AMORE (CONIUGALE)

**LOVE (CONJUGAL).**—It is the mutual affection that binds the two spouses in their reciprocal, full, and constant self-giving: mind, heart, and body. The very word “spouses,” “conjugal,” immediately indicates that this is a “yoke,” hence a life, a journey “in two,” which will necessarily entail limits, impose conditions, and even demand heroism—something that neither free love (v.), nor experimental love, nor any other union can claim to possess. The topic is developed further below (v. MATRIMONY: uniqueness, indissolubility, purpose); here, we address only the qualities, fruits, and riches that conjugal love brings when it flourishes between a man and a woman united for a “journey in two” and is elevated by the Sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ.

I. CONJUGAL LOVE IS A RECIPROCAL ENRICHMENT OF THE SPOUSES

a) When God created man and woman, He endowed each with profound differences—not limited to the physiological order but also evident in character, talents, tendencies, and aspirations. Neither alone constitutes a complete whole in every respect; each needs the help of the other, with whom to unite as closely as possible, to be completed and perfected. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:18). Man and woman must complement each other, each contributing what the other lacks. Their differences, therefore, are complementary and destined to find harmonious fusion in conjugal love, resulting in the physical and spiritual enrichment of the spouses. The woman needs to feel and find in the man a being whom she can venerate and admire; the man feels the need for the gentle, caring, prudent, and beneficial influence of the woman. b) Man, created in the image and likeness of God, who is “love” (1 Jn. 4:8), is also, in his innermost being, love. Just as the three divine Persons of the Most Holy Trinity are infinitely happy in their reciprocal love, so too does the family, in the deep love of its members, become the purest and truest source of happiness. True and deep love is not selfishness but self-giving: for the beloved, no sacrifice is too hard or burdensome; indeed, everything becomes light, lovable, and attainable. One does not content oneself with giving this or that; rather, one gives everything, even oneself, without regret. The image of this love is contemplated in the Most Holy Trinity and, in a moving way, in the human nature of the Son of God. St. Paul (Eph. 5:25-33) compares the love of spouses to the love of Christ for His bride, the Church. Conjugal love must therefore strive to reproduce these two ideals; the closer it comes to them, the more it will be ennobled and bring happiness. c) Conjugal love demands the active cooperation of the spouses in the various events and situations of family life. “The duties proper to the man are different from those of the woman, the mother; yet neither can the woman remain entirely estranged from the work of the husband, nor the husband from the concerns of the wife. What is done in the family must in some way be the fruit of collaboration; it must, to some degree, be the common work of the two spouses” (Pius XII, Address to Spouses, March 18, 1942). This full collaboration must be given with mind, will, and action; it is founded on mutual esteem and respect; it subordinates individual works and tastes to the common thought and goal. This cannot happen unless each spouse knows how and when to impose necessary restrictions on their own freedom; avoids what could constitute a snare to the fidelity of heart and body (platonic friendships, imprudent flirtations, risky conversations and visits at untimely hours); detests the more serious snares and allurements of compensatory affections (cf. the plot of A. Fogazzaro’s novel *Daniele Cortis* [All the Works of A. F., ed. P. Nardi, III, Milan 1931, p. 460: “They are spouses without marriage, not in the flesh, but in the heart”]); adapts to the other’s temperament, patiently tolerates their shortcomings and defects. Hence, a continual exercise of virtue, at times even heroic, which, though it may seem difficult, brings true enrichment of virtue to those who practice II. d) If, according to the concept of St. Paul, spouses must reproduce the reciprocal love of Christ and the Church, it follows that their love will take on a liberating function. It will increasingly be modeled on the image of Christ, seen in the other spouse, and will transcend the phase of mere romantic love, of purely sensual attraction. One will love the other for what he or she is and represents, namely, God; and without depriving themselves of any of the joys marriage brings, they will use them for mutual aid in forming and perfecting each day more the shared interior life, the serenity of a sweet yet vibrant intimacy. The very reciprocal gift of their persons, with all the moral and physical riches it entails, will, so to speak, lose all monotony and automatism and become the spontaneous expression and enchanting crown of love.

II. CONJUGAL LOVE ELEVATED BY THE SACRAMENT

a) The love of spouses assumes an even higher moral value because the marriage that consecrates it has been raised by God to the dignity of a sacrament. The conjugal union thus becomes a channel of supernatural and sanctifying life. Just as, at the moment of Matrimony, the two spouses were instruments of mutual sanctification—since they, and not the priest present, were the ministers of the Sacrament, mutually given and received—so too do they continue to sanctify themselves in the exercise of conjugal life. For although the sacrament itself is but an act that passes and a gesture of an instant, it has a lasting effect and transforms the marital state into a permanent spiritual state, a source of continuous graces. It is thus compared to the sacrament of Holy Orders and the Eucharist: to Holy Orders, because the spouses are its ministers, as the priest is the minister of the others; to the Eucharist, “because it is a sacrament not only while it is being conferred but also while it endures; and as long as the spouses live, their union is always the sacrament of Christ and the Church” (Pius XI, encyclical *Casti Connubii*). Therefore, by virtue of the sacramental grace received in the sacrament, all works concerning the obligations and duties of the marital state (expressions of love, tenderness, joys, acts of gratitude, care of the home and family, intimate relations), if performed in the grace of God and in legitimate ways, are not only holy works but also means of mutual sanctification. This explains the Church’s care and concern to preserve conjugal love from even the slightest shadow that might dim its splendor; and it also explains why the healthy and legitimate exercise of it may justly be called one of the paths to holiness.

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**LOVE (OF THE NEIGHBOR):** V. CHARITY.