words that would properly describe my emotions in that moment, because they are not fit to print in a Catholic newspaper!
    OK, so assuming that I’m not the only one who has been duped by a fancy digital camera and good lighting, I redirect my musings to the spiritual life: What if the signs meant to proclaim God’s eternal existence to the temporal world failed to do so? Do we not rely on signs to direct our way and grieve when they fail to point rightly?
Sacramental signs
    Such questions lead us to the center of the Church’s vision of “sacramental reality.”
    Sacraments are “efficacious signs of grace” and “visible signs of invisible realities,” according to the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.” When we look at a priest, our faith beholds Jesus alive in our midst. When we go to Eucharist, we taste and see the goodness of Jesus. When we enter the confessional, we hear the merciful Jesus. When we are baptized and confirmed, we are reborn and sealed by the Spirit. When we receive the sacrament of the sick, we feel the healing touch of Jesus.
    And when we wed in Christ, we dance because of our new life in him, who is bridegroom of the church.
    In proclaiming a sacramental vision of reality, the church is saying to the world that though God is indeed a great mystery, beyond the reach of the mind, in Christ and his sacraments God’s veiled mystery has been unveiled. Therefore, much like the Internet pictures of hotels, the sign is as important as the reality it points to. In baptism, we are washed clean by the living waters of the Spirit; what would the church be proclaiming about this “veiled” reality of baptism if she allowed for the faithful to be baptized with mud? The mystery would remain concealed because the sign (mud bathing) does not correspond with the reality (spiritual cleansing).
    The same point holds for sacramental marriage. The sign of marriage is the free consent of the couple to a lifelong covenant of love, with their marital embrace being a microcosm of this covenant that seals them as one till death. As “sacrament,” marriage unveils Christ’s total and unbreakable self-gift of love to the Church. And as “sacrament of the Sacrament,” the marital act must similarly unveil the mystery of total self-gift. Here lies the root of the church’s view of contraception, which contradicts the truth of total self-gift by banishing openness to the gift of life from that act. This is akin to baptizing with mud, because the sign (a contracepted marital act) does not correspond with the reality (God’s life-giving love).
    Now, because no marriage or marital act can perfectly demonstrate love, we must ever seek the Lord’s mercy and strive to grow in his grace each moment of each day. Our need for mercy is real, yet there is a fundamental difference between “taking imperfect pictures” and “purposely distorting the image of the hotel.” In other words, there is a difference between not living up to the fullness of the meaning of marriage and choosing to do something that stands in opposition to God’s will.
    I encourage everyone to pick up the lens of “sacramentality” and use it to evaluate the choices we make in our marriages. Couples who have wrestled with this teaching but have chosen to remain committed to a non-contraception marriage amidst difficulties do so because, above all else, they choose to “unveil” the free, total, faithful and fruitful love of God to the world. I pray that all married couples can view their examples as an invitation to grace.
    Mario Sacasa is director of the archdiocesan Catholic Counseling Service  and assistant director of the Family Life Apostolate.