Despite the fact that the Bible raises human sexuality and the relationship between man and woman to such a high level, it never deifies sex or erotic love in the way that it was deified in other religions of the ancient Near East. The finite and limited love between man and woman is rather the image of an unconditional limitless love which God has for human beings. We may say that marriage is an earthly reality which prepares human beings to enter into that perfect communion with God. "It is therefore possible to speak, in this sense, of a natural sacrament of marriage, as indeed the Church's tradition does.
