The Love

[Seatbelt Blue]

The love God has for His Church is first and foremost a _conjugal love_. As a man and a woman become "one body" in the sexual act, so are we both the Bride of Christ and the Body of Christ; the two go hand in hand. The Bride is not the Bride if she is not also the Body, and the Bride is ONLY the Body if she has fully given herself to her Husband.

In Catholic theology, the conjugal act is the Mass, in which the Church full recieves Christ into her body as a woman recieves her husband. We take Christ into ourselves in that most intimate act of reception of the Holy Eucharist. We partake of Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, and through this supremely close action, we become One Body, the Body of Christ.

It is mind boggling! Our Lord, the Christ, has offered Himself to us, so that we could be His Bride. We stay from sin so that our wedding gowns may be pure and white, never stained with sin.

Not only is the Eucharist a very conjugal act, it is also the celebratory wedding feast, as we weekly renew our sacred Baptismal promises. To further underscore the unity of Baptism with the Eucharist (the conjugal act), when baptised, we are granted the same titles as Christ - Priest, Prophet, and King. This is yet another sign that we are fully united with Christ in the Eucharist, the conjugal act, the fulfillment of the marriage vows, our Baptismal vows! We are never more one with Christ than in the Eucharist, and it is in that union that we are truly Priest, Prophet, and King, as we become Christ, or at least His Body.

This is why I love Song of Songs; it is by far my favorite piece of Scripture. We are the Bride of Christ, and may we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Adorable Bridegroom!

[Ellenita]

we are turely priest, prophet and king

For women aswell?

[Seatbelt Blue]

For women aswell?

Yes. The Church, like Israel, is a holy nation of priests (which is not to neglect the seperate, ordained priesthood).

[Uncle Gus]

This is why I say that the more you understand Catholic theology, the more you realise the dignity and beauty of Woman. The whole of our existence is marital. The most beautiful thing in all of creation is Woman, and the most beautiful woman is the Church.

[hyperdulia again]

:o isn't there a prettier way to describe the mass than as a "conjugal act"..that sounds Ba'alistic.

[Uncle Gus]

What's wrong with that? We are the Bride of Christ, no? Do you not think that sexual union is a beautiful thing?

[hyperdulia again]

oh i do, but there's a line somewhere where the view of the Mass as sexual union goes from being a dramatic image of the bride's surrender to the bridegroom, and into a non-christian imaging of the church as a Goddess surrendering Herself to the advances of Her Lover, it can come off as some kind of pagan ritual celebrating male-female dualness, which is not what the Mass is.

[Anna]

Seatbelt Blue's analogy is directly from the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

It is inDouche beautiful.

There is such a beautiful harmony between the nature that God created, the Church He founded, and the Sacraments He instituted. It's like a symphony.

[Uncle Gus]

isn't there a prettier way to describe the mass than as a "conjugal act"..that sounds Ba'alistic.

If you started today, you wouldn't run out of different ways to describe the Mass for the rest of time.

[Aloysius]

Hyper, read stuff like the Song of Songs (Cantical of Canticals for old-school Bibles)

it has some graphic language, it's all about Jesus and the Church though. i'm starting to read a book called "The Lover and the Beloved: A way of Franciscan Prayer" by John Michael Talbot. it shows some examples of this graphic language throughout the history of the Church.

[Ellenita]

That is why I say that the more you understand Catholic theology, the more you realise the dignity and beauty of women...The most beautiful in all of creation is Woman.

Well I wish the church would do more to promote this image of woman. It's hard to be continually berated by people for 'being involved with a misogynistic theology'.

Seatbelt Blue, I think your analogy in your first post in this thread is breathtakingly beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.

[cmotherofpirl]

ellenita go to theologyofthebody.net

and http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_pau...nesis/index.htm

which are some of the holy Fathers lectures.

I am in a year -long bible study on it.

Edited November 4, 2003 by cmotherofpirl

[BLAZEr]

I like to tell my kids that mass is the "Cosmic Hook Up"

wait till Easter when I explain to them what happens with the easter Candle and the Water . . .

I LOVE THE CHURCH!!!

[Seatbelt Blue]

Seatbelt Blue, I think your analogy in your first post in this thread is breathtakingly beautiful.  Thank you for sharing it.

Why, thank you. I increasingly view my relationship with God in terms of romantic love; the whole story of God's dealing with man is that of a suiter wooing his beloved.