While some argue that this German Catholic philosopher and theologian neglected the role of procreation in marriage, this book shows that von Hildebrand's writings on reverence and superabundant finality contribute to a contemporary understanding of the significance of procreation within marriage. Schemenauer analyzes von Hildebrand's integration of conjugal love and procreation, showing him to be an insightful and parallel voice to the that of John Paul II.
Before we examine the nature, the meaning, and the beauty of Christian marriage (which St. Paul calls "a great mystery in Christ and the Holy Church"), we shall examine the essence and meaning of marriage in the realm of nature, and its specific character in reference to all other fellowships and communities. Only in this way can we understand what was so gloriously exalted by Jesus Christ and thus dispel the misinterpretations of the nature of marriage so frequently encountered. Why does Holy Scripture choose this particular relationship as an image? It is chosen because marriage is the closest and most intimate of all earthly unions in which, more than in any other, one person gives himself to another without reserve, where the other in his complete personality is the object of love, and where mutual love is in a specific way the theme (that is to say, the core) of the relationship.
Resource for Catholics and others called to promote and defend marriage defined as the union of one man and one woman. Recounts "Marriage Battle of Massachusetts" (1997-2007) and offers theological reflection on why sexual difference matters as the image of God's conjugal love.
This book is the next volume in Levering's Engaging Doctrine series. The prior volume of the series examined the doctrine of creation. The present volume examines the purpose of creation: the marriage of God and humans. God created the cosmos for the purpose of the marriage of God and his people--and through his people, the marriage of God and the entire creation. Given that the central meaning or "prime analogate" of marriage is the marriage of God and humankind, the study of human marriage needs to be shaped by this eschatological goal and foregrounded as a dogmatic theme. After a first chapter defending and explaining the biblical witness to the marriage of God and his people, the book explores various themes: marriage as an image of God, original sin as the fall of the primordial marriage, the cross of Jesus Christ and marital self-sacrificial love, the procreative and unitive ends of marriage, marriage as a sacrament, and marriage's importance for social justice and for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. Along the way, the book provides an introduction to the key biblical, patristic, medieval, modern, and contemporary thinkers and controversies regarding the doctrine of marriage.
The Mysteries of Christianity is Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s youthful magnum opus, a logically rigorous and spiritually profound dogmatic theology. In its pages, he explores the intelligibility of Christianity’s supernatural mysteries and their deep connectedness, ultimately demonstrating that Christian theology constitutes a science before the court of human reason, even as its object transcends human comprehension. Scheeben’s task is to present a unified view of the whole panorama of revealed truth, and he pursues this by considering nine key Christian mysteries: the Trinity, creation, sin, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the Church and its sacraments, justification, eschatological glory, and predestination. Since the mystery of the Trinity is the root of the supernatural order, Scheeben begins here, showing that the foundation of the salvific economy lies in the eternal processions of persons in God—the begetting of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit being in different ways the cause of the life of grace in the human soul. When the Son and the Spirit are sent into the world in the Incarnation and through the bestowal of grace, they provide the way for human beings to see God face-to-face in the beatific vision, the end for which God created humans. Among the means of return to God, Scheeben particularly emphasizes the Eucharist, on account of its close connection with the mystery of the Incarnation. By placing his treatment of the Eucharist before that of the Church, he signals that his is a genuinely Eucharistic ecclesiology, centered on the abiding presence of the incarnate divine Son.
Peter Jeffery explores in depth the Catholic tradition which has shaped our teaching and our living, following two principal themes--marriage as covenant and family as a domestic church. He shows how the family, with all its relationships, is sacramental.
