Since married people are one flesh, do you believe they have any special relationship in Heaven?

[RandalD]

Actually, the purpose of marriage is to get each other to heaven, and to bring about Christ’s love for the church here on earth. Marriage is an icon the points us to the reality of heaven.

Marital relations is a renewing of the wedding vows, free, total, faithful, and fruitful, it brings about grace.

This is not needed in heaven- we no longer need the icon to point to heaven, because we are there.

Then why God joined the man and the woman together while they were in an immortal state intended to be forever without death and before the Fall where He and man enjoyed a genuine, interactive relationship in the pristine environment of the Eden?

I believe that the scriptures are pretty clear that that is the state we will return to. God made Eve for Adam, and then He just brought her to him, and that was enough. There was no need for any ceremony.

 

[RandalD]

We don’t know what our resurrected bodies will be like, save that we will neither marry nor be given in marriage. The perpetual Virginity of Our Lady certainly suggests that sexual relations will not be in any way necessary and may easily have no part at all in the Beatific Vision.

Having said that, “eye has not seen…”

Marriage is an earthly institution to serve an earthly purpose. Marital relationships, on the other hand, will transcend time because love is forever. In eternity we will not be in heaven, we will be on the new earth in a state similar to Adam and Eve. That would involve corporeal albeit glorified bodies that look exactly like Adam Eve’s did before the fall, which likely were eternal until they sinned. They likely would have lived eternally in a “joined”, not “married” relationship and they and their progeny would never have died if they had not sinned.

 

[RandalD]

This is a skewed understanding of sexuality and marriage. It is a product of living in a world that redefines sex and marriage.

Procreation is not the only reason God gave this relationship in the beginning. Many come to this conclusion, but they did not bother to consult their Bibles before doing so. The purpose for marriage was companionship and procreation… This divinely created need for companionship and relationship was part of the original creation to which the new creation returns. Granted, after man’s lapse into sin in the garden, the need for relationship in humanity was seriously marred and deformed.

 

[Le_Cracquere]

I know this is a loaded way of putting it … but many of the responses here seem to suggest that the only thing we know for sure about Heaven, is that it will lack the only things that ever made earthly life tolerable. If the love of our family and loved ones are something that will become a dead letter in Heaven, then it strongly suggests that they were only ever provisional illusions. It adds insult to injury to suggest, as some posters seem to be doing, that love was only ever a piece of bait designed to trick us into saddling ourselves with children.

This suggests a Beatific Vision which our earthly loves don’t prefigure or echo in the slightest–one that doesn’t perfect our understanding of love, but replaces it with something that doesn’t bear the least relation to it. One sees too many Christians describing the Divine Ecstasy as resembling the rictus of a man who’s just jammed a fork into an electrical outlet, for all eternity … an eternal destiny that–God pardon me!–comes across as more of a cunningly devised Hell than a Heaven. I hope our earthly lives and natures have more of a point, and more correspondence with our ultimate purposes, than that.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Procreation is not the only reason God gave this relationship in the beginning. Many come to this conclusion, but they did not bother to consult their Bibles before doing so. The purpose for marriage was companionship and procreation… This divinely created need for companionship and relationship was part of the original creation to which the new creation returns. Granted, after man’s lapse into sin in the garden, the need for relationship in humanity was seriously marred and deformed.

I’ve yet to hear anyone make the argument that sex is ONLY for procreation. It’s unitive as well. We live in a world where the “unitive” is the only thing aknowleged by the vast majority. This is so ingrained in our world that artificial birth control, same sex marriage, and adultery are seen as “rights”. I doubt very much that the procreative is over emphasized so much that you need to point out the companion side of marriage. Procreation was the command from the beginning. But I’m glad you pointed out the Bible because those who think marriage is in heaven are specifically ignoring an explicit answer fro God himself.
Folks it just doesn’t get more clear than that. With all this " well what Jesus meant was" or whatever people rationalize with they sound more like those who walked away from Jesus when He spoke of the Eucarist in John 6. When we assume something about these hard sayings we sound more like Protestants denying the real presence than Catholics.

He said it pretty clear.

Also, everyone is taking quite a few liberties with the assumption that both make it to heaven. What if all those good spouses who’s mates don’t make it? Permanent widowdom with a sense of guilt for not helping the other achieve Heaven?

 

[EasterJoy]

Marriage is an earthly institution to serve an earthly purpose. Marital relationships, on the other hand, will transcend time because love is forever. In eternity we will not be in heaven, we will be on the new earth in a state similar to Adam and Eve. That would involve corporeal albeit glorified bodies that look exactly like Adam Eve’s did before the fall, which likely were eternal until they sinned. They likely would have lived eternally in a “joined”, not “married” relationship and they and their progeny would never have died if they had not sinned.

Love is forever, but why would it need to be exclusive forever?

As for Adam and Eve, who can know “what would have been”? What would have been is what was.

We’ll be like the angels, who neither marry nor are given in marriage.

 

[RandalD]

Love is forever, but why would it need to be exclusive forever?

As for Adam and Eve, who can know “what would have been”? What would have been is what was.

We’ll be like the angels, who neither marry nor are given in marriage.

In thw world to come, will God undo what He originally did in a perfect world? In a manner of speaking, will He return Eve back to the rib and stop their relationship which he made and said was good? God will not undo any laws of marriage over Adam and Eve because there never were any to begin with. The resurrection means the restoring to the real life of human corporeity, which was subjected to death in its temporal phase, the new creation is, in essence, creation redeemed.

I believe the problem the Sadducees present is premised on the Levirate practice where a man takes his childless widowed sister in law as his wife to ensure that his deceased brother’s bloodline will not die with him. Once this is understood, the relevant sense in which the resurrected will be like angels, as Luke’s account makes clear, is clear: they will be immortal (Luke 20:36). What could be more obvious: if you are immortal, there is no need to beget children to carry on your lineage. But at the same time, it seems logical that a special relationship would continue into eternity between a man and woman married on this earth.

 

[Edward345]

I know we pray to the Holy Family…and if we make it to heaven someday we will be saints too, so another confusing thread for me…are Mary and Joseph still married in heaven?

Perhaps death do us part means until our spouse joins us or something…

Interesting questions

I believe we are made in the image of the Trinitarian God, a divine whirlwind of self-giving love, and I can well imagine that spouses will find their ultimate fulfillment in rejoicing together in Heaven.

 

[mommy_k]

Interesting questions

I believe we are made in the image of the Trinitarian God, a divine whirlwind of self-giving love, and I can well imagine that spouses will find their ultimate fulfillment in rejoicing together in Heaven.

Yes, and I believe this is why marriage is a Holy Sacrament. I belive when both spouses are in heaven there is a connection, perhaps not like an earthly marriage, but a spiritual connection which pleases God.

 

[Sarcelle]

Yes, and I believe this is why marriage is a Holy Sacrament. I belive when both spouses are in heaven there is a connection, perhaps not like an earthly marriage, but a spiritual connection which pleases God.

What happens to people whose spouses end up on the other side?

Will they be eternally sad?

 

[mommy_k]

What happens to people whose spouses end up on the other side?

Will they be eternally sad?

Seriously???

Or: it may just be a mystery…

 

[AdamP88]

Love is forever, but why would it need to be exclusive forever?

As for Adam and Eve, who can know “what would have been”? What would have been is what was.

We’ll be like the angels, who neither marry nor are given in marriage.

I don’t think that the special relationships we have with others will be erased once we reach heaven. If anything, I think they would be intensified and perfected. Part of being human is having special or deeper relationships with other people. We are all supposed to put God first in our mortal lives. I would think it’s more likely that the love we have in this life will be perfected and that includes out love for God. Technically, we are all supposed to have a personal and exclusive friendship with Christ, if that’s the case here why wouldn’t it also be the case in Heaven?

 

[SyroMalankara]

Perhaps "until death do you part " is stated in case the spouses end up in different places

Death do you part is never stated by us Easterners, both Catholics and Orthodox. In fact, many Eastern theologians speculate in favor of marriage continuing to eternity. Unless there is a separate Latin and Others Heaven, I’d lean toward the good Reverend Deacon’s writings.

 

[AdamP88]

Death do you part is never stated by us Easterners, both Catholics and Orthodox. In fact, many Eastern theologians speculate in favor of marriage continuing to eternity. Unless there is a separate Latin and Others Heaven, I’d lean toward the good Reverend Deacon’s writings.

A view perhaps supported in Corinthians 1:13 (1-13)

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

 

[Lion_IRC]

The applicable verse in Matthew simply states the obvious - that there aren’t marriage ceremonies in heaven. People don’t ‘get married’ in heaven. Neither do they get divorced in heaven. What would be the point?

The woman with previous husbands on Earth would be no more or less widowed or divorced from them when she arrives in heaven. In fact it would seem to be an anathema to ask such a woman, (who had married seven men,) to pick which one she thought of as her ‘real’ husband. If she actually DID have eternal, spousal fidelity to just one single person, why re-marry over and over again?

Trying to trick/trap Jesus with disingenuous questions about such matters makes the Saducees look stupid. And Jesus leaves them feeling ‘sheepish’ when He points out the bleeding obvious, that in heaven such a woman won’t need to concern herself about such trivial gnat-straining questions
…to whom is she legally married.

As for myself, I won’t need to worry about who I’m married to in heaven. I will always know.
And I think that the marriage vow which says…until death us do part, refers to a temporary parting not a permanent one.

 

[Sarcelle]

The applicable verse in Matthew simply states the obvious - that there aren’t marriage ceremonies in heaven. People don’t ‘get married’ in heaven. Neither do they get divorced in heaven. What would be the point?

The woman with previous husbands on Earth would be no more or less widowed or divorced from them when she arrives in heaven. In fact it would seem to be an anathema to ask such a woman, (who had married seven men,) to pick which one she thought of as her ‘real’ husband. If she actually DID have eternal, spousal fidelity to just one single person, why re-marry over and over again?

Trying to trick/trap Jesus with disingenuous questions about such matters makes the Saducees look stupid. And Jesus leaves them feeling ‘sheepish’ when He points out the bleeding obvious, that in heaven such a woman won’t need to concern herself about such trivial gnat-straining questions
…to whom is she legally married.

As for myself, I won’t need to worry about who I’m married to in heaven. I will always know.
And I think that the marriage vow which says…until death us do part, refers to a temporary parting not a permanent one.

The question still remains though.

If a widow remarries and then goes to heaven which husband will she have a special relationship with? Or, will she have special relationship with both?

 

[Lion_IRC]

If you really want to know you must ask her.
She might answer - none Or all seven equally.
“Special relationship” is subjective not legal.

 

[AdamP88]

The question still remains though.

If a widow remarries and then goes to heaven which husband will she have a special relationship with? Or, will she have special relationship with both?

Both I would say. She won’t be married to any of them but there’s no reason why all her earthly relationships won’t be continued in heaven.

 

[Lion_IRC]

I agree with AdamPeter.
There’s no scripture to suggest that in the afterlife people forget who they were.

 

[RandalD]

The applicable verse in Matthew simply states the obvious - that there aren’t marriage ceremonies in heaven. People don’t ‘get married’ in heaven. Neither do they get divorced in heaven. What would be the point?

The woman with previous husbands on Earth would be no more or less widowed or divorced from them when she arrives in heaven. In fact it would seem to be an anathema to ask such a woman, (who had married seven men,) to pick which one she thought of as her ‘real’ husband. If she actually DID have eternal, spousal fidelity to just one single person, why re-marry over and over again?

Trying to trick/trap Jesus with disingenuous questions about such matters makes the Saducees look stupid. And Jesus leaves them feeling ‘sheepish’ when He points out the bleeding obvious, that in heaven such a woman won’t need to concern herself about such trivial gnat-straining questions
…to whom is she legally married.

As for myself, I won’t need to worry about who I’m married to in heaven. I will always know.
And I think that the marriage vow which says…until death us do part, refers to a temporary parting not a permanent one.

I agree, but If this is true, while excluding procreation why sexual love should be a priori exluded? Do you think that will be there physical sexual expresion among men and women in Heaven?