In a Class by Itself, Part 2

Continuing our study of John Paul II's theology of the body

05/28/2025

John Paul II dons the armor of the defender of the bond of marriage by reflecting deeply on St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. Indeed, Ephesians even ends with an exhortation to put on the armor of God, and therefore we should all defend the great goods of the Gospel. We read in Ephesians 6:

Therefore take the whole armor of God…having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith…And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ep 6:13, 14-17).

St. John Paul touches on this knight’s errand observing:

[W]e should add that the whole letter [to the Ephesians] ends with a stupendous encouragement to spiritual battle (see Eph 6:10-20)…That appeal for spiritual battle seems to be logically based on the argumentation of the whole letter. It is, so to speak, the explicit point of arrival of its main guiding lines (472).

Hence, we might picture our pope-saint as a knight in shining armor, defending the bond of marriage, a damsel in distress. Isn’t marriage hemmed in by enemies approaching on all sides these days?

The Holy Father is positively effusive about the whole letter to the Ephesians, but he especially dotes on chapter 5. You know how all brides want Ephesians 5 read at their wedding, where St. Paul says, “Wives be submissive to your husbands.”

But if brides really studied Ephesians, they would agree with John Paul who lavishes it with compliments, like: “the crowning of the themes and truths that ebb and flow like long waves through the Word of God” (p. 467), and “that stupendous page” (p. 468), or “an utterly unique eloquence” (p. 473), and “[t]his splendid formulation of Ephesians” (p. 498), and so forth.

But John Paul also urges us not to forget the ground we have previously covered in our long walk with Jesus and how the Master taught us to speak the lexicon of love. That is, we will not be able to adequately appreciate or accurately appraise Ephesians until we demonstrate fluency in speaking the three Words of Christ from Part One.

Thus the pope reminds us:

What is contained in the passage of Ephesians [5:22-33] is the “crowning,” as it were, of these other [three] comprehensive key words [of Christ]. Since the theology of the body emerged from them in its evangelical [gospel] outline, simple and at the same time fundamental, we must in some sense presuppose this theology in interpreting the passage from Ephesians just quoted” (466).

In other words, only if we can utter these three words in conversing with Christ, will we be able to discover the deepest meaning of marriage, and finally agree with John Paul that it is “THE sacrament.”

If you had to pick which one of the seven sacraments – Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, Eucharist, Holy Orders, Marriage, or Anointing of the Sick – is the greatest and most glorious, which one would you pick? If we asked the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it would resoundingly answer:

The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch. (CCC, no. 1324).

Put colloquially, it doesn’t get any better sacramentally than the Eucharist! And John Paul would agree with a hearty “Amen!”

And yet, he would also insist that there is something “primordial” even “preeminent” about the sacrament of marriage. So how do we square the superiority of the Holy Mass with the sublimity of Holy Marriage? Think of the Eucharist as the apex and peak of the Christian life (“the sacramental summit”), while marriage is the enormous mountain which shoulders the Eucharist on its pinnacle. Paraphrasing Isaac Newton: “If the Eucharist has seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of the giant of marriage.”

John Paul articulates a similar role for marriage in relation to the Eucharist in this rather packed passage:

One can say that the visible sign of marriage “in the beginning” [the two “become one flesh” (Gn 2:24)] inasmuch as it is linked to the visible sign of Christ and the Church on the summit of God’s saving economy [the Eucharistic summit, where Christ becomes one flesh with his bride, the Church], transposes the eternal plan of love [of the Trinity] into the historical dimension and makes [marriage] the foundation of the whole sacramental order (503).

In other words, the sacramental Mt. Everest of marriage allows the whole world – indeed the whole cosmos – to admire and adore the Eucharist perched on its peak.

In every long walk, the road eventually begins to rise and often leads up a mountain. I remember visiting Ireland with then-Fr. (now bishop) Erik Pohlmeier. We were planning to climb the famous Croagh Mountain of St. Patrick. An Irish father and his son were working at the base of the mountain and we stopped briefly to talk with them and get our bearings.

The teenage son kept complaining about how hard the climb was going to be, and he predicted that frequently the weather at the top was often turbulent. The father scolded the son saying: “Now, don’t knock the piss out of ‘em!” Well, I hope not to “knock the piss out of ‘ya” as we begin to ascend this mighty Mt. Everest called marriage, which is far steeper and can be stormier than Croagh Mountain.

In Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” Gandalf led that “bunch of guys going for a long walk” also over the Misty Mountains through the Pass of Caradhras, which was also steep and stormy and treacherous to travelers. Frustrated in their attempts to go over it, the fellowship of the ring detours to go through the mountain delving into tunnels dug by dwarves.

This twofold path, first over and second through the mountain, will outline our own itinerary for this mile of our walk with Jesus. First we will attempt to ascend the Mt. Everest of marriage exteriorly by scaling its face over four different passes. And then secondly, we will go spelunking interiorly through three deep tunnels.

That is, besides being a defensor vinculi, a knight in shining armor, John Paul the Great will also serve as our Sherpa showing us the best routes over and then through the great Mt. Everest of marriage. I hope you like to go hiking.

Praised be Jesus Christ!