The Marriage Bed: Holy of Holies of the Family
A plethora of authors have written about the bridal aspects of the sacred liturgy and how the holy of holies is analogous to the bridal chamber. For those of us who are married, it may be useful to flip the analogy and look at the marriage bed as the holy of holies of the family. There are several things concerning the Old Testament Holy of Holies that apply to the marriage bed.
The first is that the Holy of Holies is the place of encounter with God Almighty. A priest friend of mine loves this aspect and takes it so far as to say that the marriage bed is the altar of the family. The marriage bed is the place where we married men have the grace to participate in God’s own creative action. As God uses the priest’s words and body to effect the transubstantion of bread into the body of Christ, God uses our marital act to provide the matter for the creation of a new human person, a person loved and willed by God Almighty from all eternity.
When you look at your marriage bed, just remember that it is here that lives are conceived to give glory to God for all the rest of eternity and Our Lord went to His cross thinking and loving them. This thought alone should fill us with awe and reverence for this sacred space. If it is the altar, then it is also the cross. It is the cross upon which we sacrifice our pride, our selfishness, our lust, all of our sins and vices. We offer them to God through our spouse.
Thus, the Catholic marriage bed is not something for mere carnal pleasure or sleep, but a sacred place, as sacred as the vows that consecrate it. Do we treat it as something sacred? Do we keep it clean and neat? Do we make it daily? How do we guard its sanctity? I admire one of my friends who holds the sanctity of his marriage bed so strongly that he has a rule that no one but him, his wife and children may touch his marriage bed. Perhaps that is not practical for many, but I have no doubt that we all can find ways to treat our marriage bed with dignity.
A final point and why this article is for husbands: we are the priest of the domestic church. We are the heads of our households. No one can kick us out of what is truly our own. If your wife has ever kicked you out of your own bed, then you are not the head of your household, she is. If she is so angry that she cannot stand to be in the same bed as you, then she can go somewhere else.
Now with that said, it is important to always share the marriage bed and not go to sleep angry. In my house it is one of our family rules that we always sleep together and that we not go to bed angry with each other. Sometimes that means we need a three-hour conversation to work things out, but it is worth it. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. When Megan was sick for almost a month, she had to sleep in the guest room and the bed in there was too small for two.
Our Catholic Faith is the religion of the Incarnation. We humans need physical reminders of our Faith and God knows this. That is why we need Latin, incense, candles, vestments, and chant in the sacred liturgy. These things tell all our senses that this is something sacred. It’s not a car salesman’s pitch, it is an encounter with God Almighty. We should follow the Church’s example in the liturgy and make reminders for ourselves of the sacredness of our marriage beds.
