Masculine Spousal Union with the Lord

The essential attributes of a man’s intimacy with Jesus and the key to get there.

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Notes for Mens’ cenacle April 30th, 2026

-Spousal intimacy and union is possible… HE WANTS IT!  It’s nurtured by the Tabernacle.

            -promote book of St Manuel Gonzalez Garcia, and Macu’s relic trip happened yesterday.

-My Eucharistic life in last year has become more bridal-chamber like.

            -helps that I have OLG chapel to myself. (find your alone time with Him)

            -time before Blessed Sacrament is like sun-tanning. With right disposition and

perseverance (love), it effects change in you. He’s doing it.

-there is increasing trust to be unveiled, where I’m at greater ease and confidence to look at my misery and be truthfully present with where I’m at.

-Just like an earthly marriage requires time spent alone and quality conversation

-What is spousal union? Beyond the sexual union, it is deepest possible connection

                        -the term “spousal union” with Christ triggers mixed reaction in us men

-Getting past the masculinity of Christ, one gets so connected at the deepest levels of the heart that a man can enter the mystical state of “spousal union” with the God-man.

-How can a man call his union with Christ spousal? (let us look at friendship vs spousal love)

-Friendship with Christ takes on all the proper spousal attributes

1)-Friends have some shared interests and mutual pursuits. That occurs in our relationship with Christ. What’s unique of spousal friendship is the total gift of one’s “I,” ego, heart-center, even the entire body to the other, not just sharing of some interests.

-Does this not occur as we grow closer to Him? We start discerning interests and pursuits to greater delicacy to His will in our state of life. (all is rubbish without Him)

-As we participate with greater frequency and intensity in living the Mass… there is a real exchange of bodies, gift of total self. The Mass is spousal friendship.

2)-Friendships aren’t sealed by exclusive permanent public vows or pledge. If common interests change, friendship wanes. Spousal love is sealed by exclusivity and permanency. For those married, paradoxically your exclusivity and permanency to Christ expressed in the married state, takes nothing from your wife but amplifies your exclusive and permanent vow to your wife.

-Union with Christ by nature calls for this exclusivity and permanency; waning would be considered betrayal and abandonment.

-This is why the Church safeguards from devout protestants from receiving communion when they attend a Mass like at a family wedding or funeral… eucharistic communion requires a public vow of permanency and exclusivity to Him in the Eucharist and His Church.

3) Friendship doesn’t involve “one-flesh” sexual union, but unique to spouses. Neither women nor men enter the marital act union with Christ in the physical sense. I believe women have it easier psychologically, emotionally and spiritually, to enter the “one-flesh” mystical union, for the obvious reason of being the opposite sex.

-Yet there is much of the marital act that is imitated in our “one-flesh” union with Him as men.

-In its purest form your marital act is a communication to your wife, that you see and behold the entirety of her personhood, where you see from the most privileged place, her dignity, the unique expression of the image and likeness of God in her totality (her gifts as in her miseries). This beholding, what you see with the eyes of your body and soul, elicits the heartfelt, trusting total gift of your dignity, your unique God image and likeness.

 -We may not experience normal erotic drive towards Christ, but the contemplation of His Person, full man and full God, in the brilliance and beauty of His excellence, can and does elicit heartfelt attraction to give of ourselves in imitation, with Him.

-In the marital act, the masculine identity tends to move to “give” while the feminine tends to move to “receive.” Not exclusive impulses. As men, our spousal union with Christ, is a genuine heartfelt attraction to give with Him. We might be tempted to complain as men when we see the women so easily receive heartfelt “love-poetry” consolation and inspiration in prayer, yet I ask myself this: The Bridegroom on the cross wasn’t receiving much from His bride the Church as far as consolation (definitely from Our Lady) during the climax of His  passion… Giving consumed Him (satisfied Him)… that we naturally have wired in us, even physically. We aren’t so disadvantaged… just need to persevere in giving… in giving that we receive.

-When we as men see the depth of His gift and sacrifice on the altar, how can we not be moved to “one-flesh” imitation? We aren’t voyeurs at Mass (peeping toms)

4) Friendship differs from spousal union in that only spousal union necessitates a life-giving openness to transmit and nurture life and building of family. Our spousal union with Christ has this life-giving essential element. Friends might just mutually benefit from the friendship, but spousal union generates life, physical and/or spiritual. Our spousal union with Christ will absolutely “expand the tent of our hearts.” As the Lord draws us closer to Himself, He will mission with our combined agape love to spread spiritual seed in His Church, and in our territory of souls according to His designs.

Three weeks ago, when it was announced that Macu was going to give us a teaching on St Francis, in honor of the Franciscan Jubilee year, I felt called to prepare my heart by watching a movie on the life of St Francis. Well, the Ignatius Press version I started, I ended up not finishing because it turned me off… Some saint movies can be quite cheesy. In this version, Francis came across as excessively eccentric. For example, in the process of Francis’ conversion, the movie chose to depict his encounter with Christ in the male Leper with a passionate kiss on the lips. I understand that in certain cultures males might greet each other with a kiss on the mouth, but this one was over the top and spoke to me of fake mysticism.  I cannot see myself in a profound encounter with Christ, wanting to kiss Him passionately on the lips… the male encounters in the gospels depict other male reactions, such as falling to His feet. (Peter and Thomas). After Macu’s cenacle, I asked her about the details of that leper encounter, and she explained to me that the historical account details a kiss on the leper’s hand. Much better. I don’t want to downplay the real spousal mystical union that male saints have had throughout history. It just can’t be banalized by easy human images and concepts. Spousal union as a man with the Lord begins to transcend sense knowledge conceptualizations.

            This past Sunday, Ernie and Juliana, Juan Carlos and I, took the opportunity to drive and visit Jack and Ammie for a few hours. Right out of the gate in our conversation, I was blown away by the spiritual insight Jack was trying to share. Obviously, some of his cognitive skills are declining and it’s getting harder for him to express himself. He also shared how he can’t really read and follow teachings, so I’m not entirely convinced that Jack could fully enter and receive last week’s teaching, and yet what he shared was a stunning parallel to last week’s teaching. He got choked up and shared how much the Lord was opening for him in the world of intimacy with His wife Ammie. That for most of his life he stunted intimacy, but now in this chapter of his life the Lord was opening 90% of a world of intimacy that he was not so attentive to. He struck the key of last week’s teaching… “sharing their deepest sorrows of the heart with each other, and of participating in the love of suffering with each other as one heart.” Jack described “seeing” the heart sorrows of his wife that he was not so attentive to beforehand. Obviously this massive cross they have carried together during this past year has blossomed their intimacy also… they cannot fix each other’s pain… They simply are EMBRACING each other’s pain.

Spousal union is formed in the school of the heart… mysticism is not achieved in grad school. In the second decade reflection I gave back in February, I shared a practice I use in my Eucharistic time that has worked for me. In a nutshell, Lourdes summarized it perfectly with the question of the Lord:

What do you say to your Beloved as you sit with Me, gazing at Me? DO NOT CENSOR/BE REAL

            -What do you (I) see? What do You see?

My exercise:

-face the feeling of shame head-on, being real 

-learning to sit with oneself, to be attentive to the stirrings of one’s heart

            -be in contact with pain and deepest longings, aware of my graspings

            -what’s going on in my relationships: family, work (specifics of yesterday)

            -See in my pain, self-love, attachments, expectations, reacting to loved ones with my feelings (annoyance, anger, harshness)

-Can there ever be dryness, indifference, or mediocrity when in contact with your pain? Of course not.

-Processing your pain should always bring you into contact with underlying pure pain.

            -Guess what: you aren’t a monster. Your pure pain is gold.

            -This is where the magic of SUFFER WITH happens

            -Your pure pain is truly His pain. Now it gets real (HIS)… You can relate… but it’s far more; it’s full communion.

            -This is where real purification and transformation happen

            -You begin having “Los mismos sentimentos de Cristo”, the same sentiments as Christ

“Suffer with” is where the untamed wild bronco in your heart, that’s causing lots of chaos inside you (going against intellect/will), is trained and channeled with its full force into harmony with Intellect and will.

I believe this type of daily practice, prayer time with the Eucharist, is a real practical way to living this message:

Now, My beloved, I draw you into the fire of My Sacred Heart to reveal to you My

sorrows, for this is where spouses live intimacy. On earth, few spouses enter intimacy

because they are incapable of sharing their deepest sorrows of the heart with each

other, and of participating in the love of suffering with each other as one heart. I, the

Bridegroom, on the other hand, long for a spouse, like My Mother, who was willing to

enter My Sacred Heart and come to know all of My sorrows, and in this way, come to

experience My divine love. (October 15th, 2025)

Our own pain becomes the gateway into His pain. Especially as men, our suffering is the hinge for spousal union with Him… St. John of the Cross is prime example. I pray we can all be filled with Hope considering our own pains… they are our most precious gift to union with Him. As we will move forward in this retreat in contemplating His desolation, don’t loose sight of this spousal union finality.

Let us open it up now to share on the homework questions of Lourdes’ reflection, or the exercise I propose to you for prayer.