Married personalism and the "good of the spouses"

            Self-giving is the basic notion of christian personalism, as is so succinctly expressed in that key phrase of Gaudium et Spes: "man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself" (GS 24). In these pages therefore the idea of marital self-donation - mutually made and mutual accepted in all sincerity - has largely guided our consideration of personalism as present in the matrimonial canons of the new Code. Before ending these brief considerations, I wish to turn again to that other significantly personalist term, the bonum coniugum or the "good of the spouses", which c. 1055, the opening canon of the Title on Matrimony, presents (along with procreation) as an end of the conjugal institution.

            I have noted the institutional character of the bonum coniugum as an end of marriage, its scriptural basis and credentials, and have ventured the opinion that it is in fact a milestone concept, a major contribution of canon law to the whole thought of the Church. I am convinced that it will prove a source of much fruitful reflection in the theological no less (rather, even more) than in the canonical field. Here I limit myself to offering a few further thoughts on this personalist concept from the juridic point of view.

The nature of the bonum coniugum (For a jurisprudential exposition of some of these ideas, see c. Burke, decision of Nov. 26, 1992, nos. 6ss: RRD, vol. 84, pp. 580-585.)

            What is the essence of the bonum coniugum? In rotal jurisprudence, some sentences identify it simply with the "consortium" or "communio" of life, proper to marriage. So we read in a sentence c. Huot of Oct. 2, 1986: "the «bonum coniugum» or the «consortium totius vitae»" (R.R.Dec., vol. 78, p. 503; cf. c. Giannecchini, June 26, 1984: vol. 76, p. 392.); and in another c. Pinto of Feb. 6, 1987, "vitae coniugalis consortium (bonum coniugum)" (vol. 79, p. 33). This does not seem very satisfactory. To identify an end of marriage with marriage itself ("consortium totius vitae"), seems an inadequate reading of c. 1055. In any case, it is not very enlightening to be told that the end of marriage is marriage. Much the same might be said of the views that the bonum coniugum "is to be understood and brought about through the right to communion of life" (c. Pompedda, Apr. 11, 1988: vol. 80, p. 202.), or that it lies in the constitution of the "community of life and love" of which Gaudium et Spes speaks (Cf. c. Colagiovanni, Apr. 23, 1991, Romana, no. 10 (unpublished); cf. May 8, 1990: vol. 82, p. 358).

            One wonders whether such equiparations are sound. "Consortium totius vitae", or "communio vitae", are (incomplete) descriptions of the essence of matrimony; the bonum coniugum is an end. Essence and end cannot be identified, and one has to be careful how one connects them. In this same line, certain sentences around the time of the promulgation of the Code would appear to show a lack of nuance in describing the bonum coniugum as an essential element of matrimony (Cf. vol. 75 (1983), p. 667; vol. 76 (1984), p. 350; ib. p. 392).

            One opinion relates the bonum coniugum to the achievement of a minimum degree of personal relationship between the spouses: "the good of the spouses, which is an essential element of matrimony, implying the capacity of fashioning at least a tolerable interpersonal relationship with one's future spouse" ("bonum coniugum, quod est elementum essentiale matrimonii, implicans capacitatem nectendi cum futuro coniuge relationem interpersonalem saltem tolerabilem": c. Bruno, Feb. 23, 1990: vol. 82, p. 140.); this again does not seem to be a sufficient analysis.

            Some sentences coram Pinto interpreted the bonum coniugum as consisting in the psycho-sexual integration (or complementarity) of the spouses: "the good of the spouses, consisting in their essential mutual psycho-sexual integration" ("bonum coniugis, in mutua essentiali integratione psycho-sexuali consistens": Feb. 12, 1982: vol. 74, p. 67.); he takes the bonum coniugum as the "intimate union of persons and deeds by which the spouses find that psycho-sexual complementarity without which the "consortium" of matrimonial life could not exist" ("intima personarum atque operum coniunctio qua illam psychosexualem complementarietatem coniuges inveniunt sine qua matrimoniale vitae consortium subsistere nequit": Feb. 20, 1987: Ius Ecclesiae, 1-2 (1989), p. 573.); it consists in the right on the part of each spouse to find in the other "his or her specific psychological psycho-sexual complement of a true spouse" ("ius... quo ipsa [pars] inveniat suum complementum psychologicum psychosexuale specificum veri coniugis": Sentence of May 27, 1983: Monitor Ecclesiasticus 110 (1985-III), p. 329). This undoubtedly presents interesting aspects. At the same time however it seems to assign an over-circumscribed and passing scope - the simple attaining of an integrated relationship of complementarity - to the good, as planned by God, that marriage should originate for husband and wife.

            The over-facile equiparation of the "good of the spouses" to their affective or sexual integration, apart from passing over the supernatural aspect of their "good", risks reducing the bonum coniugum to the level of a natural "compatibility". This could easily lead to the suggestion that anything presumably discordant is contrary to the good of the spouses, when pastoral experience shows that many highly "integrated" marriages are made up of couples whose characters are totally different and even apparently opposed, and who could have ended up being "incompatible" unless they had resolved not to let this happen.

Integration means giving and accepting

            No; I suggest that the analysis of the bonum coniugum has to be made at a deeper level. Within the Code itself and in harmony with the logic of the new personalism, the key to this analysis should be drawn precisely from an even more attentive examination of the notion of matrimonial consent offered by c. 1057: that "act of the will by which a man and a woman mutually give and accept each other..." The canon, in presenting consent as an act of self-donation, goes to the heart of conjugal love. This love, however, not only involves self-giving: the canon also expresses what is essentially complementary to conjugal giving of self, i.e. acceptance of the other. Each spouse, in giving himself or herself, also accepts the self-gift of the other: "sese tradunt et accipiunt", "they mutually give and accept each other". Consent thus considered implies not only an unreserved spousal gift, but also an unreserved spousal acceptance.

            Without this, there would be no mutuality. There would be no guarantee that one's self-gift had been accepted. Nor would the other party have that assurance. Love would remain lopsided. A true gift is for ever. Otherwise, as we have noted before, it is a loan, not a gift. As John Paul II said to the Rota in 1982: "whoever gives himself, does so in the awareness of undertaking the obligation to live his gift to the other. If he grants a right to the other, it is because he wills to give himself; and he gives himself with the intention of obliging himself to fulfil the demands of that total gift which he has freely chosen" (AAS 74, 451).

            This wholehearted acceptance of the other is a test - perhaps the ultimate test - of true marital love. It tests the generosity of love, for by it one shows one's desire to be a genuine offering and help ["adiutorium"] to other. It also tests the sincerity of love, by which one not only gives oneself as one is, but is prepared to accept the other as he or she is. This of course cannot always be easy. If in fact it were, it is questionable if it could ever lead to any true good of the spouses.

            So, to make the bonum coniugum consist in the attaining of an easy relationship, a comfortable married life, free from problems, worries or tensions, does not appear to harmonize with the christian understanding that "self-realization" - the authentic "good" of the human person - must be the result of effort, the cross, coming out of one's self, giving one's self. It would therefore seem that a proper christian approach to the "good of the spouses" should see it as something which fundamentally results from the dedication aspect of the matrimonial alliance - precisely from the mutual pledge of giving and acceptance that the spouses make to one another.

            Even on the purely human level there appears to something fundamentally flawed in any analysis which identifies the bonum coniugum with some form of easy or satisfying human relationship between the spouses. Only passing and superficial personal contacts can be smooth and without any strains. Difficulties always make their appearance in every close interpersonal relation which is extended over a period of time. Since marriage involves man and woman in a unique relationship and commitment to be maintained throughout their lifetime, it is bound to be marked by problems between the spouses, sometimes of a grave nature. Many happy married unions, I would repeat, are between two persons of quite different characters who have clearly had to struggle hard to get on. It can be rightly said that these marriages are the most "successful", for they have matured the spouses most.

The demanding nature of the married commitment

            The married commitment is by nature something demanding. The words by which the spouses express their mutual acceptance of one another, through "irrevocable personal consent" (GS, 48), bring this out. Each pledges to accept the other "for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health... all the days of my life" (Ordo Celebrandi Matrimonium, no. 25; cf. GS, ib). Love, which naturally leads a person to the making of these promises, gradually produces the ability to live up to them. This surely marks the dynamism of the whole conjugal process. An American psychologist writes that the "capacity for seeing one's intimate partner as genuinely separate and different, not as a part of oneself or as a recreation of an early love object, is an outcome of growth within a committed relationship between adults, not a precondition for it" (C. Maltas: "Marital Crises of Midlife": Psychiatry, vol. 56 (1992), p. 125). Canonists too can usefully reflect on this opinion of a secular psychologist, that certain fundamental capacities for married life only properly develop over the years after the wedding, and do so as a result - through ups and downs and failures - of keeping faith with the marital commitment.

            It is through dedication, effort and sacrifice, especially when made for the sake of others, that people grow and mature most; that way each one comes out of himself or herself and rises above self. Loyalty to the commitment of married life - to be mutually faithful, to persevere in this fidelity until death, and to found and rear a family - contributes more than anything else to the true good of the spouses, so powerfully realized in facing up to this freely accepted commitment which involves a duty, as John Paul II says, "of a conscious effort on the part of the spouses to overcome, even at the cost of sacrifices and renunciations, the obstacles that hinder the fulfillment of their marriage" (Address to Rota, 1987: AAS 79, 1456).

            "Non est bonum homine esse solum: faciamus ei adiutorium simile sibi": "It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18). We have already recalled these words in which the Book of Genesis frames the creation of the sexes. They give us the key for an understanding of the bonum coniugum. If it is not good for man or woman to be without a partner, what is the bonum, the real "good" of the spouse which God had in mind, in instituting the plan of sexual partnership and cooperation within marriage? What sort of "adiutorium" - help or helpmate - did he intend each spouse to be for the other? Was he thinking just of a "solacium" - comfort and support - for this life alone, concerned simply about man's temporal good? It seems reasonable to suppose that the divine perspective went farther than that. There are many grounds to suggest that, while the bonum coniugum comprises the traditional content of the "mutuum adiutorium" (which can therefore he regarded as absorbed in it), it is in fact much wider.

            Here canonical science would do well to take attentive account of theological reflection on this new term, now used to express one of the institutional ends of matrimony. Otherwise one could settle for inadequate interpretations leading to defective canonical practice; also with negative pastoral consequences.

            I would suggest that the nature and ultimate purpose of the "help" that the spouses are meant to provide for one another is directed to the integral perfecting of each as a person called to eternal life. In this consists the genuine bonum coniugum. Recent magisterium gives strong support to this view.

"Fontes" for the bonum coniugum

            In 1989, the Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of the Code published an annotated version of the new Code (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1989). Its particular interest consists in indicating the "Fontes" or "sources" of each canon. One of the main sources of c. 1055, which specifies the good of the spouses and the procreation/education of children as ends of marriage, is the Encyclical Casti connubii of Pius XI. In that Encyclical of 1930, we find words which could be taken to clarify the essence of the bonum coniugum. Married love, says Pius, "demands not only mutual aid ["mutuum adiutorium"] but must... have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love towards God and their neighbor" (AAS 22, 548). This seems to give good grounds for affirming that interpretations, however traditional, which make the "mutuum adiutorium" consist in mere physical or psychological support for earthly affairs, are inadequate; and the same can be said for similar interpretations of the bonum coniugum. It is for their ultimate "bonum" - growth in virtue and sanctity - that the spouses are meant to help each other.

            This approach seems to receive confirmation from the other "sources" indicated for c. 1055. They include an important 1951 Address of Pius XII which speaks of the "personal perfecting of the spouses" as a secondary end of marriage (AAS 43, 848-849). Three Vatican II documents are also referred to as sources. Gaudium et Spes speaks of the human and supernatural growth of the spouses: "Husband and wife ... fulfilling their conjugal and family role... increasingly further their own perfection and their mutual sanctification" (no. 48). Lumen Gentium insists on the supernatural aspect of this reality: "Christian spouses help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in the accepting and rearing of their children" (no. 11; cf. 41). And along the same lines, the Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People insists: "Christian spouses are for each other... cooperators of grace and witnesses of the faith" (AA, no. 11).

            That marriage is essentially directed to the sanctification of christian spouses is a conclusion that would seem to flow necessarily from the fact of its sacramentality. In this sense the personalism of Casti connubii simply developed the teaching of Trent, that grace [in marriage] is directed to "perfecting love and sanctifying the spouses" ("amorem perficere..., coniugesque sanctificare" Denz. 969). In other words, the sacramental grace of marriage leads spouses to sanctity by perfecting (in the truest sense) their conjugal love.

            This line of approach helps to understand too that the "good of the spouses" is achieved not only through the consolations of married life, but also and especially through its demands. It is true, as we have noted, that married personalism has led to a renewed recognition of the dignity of love between the spouses. To state that and no more however, is simply to content oneself with a surface analysis, especially so if the analysis tends to center on the "rights" or expectations of love, and not at least to the same extent on its "duties" and demands. True personalism is always aimed at the growth and maturing of the person, and can therefore never treat as marginal the covenanted aspects of marriage, that is, its aspects of dedication, generosity, and coming out of self that are necessarily involved in marital self-giving (Cf. C. Burke: Covenanted Happiness, Ignatius Press, 1990, pp. 10ss; 55ss).

            Modern psychology tends to propose the need to "accept" one's self, as a condition of personal growth. A certain (quite different) understanding of "self-acceptance" finds its place in a christian approach to life [1], but Christianty above all stresses self-forgetfulness, self-giving, and the acceptance of others. The covenanted aspect of marriage involves a pledge to give oneself, and to accept one's partner, in a totally special way. The emphasis is not only on self-giving, but particularly on other-acceptance: being ready to accept not only the good qualities of one's partner, but also his or her defects. If (legitimate) "self-acceptance" means accepting one's defects, keeping them in perspective while not ceasing to fight against them, "other-acceptance" means accepting (also) the defects of the other, keeping them too in proper perspective: the perspective that they are there to be accepted by me, even if not (hopefully) by him or her.

            Quite a few psychologists hold that successful marriages are possible only for those who have gone through the crisis involved in the discovery of mutual defects, and have overcome it. The same author quoted earlier writes: "Accepting one's self and one's partner as a complex, flawed, yet valued human being, requires extended contact with an intimate other who inevitably frustrates, disappoints and is insistently different both from oneself and one's fantasies. Perhaps a marriage can only fully become a marriage after illusions are lost, the possibility of separation is faced, and one chooses to stay" (Maltas, op. cit. p. 126).

            As we have seen, what fundamentally makes matrimonial consent an act of love, is the acceptance of a sexual partnership that is exclusive, permanent, and open-to-life. Similarly, the first thing in marriage which creates the conditions that favor the good of the spouses is acceptance of the augustinian "goods" and respect for the obligations they involve. The "bona", then, which fundamentally characterize marriage, also provide the basic structure on which the bonum coniugum can be built. Again we verify that the bonum coniugum (an end of marriage) stands in a natural relationship with the augustinian "bona" (properties of marriage).

            Gaudium et Spes (echoing the magisterium of Pius XI) teaches that it is "for the good of the spouses, of the children, and of society" that the marriage bond has been made unbreakable [2]. Indissolubility therefore positively favors the bonum coniugum. The point is surely that all the effort and sacrifice involved in fidelity to the unbreakable character of the bond - in good times and in bad, etc. - serve to develop and perfect the personalities of the spouses. A similar reading is no doubt to be made of that passage in no. 50 of Gaudium et Spes which states that "children greatly contribute to the good of their parents". Children enrich their parents' lives in many human ways, and not least in virtue of the generous dedication they tend to evoke in them.

            Pope John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio speaks of indissolubility in terms of something joyful that Christians should announce to the world: "It is necessary", he says, "to reconfirm the good news of the definitive nature of conjugal love" (FC, n. 20: AAS 74 (1982) 103). If this comes as a surprising statement to many people today [3], it is a sign of how far contemporary society is from understanding the divine plan for man's authentic good.

Complementarity and equality as between the spouses

            The complementarity of the conjugal self-donation deserves special and careful note. Emphasis on complementarity helps avoid over-emphasis, or rather exclusive insistence, on equality. A key to a proper understanding of the marital relationship lies in the principle: equal rights; equal dignity; complementary functions. Marital union is physically expressed in the conjugal act, which is not possible without the complementary corporal sexual attributes of each spouse. But marital union is not sufficiently expressed just in that act; it calls for a union of spirits and temperaments and dispositions; and this too is not possible without the complementary characterial or spiritual attributes of sexuality.

            Careless thinking here would seem to underlie curious arguments at times put forward - as in one case where it was suggested that the parties or one of them suffered from an incapacity for "setting up an equal interpersonal relationship". To have any juridic force, this argument would have to be explicated in clearer anthropological terms (cf. Sentence coram Burke, of April 29, 1993, no. 16). No one will dispute that there must be "equality" in the married relationship, in the sense that husband and wife share equal personal dignity and rights. But if an "equal relationship" is taken to suggest that the roles of the spouses are identical in marriage, then there is room for disagreement.

            The marital alliance, characterized by complementarity as much as by equality, is certainly not a relationship where every role is identical. Complementarity does not necessarily apply to all roles or duties, or even to the majority, in married or family life. The keeping accounts, the washing of dishes, the planningof vacations... are functions or tasks that husband and wife can assign between themselves as they please, or even entrust to others. But this is not true of every role. The complementarity/non-identity of roles between the spouses appears most clearly in the matter of having children. The husband can beget but cannot give birth to children; it is the wife who conceives and bears them. With relation to their children, a father can never completely fulfil a mother's role, nor vice-versa. As between the spouses themselves, the husband's role is not identical with that of the wife, nor wife's with husband's, although it falls more to anthropology than to legal science to take cognisance of the specific differences between the two. The fact remains that the equal dignity of the spouses does not imply an identity of essential roles in married or family life.

            It seems then one should be hesitant before positing any essential obligation on the part of each spouse to contribute equally to the bonum coniugum. In practice equality of contribution is hard to measure morally, and impossible juridically. So, while a first impression might suggest that each one has an obligation to contribute to the "good of the spouses" in the same measure, a deeper analysis suggests that this is not necessarily so. A woman, after all, may marry a sick or disabled man with the purpose of devoting her life to his care; from the very nature of such a case, it would seem that she contributes much more than he does to the "consortium" (Cf. Sentence coram Burke, of Dec. 12, 1991, no. 9: R.R.Dec., vol. 83, p. 750).

            Further, the fact that the spouses' different characteristics, habits, weaknesses or defects disturb the smooth course of their conjugal life and at times provoke tensions between them, does not of itself impede the bonum coniugum. Carelessness with money, over-dedication to professional work or social life, one-sided absorption with hobbies or sports, etc., can all be considered negative qualities likely to perturb conjugal life, even gravely. The same is true of other qualities or deficiencies: being impatient or highly strung or obsessive, or given to fits of temper or depression... It is truer still if the defect in question is that of sexual dysfunction (frigidity, etc.) or excessive drinking, gambling, and so forth. There is no doubt that such qualities can represent a major obstacle to the smooth development of married life. But that in itself does not resolve the question of their juridic relevance to the bonum coniugum.

            Can one say, for instance, that a deliberate intention not to cure or correct such defects amounts to an exclusion of the bonum coniugum; and therefore offers grounds for a declaration of nullity, as would a positive exclusion of procreation, the other institutional end of marriage? And, passing from the hypothesis of exclusion of the "good of the spouses" (cf. R. Bertolino: Matrimonio Canonico e 'Bonum coniugum': Giappichelli, Turin, 1995, p. 127.) to that of consensual incapacity in its regard, the question can be posed: do these negative qualities or defects, present at the moment of consent, suffice to incapacitate a person for marriage, so annulling matrimonial consent?

            These are still new questions. I would again suggest that significant guidelines for answering them may be drawn from c. 1098, which we have considered earlier. As we recall, it lays down that a person contracts invalidly who enters marriage deceived by fraud concerning some quality in the other party, "which of its very nature can seriously disturb the partnership of conjugal life". The point we now note is that what invalidates consent is the fraud by which consent was obtained, not the negative quality "per se" nor even its gravity. The invalidating factor is not the disturbance caused to married life, but the initial deceit about the disturbing defect. There is no juridic right to an undisturbed married life, but there is a right not to be deceived into marriage by the concealment of some important negative trait of the other.

            The implication is clear. The discovery or emergence of negative traits, however disturbing, is in itself (in the absence of deceit) no support for a plea of nullity. If a plea based simply on the emergence of such traits is presented, good tribunal practice will keep an important disposition of the Code in mind. "Before accepting a case and whenever there seems to be hope of a successful outcome, the judge is to use pastoral means to induce the spouses, if at all possible, to convalidate the marriage and to resume conjugal living" (c. 1676).

            In such cases, tribunal personnel should try to intensify proper pastoral guidance, remedying earlier omissions if these have occurred. Little ecclesial sense is shown, and little care for souls, if a person is encouraged to go forward with a plea of consensual incapacity that is almost certainly ungrounded, since no essential obligation is involved or no signs of an original and constitutional psychic defect are present. What married persons need at such moments - and before they come to the tribunal level, if possible - is encouragement to continue to accept their partner, defects and all, in fidelity to the covenant they once freely entered. If they do so, if both can be brought to do so, the good of the spouses is being achieved in a powerful way. Does this call for sacrifice? Of course. Does it call for heroism? In some cases, it may well do so. But, for that, grace exists: the grace of the sacrament of matrimony, and the grace of the matrimonial vocation to holiness (Cf. C. Burke: "Marriage as a Sacrament of Sanctification": Annales Theologici 9 (1995), 84-87).

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            And so, at least for the moment, I leave these rather broad reflections on married personalism, as I find it present (or, in one or two cases, absent) in the new Code of Canon Law. The new juridic treatment of the fundamental parameters of marriage - canon 1055; canon 1057 - reflects the true conjugal personalism of Gaudium et Spes. In fact it develops this personalism, with the formulation of the key concept [4] of the bonum coniugum. Thus in its juridic structure also marriage is presented as a common enterprise of mutual self-donation, directed to the foundation of the family.

            This self-giving is personal; it is also interpersonal, inasmuch as it is mutual. Above all it is conjugal giving; therein lies its uniqueness. And so I have tried to pinpoint the essential features of "conjugality", finding them to center on the three augustinian bona. Thus new insights link into more traditional analyses of marriage. May I suggest again that canonical practice itself may have been in no small degree responsible for the negative concept of the "bona" that many people have had, and still have. If this is so, canonists will be the first to wish to correct such negative concepts.

            We have also seen that the giving and accepting of what is involved in the "bona" can in itself be rightly regarded as a most unique expression of love. In this sense, we have concluded that conjugal love is in fact a concept with juridic relevance.

            Conjugal self-giving must be sincere, without fraud or simulation. It must be a generous, out-going and loving gift-and-acceptance, which is prepared to take the other person as he or she is; and to live out married and family fidelity within the inevitable strains and limitations of every human interpersonal relationship.

            Finally we have seen that the bonum coniugum too connects with and depends on the giving-accepting which characterizes marital consent, just as it must characterize actual marital life. One gives one's self as one is, defects and all; and one accepts the other as he or she is, also with defects. Only love so understood merits to be called conjugal and personalist.

NOTES

[1] Spiritual writers emphasize the need to "accept" the fact of one's personal weaknesses, without being discouraged by them, but without ceasing either to struggle against them.

[2] "hoc vinculum sacrum intuitu boni, tum coniugum et prolis tum societatis, non ex humano arbitrio pendet..." GS 48; cf. Casti connubii: "The number and importance of the benefits which flow from the indissolubility of matrimony cannot escape anyone who gives even a brief consideration either to the good of the spouses and the children or to the welfare of human society" ["Quot vero quantaque ex matrimonii indissolubilitate fluant bona, eum fugere non potest qui vel obiter cogitet sive de coniugum prolisque bono sive de humanae societatis salute"] (AAS 22, (1930) 553). As far as I am aware these are the only passages in pre-1983 magisterial teaching which mention the bonum coniugum. The expression is rather 'obiter dicta', and used simply in the context of the value of indissolubility. It would be interesting if further research could illustrate how, from a passing comment on indissolubility, the "good of the spouses" was to become the new technical term chose by the Magisterium to express the personalist-institutional end of marriage.

[3] The Catechism of the Catholic Church takes note of this: "This unequivocal insistence on the indissolubility of the marriage bond may have left some perplexed and could seem to be a demand imposible to realize"; and then goes on to say that through grace, "spouses will be able to 'receive' the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ" (no. 1615).

[4] a concept which is "new", yet has deep biblical resonances; cf. Ch. 2.