English
EspañolMarital consent is a life-giving word. It transforms our being. We now belong to each other and both of us to our union.
Text
“At times, the couple does not grasp the theological and spiritual import of the words of consent, which illuminate the meaning of all the signs that follow” (The Joy of Love, n.214)
Commentary
In the sacramental economy, language is per se “form-giving”; words truly change the being of things. By the words of baptism, a creature becomes a child of God; by the words of consecration, bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ and can never again go back to being what they were before. Simple water, bread, and wine.
In the same way, by the words of matrimonial consent, both give themselves and embrace each other entirely and truly as the man of his wife and the woman of her husband; two become one flesh. Their consent creates. It has changed both of their beings, bride, and groom. Before, they were a separate “I” and a separate “you.” From this moment on, they are a unique “we.” Their new way of being is their exclusive, faithful, definitive union of love. Their individual past is behind them, gone forever. That enormous and intimate power of union resides in a man and woman´s being. The nuptial consent, a joint will, brings it into existence and brings it into life.
