This mystery has many implications and I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church [Ephesians 5: 2, 25-32]

A reading from the letter of Paul to the Ephesians

Live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word that he might present to himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself.

For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his Body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church.

The word of the Lord.