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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"This is great mystery: but I speak in regard of Christ and of the Church." Why does he call it a great mystery? That it was something great and wonderful, the blessed Moses, or rather God, intimated. For the present, however, saith he, I speak regarding Christ, that having left the Father, He came down, and came to the Bride, and became one Spirit. "For he that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit." (1 Cor. vi. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
That is, Moses pointed to something great and wondrous. And truly it is a mystery — to leave those who gave birth to him, labored for him, and did him good, and to cleave to one whom he had never seen and who had not even begun to do him good. Indeed, this is a great mystery, if only it is understood as referring to Christ, as a prophetic word about Him. …
Cosmas Indicopleustes
The Apostle Paul has used this as an illustration, explaining it in a mystical manner, concerning the Lord Christ and the Church, saying: This mystery is great, but I speak of Christ and of the Church. For just as Adam is the head of all men in this world, as being the cause of their existence, and their father, so also the Lord Christ according to the flesh is the head of the Church, and the father of the future age.
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
And then this will be the answer of the sacramental bond of marriage,—the third good: "Of me was that word spoken in paradise before the entrance of sin: 'A man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they two shall become one flesh.'" This the apostle applies to the case of Christ and of the Church, and calls it then "a great sacrament." What, then, in Christ and in the Church is great, in the instances of each married pair it is but very small, but even then it is the sacrament of an inseparable …
Jerome
Gregory of Nazianzus, a very eloquent man and outstandingly versed in the Scriptures, used to say while discussing this passage with me: See how great the promise in this passage is! The apostle, interpreting it as an analogy of Christ and the church, does not himself even profess to have expounded it as the dignity of the idea demanded. He is in effect saying: "I know that this analogy is full of ineffable promises. It requires a divine heart in its interpretation. …
Thomas Aquinas
He goes on to interpret this mystically, and he says This is a great sacrament, it is the symbol of a sacred reality, namely, the union of Christ and the Church. "I will not hide from you the mysteries of God" (Wis. 6:24). Notice here that four Sacraments are termed great. …
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