“Only through faith you’ll be able to see, that in the meeting between spouses is hidden love reaching beyond death.
Only through faith and meditation you will be able to uncover the depths of the Temple present within your spouse.
Only through prayer you can receive the grace to see, that your spiritual temples are in union and complete each other with their manhood and womanhood.
Only in faith you will understand your humanity and gift of life.
Then the awe of the presence of Christ will astonish you”
A couple years ago, my work schedule allowed me to attend mass during the week at a church in the suburbs of Chicago. An elderly couple, arm-in-arm, often sat in the pew adjacent to mine. Everything seemed ordinary except for the fact that the majority of people in the church, even the priest at times, treated them with exceptional respect. There was certain warmth emanating from this couple, characterized with simplicity and dignity. However, their attitude towards other people and themselves was even more surprising. Often times after Mass, a few people would approach the couple to ask them a question, wish them warm greetings, or thank them for something. Once I overheard them speaking something like this:, “…mutual love between spouses must grow in union with Christ. It becomes more and more spiritual, internal, joyous, and subservient, engaging and permeating every aspect of your humanity, introducing inner peace.”
The example given by this elderly couple was literally a testament to the words Blessed Pope John Paul II left for theologians and married couples to contemplate. He wrote, “The relationship between love and purity, as well as the relationship of love and purity with the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is the gift of devotion, is a little-known topic of the theology of the body, but calls for especial reflection.” – John Paul II, Man and Woman: He created Them, A Theology of The Body, Lublin 2001
The Body as a Temple
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
1 Cor 3:16-17
‘and there will be no one to say, “Look, it is here! Look, it is there!” For look, the kingdom of God is among you.’ Luke 17:21
You must discover your temple in order to, as St. Teresa of Avila states, “enter the depths.” Only this understanding will allow you to experience the presence of Christ in your temple. However, there are a few prerequisites, which will require effort and time. To meet Christ, you must purge from your heart all competing and fetishistic attachments and dependencies, so that it is free from vices and wholly pure, ready to meet with the Love of Jesus. Gaining experience in internal prayer, along with an understanding of patience and silence, is key. It is necessary to acknowledge that every dimension of your inner temple, spiritual, mental, emotional, rational, and physiological, are all the work of God and belong to Him. It is not possible to force this; you must wait for permission and submit to the workings of God’s saving love.
And so begins the longest journey in life, a journey from the depths of your temple to meeting Jesus himself. With this preparation, a person can begin to understand the greatness hidden in his or her spouse and be ready to accept the grace of unifying both temples into “one flesh” for“this is a great mystery.” Eph 5:32
Roman Harmata
