“HOLY Scripture speaks of four marriages. The first in its historical and literal sense, the bodily union of a man and a woman; the second allegorical, the union of Christ with His Church; the third tropological or moral, the union of God with the soul; the fourth anagogical or eschatological, the union of God with the Church Triumphant.”

~St. Thomas Aquinas: “Sermons, First Sunday after Epiphany,” 20.