Christ's entire life, His immolation, His Cross, His suffering, His death was to reveal the love of His Heart. As St. Maximun the Confessor wrote, Jesus is a divine person who loved us with a human heart. He loved us without reserve, He loved us with a profound desire of being corresponded, He loved us to death. His amazing divine-human love gives us a new understanding of the meaning of spousal love. This is the love of God who entered into covenant with His People and was faithful even when the bride was not.
"As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you" -Is 63:5
God's love begs for a full response from us who as members of the Church are His beloved bride. That is why we offer ourselves as victims, "for Him, with Him and in Him", as we say in the mass. This is the kiss of love.
In the mystical tradition of the Church it is well known that Jesus calls religious women to be His bride. But also married woman, like Ven. Concepcion Cabrera de Armida, have entered into mystical marriage with Christ.
Priests, as alter Christus, have a spousal relationship with the Church. They are called to give themselves completely to her, to shepherd, teach, serve, provide her spiritual nourishment and to die for her.
In order to understand spousal love as it refers to the relationship between Jesus and Christians, it is necessary to be healed from the prevalent sexual obsessions which permeate our culture. We must discover that all the essential characteristics of spousal love are revealed in Christ's love on the cross. We must ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to understand it and live it.
By discovering the spiritual core reality of spousal love in Christ we do not minimize the meaning of sexual union in the sacrament of marriage, rather we come to understand its true purpose as an expression, a sign, that is meant to communicate the total self giving of the love of God. At the same time we are able to see that spousal love is not confined to sexuality. In fact sexual union, even among married couples, is not true spousal love if it fails to express the sacrificial love of Christ.
Spousal love is the love of Christ expressed at the cross where he laid down His life for His bride. We must remember that He died for a sinful bride who rejected her and still often does. What is our response? He desires the bride to follow Him and enter into union. For this she must deny herself and take her cross. Both men and woman are called to this union with Christ and to reflect Christ's love in the way they love one another. When this radical love unites hearts Christians become credible witnesses.
-Fr. Jordi Rivero
The spousal love of God, manifested in Christ
I love because I love, I love that I may love
From a sermon by St. Bernard, abbot. Office of August 20
Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.
The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?
Rightly then does she give up all other feelings and give herself wholly to love alone; in giving love back, all she can do is to respond to love. And when she has poured out her whole being in love, what is that in comparison with the unceasing torrent of that original source? Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and Bridegroom, creature and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one might as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.
What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate love, her confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in love with him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists. Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a greater love?
Jesus our spouse
There are two things that are God’s and God’s alone: the honour of receiving confession and the power of granting forgiveness. Confession is what we must make to him, and forgiveness is what we must hope to receive from him. The power to forgive sins belongs only to God, and this is why we must confess them to him.
But God has taken a bride. The Almighty has taken the feeble one, the Most High has taken the lowly one – out of a servant he has made a queen. She was behind and beneath him and he raised her to be at his side. From out of his wounded side she came, and he took her to be his bride.
Just as all that the Father has is the Son’s, so too what the Son has is the Father’s, since they share the same undivided nature. In just the same way the bridegroom gave all that was his to the bride and shared all that she had, making her one with himself and the Father. Hear the Son making his plea to the Father for his bride: I desire that just as you and I are one, so these should be one with us.
The bridegroom is one with the Father and one with his bride. Whatever in her was foreign to her nature he took away from her and nailed to the cross. He carried her sins with him onto the tree and by the tree he took them away from her. Whatever was natural and and proper to her he took on and clothed himself in it. Whatever was divine and proper to him, he bestowed on her. He took away what was diabolical, took on what was human, conferred what was divine, so that all that the bride possessed should be the bridegroom’s also. Thus it is that he who has committed no sin, on whose lips is no deceit, can say Take pity on me, Lord, for I am weak – for he who shares in his bride’s weakness must share in her lament, and thus all that is the bridegroom’s is the bride’s also. Here is where the honour of confession comes from, and the power of forgiveness, so that it can truly be said: Go and show yourself to the priest!
The Church can forgive nothing without Christ, and it is Christ’s will to forgive nothing except with the Church. The Church can forgive no-one except the penitent – that is, one who has been touched by Christ – and Christ does not wish to forgive anyone who does not value the Church. What God has united, man must not divide, says Christ, and Paul adds, I am saying that this great mystery applies to Christ and the Church.
Do not sever the head from the body so that Christ is whole no longer. For Christ is not whole without the Church, nor is the Church whole without Christ. This is why he says No-one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man who is in heaven. He is the only man who can forgive sins.
