Professional paper
The sacrament of matrimony and its effects of grace according to K. Rahner
Ivan Antunović
; Filozofski fakultet Družbe Isusove, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The aim of this article is to give some insight into the Catholic understanding of the relationship between grace and the sacraments, in particular the sacrament of Matrimony. The author emphasizes that all of creation and the world itself should be regarded in a certain sense as a sacrament, whereby the presence of the Creator's salvific grace and the grace of divine disclosure becomes as evident as the presence of the soul within the body.
The created world in which we live and in which we realize our relationship with God, who has chosen to thus reveal Himself to us, is in itself a grace which enables us to live our relationship with Him more easily and more profoundly. Therefore, the cosmos is in essence sacred and as such it reveals to us our God. If it be perceived as profane or abandoned by God, this is so primarily because the sanctity of the human heart has been violated.
The second element that the author has emphasized is Christ's sacramental presence in history, which is the source of the totality of the graced life, the purpose of which in turn is the consecration and salvation of the world. In the initial part of this paper the author has demonstrated that this grace is always manifest through the Church as a universal sacrament as well as the individual sacraments which are her proper liturgical acts, and through which the encounter between God and man through Christ and in Christ is continually realized throughout history. The second part of this paper is devoted to the sacrament of Matrimony and demonstrates the particular effects of its graces. The stress here is on the human experience of conjugal love as the expression of the love which encompasses all of humankind, and it is through this love that the mystery of God's love for mankind is revealed.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
1287
URI
Publication date:
3.9.2002.
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