The Gates of Hell Will Not Prevail Against Your Marriage

If there is one truly fitting analogy of Christ’s promise and commitment to the Church in scripture, it is that of marriage. This union of Christ and the Church is not strictly friendship, not strictly ownership (as a master to a slave), not strictly contractual. Rather the Church is the Bride of Christ, which encompasses all these elements.

This is why Christians can claim divine intimacy as part of our spiritual adoption, and why we can call the God of the Universe, Abba, Father. Just as Adam knew Eve and produced progeny, Christ knows His Church and produces within us spiritual fruit through sanctifying grace.

In the 1939 papal encyclical, Casti Connubii, Pius XI says, quoting the Council of Trent:

By raising the Matrimony of His faithful to the dignity of a true sacrament, [Christ] made it a sign and source of that peculiar internal grace by which “it perfects natural love, confirms an indissoluble union, and sanctifies both man and wife.” (38)

That is, for two validly married, baptized Catholics united in a consummated marriage, there is no force on earth, no solvent that can dissolve this bond…not even the Pope. (Note: there are non-Catholic marital situations which would also constitute a sacramental marriage. See my post Healing a Marriage ‘In the Root’: What is a Radical Sanation? for a pictographic.)

The Crosses of Marriage

For one who is in a dysfunctional or trying marriage, this can be a source of despair because it can become a kind of hell with no hope of exit. Yet, because of the effects of sacramental grace in the Sacrament of Matrimony, no marriage is beyond repair when one cooperates with that grace made available in the Sacrament. As Pius XI notes:

Since men do not reap the full fruit of the sacraments . . . unless they cooperate with grace, the grace of matrimony will remain for the most part an unused talent hidden in the field unless both parties exercise these supernatural powers. (41)

Even though some may despair at being “stuck with” the person who has become their cross for a lifetime, one can also find great solace in this indissoluble character of the sacramental bond and the grace that imbues it.

And how do we relate such a situation, analogously, to the example of Christ’s wedding to His Bride, the Church? For He said that the Church was founded on the rock of Peter, and “the gates of Hell will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). In the darkest hours when all seems lost, we can have faith that Christ is not lying and that He will not abandon us to the dark powers of Hell that attack us.

Because we have this same assurance about a sacramental marriage – that no force on earth acting outside of it can break it apart – we can live with the assurance of stability when we cooperate with grace.

St. Paul alludes to this continence when he says that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Because of concupiscence, our wills have been weakened; the Devil cannot enter into us except through the portal of the will. And so, though he is like a wild dog on a leash, when we voluntarily walk into his circle, we have the potential to get bit. But nothing compels us to do this…except our own wills. Therefore, when we cooperate with grace, we are choosing to stay in a state of sanctifying grace with the safety of divine protection as it relates to our souls. That is a good place to be, especially in a marriage.

Human Changeability

In my article, I Liked You The Way You Were Before, I explored the issue of what happens when one partner “changes” in a marriage, and radically so. In this instance it involved an autistic married man who went from being “autistically even keeled” emotionally (which his wife, as a chronically depressed person, appreciated) to someone “joyfully shedding the cloak of disability” and being in tune with not only his own emotions and social cues, but with those of others as well – something foreign to him as an autistic man.

There was also that interesting historic case of Phineas Cage, who seemed to be transformed into another person altogether after a railroad spike went through his skull. Sometimes marriage seems like that: you marry one person, and the next morning you seem to be married to a stranger.

Of course this can happen also with those married to someone with Alzheimer’s for instance. It can be very difficult and trying. But, despite all evidence to the contrary, this is still the same soul you married, that you were joined to as one flesh “until death do us part” – even when they regard you as a stranger.

I was disgusted to hear my parents recount a friend of theirs who had started dating a man whose wife was in this situation. He essentially abandoned her due to this Alzheimer’s disease and took up with someone else. I don’t know the details, but objectively speaking any justification of such an adulterous action has no grounds in faith and is a deplorable dereliction of duty rooted in selfishness. When we think carnally, we act carnally.

Christ Will Not Abandon His Bride

It’s interesting to think of this “You’ve changed…I know longer know you” phenomenon (which is so common in marriages) as it relates to the current “marriage” of Christ to His Church. The manifestation of the Church for us as a family – that is, how it is lived out in worship – has for the past five years been expressed for us exclusively in the Extraordinary Form. Our kids do not even know the New Mass; it is akin to a foreigner for them.

But what would happen if the Vicar of Christ were to put the boot on the neck and, overnight, this form of the Mass were practically abrogated for us as a family? What would we do? For some, this has already happened in their dioceses. I was speaking with a priest friend last night over dinner and fleshing this out with him. What would it look like? Would we take up at a Byzantine parish? Fly to the FSSP? Stay at our diocesan parish and attend the Novus Ordo (celebrated ad orientum, but still)?

I don’t have all the answers, so I just pray for the grace to stay faithful if and when we are faced with this conundrum. Christ will not abandon His Church, just as the marriage between my wife and I can never be dissolved, under any circumstances. Were she to change overnight, become unrecognizable, I would still be bound to her, though it seems as if I would be bound to a stranger. And yet, we are called to remain true, to be faithful, until death do us part.

The Grace Available

God will give us the supernatural grace to do that, when it seems impossible to accomplish it through human means alone. Just as in a marriage the grace of the Sacrament is strengthened through regular marital intimacy and conjugal union, so in our lives of faith we are strengthened by regular reception of the Holy Eucharist.

Just as we continually ask forgiveness in a marriage and do not hold sin against our own flesh, so we are strengthened in faith in the sacrament of Penance. Just as our witness as a married couple can give courage and our love can have the character of holy chrism, so too with the sacrament of Confirmation as it relates to faith.

The gates of Hell will not prevail against God’s Church, though the Bride be disfigured in her purification. And the gates of Hell will not prevail against your marriage either because you are assured that the bond which holds you together as one flesh is indissoluble, if you trust that God can sanctify you through it. Every marriage goes through a crucible in which each party is refined; perhaps the Church is preparing to enter that ultimate test as well in the coming days.