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A Covenant of Love
The institution of marriage
is not an undue interference by society or authority, or the extrinsic imposition of a form. Rather it is an interior requirement of the covenant of a conjugal love which is publicly affirmed as unique and exclusive, in order to live in complete fidelity to the plan of God, the Creator. A person’s freedom, far from being restricted by this fidelity, is secured against every form of subjectivism or relativism and is made a sharer in creative Wisdom.
The communion of love between God and people, a fundamental part of the Revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds a meaningful expression in the marriage covenant which is established between man and woman.
For this reason the central word of Revelation, “God loves his people,” is likewise proclaimed through the living and concrete word whereby a man and a woman express heir conjugal love. Their bond of love becomes the image and the symbol of the covenant which unites God and his people. And the same sin which can harm the conjugal covenant becomes an image of infidelity of the people to their God: idolatry is prostitution, infidelity is adultery, and disobedience to the law is abandonment of the spousal love of the Lord. But the infidelity of Israel does not destroy the eternal fidelity of the Lord, and therefore the ever faithful love of God is put forward as the model of the relations of faithful love which should exist between spouses.
—Pope John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, n 11-12
Published: November 26, 2007
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