Wedding Words and Works, Part 4

Seeing married life as liturgical life

06/11/2025

As John Paul II turns the corner, concluding his meditations on the Song of Songs to consider Tobit, suddenly the finish line of chapter two emerges on the horizon. Only 23 more pages to go! Once again, we should note that the poor people crowded into St. Peter’s Square back in 1984 listening to the future saint deliver his Theology of the Body addresses in person were deprived of hearing several sections of Tobit. But we are not deprived because we have the full text before our eyes.

First, John Paul summarizes the story-line of Tobit, and how the plot thickens with a test of life and death. He writes:

We read there that Sarah, daughter of Raguel had already “been given in marriage to seven men” (Tob 6:14), but that each one of them had died before uniting with her. This happened through the work of the evil spirit Asmodeus…Young Tobias too had reasons to fear a similar death. When he asks for Sarah’s hand, Raguel gives her to him with the significant words, “May the Lord of heaven help you tonight, my child, and grant you his mercy and peace” (Tob 7:12) (596).

Incidentally, the Holy Father omitted one intriguing detail, namely, Raguel fully expected Tobias to suffer the same fate as Sarah’s other seven suitors. So Tob 8:9-10 recounts: “But Raguel arose and went and dug a grave, with the thought, ‘Perhaps, [Tobias], too, will die.’” By the way, how would you feel if your new father-in-law were digging your grave on your honeymoon night? And people say the Bible is boring?

In any case, the pope-saint’s principal preoccupation in this section is with the prayer of Tobias and Sarah on their honeymoon night. How many newlyweds said a prayer before consummating their marriage? Indeed, John Paul begins this portion by quoting the entire prayer from Tobit 8:5-8. The Holy Father contends that their shared prayer effectively encapsulates the entire liturgy of marriage.

John Paul explains:

The prayer of Tobias and Sarah becomes in some way the deepest model of the liturgy, whose word is a word of power. It is a word of power drawn from the sources of covenant and of grace. It is the power that frees from evil and purifies (604).

The spouses utter this liturgical prayer in two distinct ways and in the two chief moments of the sacrament of marriage. First, they enunciate the vows of marriage and act as the ministers of the sacrament of marriage. Incidentally, as the priest-presider, I do not marry anyone, I merely serve as the official witness.

Rather, the groom bestows the sacrament on his bride, and the bride does so conversely. That is, their vows are precisely the “words of power that free from evil and purify.” At this point in the wedding I ask the bride and groom to face each other rather than look at me. When they do so, they turn and look at the true minister of the sacrament of marriage.

The spouses speak this liturgical prayer a second time with their bodies – what John Paul repeatedly calls “the language of the body” – at the moment of consummating their marriage. Properly speaking, the wedding liturgy only begins at church but it is not completed until the couple reaches the bedroom. And that is also why couples traditionally kiss at the end of the wedding Mass. The kiss, as body language, becomes a preview of coming attractions: the remainder of the liturgy will occur in the bedroom.

But note this well: every occasion in which couples consummate their marriage is not just a sexual act, it is also a liturgical act. Husband and wife repeat with their bodies 10, 20, or 30 years later the vows they said with their lips. In that sense, each and every act of consummation should be a moment of liturgical prayer. Why? Because with their bodies, spouses pronounce “a word of power that frees from evil and purifies.”

Now, what precisely is this liturgical power of marriage, and from where exactly does it pour forth? The liturgical prayer of spouses (spoken by words and actions), unleashes divine power that originates in the heart of the Holy Trinity, an infinite Communion of three divine Persons. Or, as Hebrews 12:29 eloquently expresses it: “Our God is a consuming fire." In other words, God is an infinite inferno whose combusting power purifies human love until all the dross of lust is burned away; until spouses learn to love like God loves.

This past spring I flew to San Antonio to give a retreat on the Theology of the Body to a zealous little Bible study group. While waiting in the airport I was watching families going on Spring Break: some dressed for the beach, others for camping, others for a cruise. But I really began to see that each family, however chaotic or comical, was a small mirror of the Holy Trinity. How so?

Husbands and wives who as ministers of their own marriages had spoken the words of their vows with their lips at church, and later with their bodies repeated those vows in the bedroom, had borne the fruit of that love in their children. You see, every natural family is not merely the basic cell of society; it is a spark flying from the infinite inferno of all-consuming fire of the Holy Trinity. I felt a sudden urge to stand up in the middle of DFW airport and exclaim: “What a perfect place for contemplation!” Indeed, that bustling airport was almost as holy as the Adoration Chapel.

The Holy Father devotes the final six pages of chapter two (610-15) to recapping how Ephesians elevates the liturgical prayer of Tobit onto a mystical plane. John Paul writes:

This text [of Ephesians] brings us to a dimension of the “language of the body” that could be called “mystical”…[The author of Ephesians] does not hesitate to extend that mystical analogy to the “language of the body,” reread in truth of spousal love and of the conjugal union of the two (613).

Sometimes we think to experience something sublime, other-worldly, or mystical we have to climb to a lofty mountain and seek wisdom from a solitary Tibetan monk. Well, married couples do not need to climb a mountain because your marriage IS a majestic Mt. Everest, and your married life IS the mystical life spread over the years between your wedding day and “till death do you part.”

Every Sunday families sit in the pews and look toward the sanctuary to see the presence of God. And you see it enacted in the divine liturgy called the Mass. Likewise, every Sunday I sit in the sanctuary and look toward the pews filled with families and try to see the presence of God. And I see it enacted, too, in the conjugal liturgy that is married life.

At the altar I whisper liturgical words of power that purify and transform natural bread and wine into the sacramental presence of the second Person of the Holy Trinity. In the pews you whisper words of power – “Be quiet! Sit still! Pay attention! Stop fighting!” – that purify and transform natural families into the sacramental presence of the Most Holy Trinity. And that is the unflagging hope of the Theology of the Body: to grasp that your marriage and family are the sacramental equivalent of a Solemn High Mass.

Praised be Jesus Christ!