The Church: The Bride of Christ

“Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has made herself ready.” – Revelations 19:7

If any of you know who St. John of the Cross is, hopefully you have read or are reading his writings right now, mainly his poetry. Especially in his poem and subsequent book, "The Spiritual Canticle of the Soul", he describes something absolutely amazing: The soul as the bride of Christ, our Heavenly Bridegroom. In fact, the entire Church is the Bride of Christ, given to Him in marriage by the Father.

In Scripture, we see what it means to be wedded to someone. In Genesis, "the two become one flesh". The Church is also the Body of Christ, with Christ as the head. How else could the Church be the Body of Christ without being His Bride, wedded to Him and united in one flesh? In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he says, "Men, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it." Men being commanded to give themselves to their wives just as Christ gave Himself for the Church shows how man and woman married together and given to each other is a reflection of the divine love between Christ and His Bride the Church. St. John the Apostle tells us how he saw the Bride of the Lamb come to the marriage feast in Revelations 21:2 - "And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." 

Each of us, all members of Christ's Body the Church, and therefore all part of His Bride the Church, are called to be completely in love with Him, wholly given to Him in everything we are and do. In essence, each and every one of us is called to give ourselves in Most Holy Matrimony to Christ our Heavenly Bridegroom. Obviously, if He is our Bridegroom, we will never be in that state of divine marriage with Him until we are with Him in Paradise. However, our life is therefore similar to an engagement process by which we seek to be closer to Him to be finally in the fullness of matrimony afterwards. As any engaged couple will do, we prepare to be with our Lord by our living and giving for Him in total self-sacrificing love. And, most importantly, we receive Him in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which, although the greatest thing possible in this material life, is still not as amazing as the completely overwhelming, enveloping, pure, complete love we will know and have in Heaven. 

So let us all live as the Bride of Christ, preparing for the divine marriage between the Bridegroom and His Bride. Let us all prepare as any bride would to be with our Beloved Bridegroom for all eternity, opening more and more to His great love every day, seeing Him on a daily basis to fall more and more in love with Him, and doing everything for His will, receiving Him as often as we can to come even closer to that union which will be perfected in our new life in Him in Paradise!

St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Jesus, and all of you holy men and women, please pray for us! Holy Mary, Mother of God, prepare all of us, your children, to be wedded to your Son, our Lord! Amen!