A man leaves his father and his mother and is joined to his wife, so that the two become one flesh. This is not the only way in which man and woman belong together, nor is it the primary way. But among the various aspects of their belonging together, there is also this one: their becoming one flesh. Where this event participates in the love of Christ that reconciles the church and all things to himself, it may be said: sacramentum hoc magnum est. If the veil marks the limit of eros in order to preserve the space of agape, there is no corresponding limit of agape; for an agape deriving from the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ knows no limit but must occupy this sphere too, the space of the eros of man and woman.

This space may appear to be self-contained and self-sufficient, withdrawn from the eyes of the profane – a sacred space within which sacrifices are performed that celebrate the divinity of the flesh. But the flesh is not divine, and neither is eros: these are creaturely realities, and their original goodness is that of the creature. The agape that overflows into this space too exposes the pretensions of pseudo-divinities and restores to them their proper creaturely status, bringing harmony and proportion where there was previously wilfulness and excess.