What are the odds that this learned men would take pause in his rigorous contemplations to brief us on important matters?

Hark! A proper sermon from our studious friend Mr. Hildebrand…

…Conjugal love: the most profound I-thou relationship

Relationships between persons actualize themselves under two profoundly different forms: two persons can be united through a common interest, by facing with each other something extraneous to themselves. Together they may take the same attitude toward a person or thing: they may mourn together and rejoice together, may come to a decision together, and may give thanks together.

This may be called a we relationship wherein the partners remain side by side, in which they walk side by side – hand in hand, even.

But two human beings can also turn to face one another, and in touching one another, in an interpenetrating glance, give birth to a mysterious fusion of their souls. They become conscious of one another, and making the other the object of his contemplation and responses, each can spiritually immerse himself in the other. This is the I-thou relationship, in which the partners are not side by side, but face to face.

Of all terrestrial communions, conjugal love is the most pronounced form of an I-thou relationship. The beloved person is the object of our thoughts, sentiments, will, hope, and longing. She becomes the center of our life (as far as created goods are concerned). He whose heart is filled with such conjugal love lives not only with his beloved but for his beloved. Certainly such an I-thou relationship in its purest form exists only between the human soul and its heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus. In the last analysis we must live only for Him, and in marriage, too, the two partners live together for Him. But in the realm of created goods, conjugal love means living for one another. Compared with all other human relationships, the two partners live in a definite I-thou communion….

Marriage is exclusive and irrevocable

This decisive character of marriage, on the strength of which a change takes place which removes it beyond the range of our influence, also has a qualitative analogy in bodily surrender. The physical union of husband and wife constitutes such an ultimate intimacy between them that of its essence it is a surrender valid once and for all. It is not merely a passing intimacy which establishes no objective relationship. It implies a definite decision of the highest import. It is truly a surrender of one’s self to the other and implies essentially the same exclusiveness which we found in conjugal love.

From its very meaning and nature, this act can be consummated with but one person, for, according to the words of our Lord, "They shall be two in one flesh."11 It establishes a tie of such infinite tenderness and such deep proximity, so essentially permanent, implying such a radical surrender, that it cannot be repeated with another person as long as the person to whom one has given oneself integrally is alive. All these elements are contained in this deepest union.

But this union only becomes a full reality when it follows as a consequence of the solemn conclusion of marriage. How dreadful therefore, any abuse of this ultimate and most intimate surrender! What a degradation and desecration of the union destined as the ultimate realization of the communion of love which becomes objective through marriage!… (Marriage: the mystery of faithful love)

—Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977)