Wedding Words and Works, Part 2

Seeing how spouses fulfill the roles of prophets

06/09/2025

If you are just joining us, we we are in the middle of a series of homilies that began last year on Pope St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Last year, we reviewed Part One, where the pope-saint taught us Christ's three Words about human love in Eden, on earth, and in eternity.

Now we are following his teaching in Part Two about the sacrament of marriage, the primordial expression of God's love that human persons are privileged to experiences as spouses. More recently, we looked at how marriage is like Mt. Everest in its reach and relevance to Catholic theology. And now we are considering "the wedding work," that is, the brides and groom's words and works as they live this primordial sacrament.

According to the John Paul II, another way spousal body language teaches the do’s and don’t’s of the social intercourse of heaven is by fulfilling the role of a prophet. Just as the prophets of the Old Testament – John Paul highlights the ministry of Isaiah, Hosea, and Ezekiel (pp. 535-37) – taught Israel how they should relate to God, their Bridegroom, so spousal love models how Christians should relate to Christ, our Bridegroom.

This is one sense of what the pope means when he claims that “human life is by its nature ‘co-educational’,” namely, spouses educate each other as prophets educate others, and spouses together become a prophetic team to educate the world. But John Paul insists that the spouse’s bodies fulfill this prophetic mission in a singular way:

On the basis of the “prophetism of the body,” ministers of the sacrament of Marriage perform an act of prophetic character…A “prophet” is one who expresses with human words the truth that comes from God, one who speaks this truth in the place of God, in his name and in some sense with his authority (539).

In other words, just as we must learn the different social mores and etiquette to successfully navigate cultures on earth – burping at the dinner table may be acceptable in Shanghai but not in Shreveport – so the body language of spouses instruct us in the mores and etiquette of eternity; the do’s and don’t’s of heaven. Thus, the bodies of spouses serve as prophets who speak for God.

The Holy Father adds another, and perhaps the most crucial, point about spousal body language, namely, this language can be either true or false; it can be honest or lie. And the best way to measure the truth and falsity of body language is by using the gauge of the wedding vows. In this sense, we might say that spousal body language occurs on two valences or levels, like protons and neutrons revolve at difference valences around an atom.

At one valence, spouses speak the truth by body language that accurately reflects the words they spoke at their wedding, that is, by being loving, attentive, generous, forgiving, cheerful, and so forth. At the other valence, however, the body can communicate falsely by contracting the wedding vows, being egotistical, petty, vain, duplicitous, lazy, etc. John Paul puts it in extreme terms: “[T]he body tells the truth through faithfulness and conjugal love, and, when it commits “adultery” it tells a lie, it commits falsehood” (538).

Let me give you some practical parallels. I’ve noticed that some professional tennis players will in effect “lie” with their body language on the court. Once I saw Carlos Alcaraz playing against a less skilled player, and he turned his gaze toward one side of the court, as if he were about to hit the ball there. His look fooled his opponent who moved in that direction. But Alcaraz actually directed the ball toward the other side of the court and easily won the point. The eyes of his body “said” one thing, but his shot said the opposite.

Basketball players lie with their bodies by doing a no-look pass deceiving the other team. Baseball pitchers lie with their bodies by trying to catch a player leaning off first base by a quick throw to get him out. Football quarterbacks lie by a pump-fake to cause the cornerback to come forward so they can throw a long pass. Lying with the body is helpful in sports, but it is harmful between spouses.

Why would married couples ever engage in such deceptive body language? John Paul recalls his earlier analyses about concupiscence (pp. 282-92) to explain why the spouses’ bodies might speak falsely or lie. In previous miles we discovered that concupiscence is the residual fall out from Original Sin (even after that sin has been forgive by Baptism). That is, concupiscence is a violent rupture in man’s interior experience of Original Solitude, Original Unity, and Original Nakedness, the three syllables of Christ’s First Word.

Whereas in Genesis 2 – before they committed Original Sin – Adam and Eve conversed through their body language truly and genuinely – indeed, effortlessly – and without any hint of dishonesty. Their body language, like their bodies themselves, were truly “naked” and without any pretense or posturing. Adam and Eve would have been “turrible” NBA players as Charles Barkley says. Their bodies were utterly incapable of throwing a no-look pass.

However, beginning in Genesis 3 (with the dawn of Original Sin), their bodies start to send false and deceptive signals, in fact, they learned to lie. The pope describes how Adam and Eve’s legacy of lying – a very apt analogy for concupiscence – continues to plague married couples today:

[W]e realize that the one who rereads this “language” and then expresses it not according to the needs proper to marriage as a covenant and sacrament, is naturally and morally the man of concupiscence: male and female, both [man and woman] understood as the “man of concupiscence” (545).

In other words, couples who are consumed by concupiscence fail to communicate through their bodies the simple truth of their wedding vows but rather speak falsely and contradict those vows. They are no longer holy prophets but unholy prevaricators, like Judas, a false prophet, who betrayed Jesus, the true Prophet, with a kiss.

Learning to read and speak this spousal body language, then, is the real “wedding work” of our third bucket of marriage preparation. When we arrive at our wedding day, we should focus not simply on the externals of whether the bride’s train will be 2 feet or 12 feet long or if you want 2 levels or 4 levels on the wedding cake.

Rather, our attention should absorbed by the internals of the depth of meaning of the wedding vows, and catching the social, spiritual, and sexual cues that create a life-long “consortium vitae” for earth and heaven, that is, a true partnership of life embracing every aspect. And that would not be such a “turrible idea.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!