Mystical marriage

Ancient religions frequently  include the concept of hieorgamy – the mystical union of a God with a goddess, or with a human representing a goddess. Often this occurred in the spring; obviously having some fertility connotations.

A contemporary example of hierogamy is the so-called Great Rite of Wicca, frequently conducted on the 1st of May,  Beltane
night.  A man and a woman, assuming the identities of God and Goddess, engage in sexual intercourse to celebrate the union of the deities as lovers and the conception of the new God who will be born at
Yule, the winter solstice. It is essentially a fertility rite, meant to symbolize the planting of seed into Mother Earth, which will come to fruition in the autumn.

Christianity also has hints of the same concepts – the resurrection of Jesus is celebrated as Easter, the name coming from “Eostre” or “Ostara”, a Germanic fertility goddess, worshipped in northern Europe during springtime.

In the 14th century, Catherine of Siena claims to have had a “mystical marriage” with Jesus; and that experience propelled her to devote the remainder of her life to service of the poor; and become more assertive in her dealings with the church bureaucracy.  Catherine is buried in the basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, a church built on the ruins of a temple dedicated to Minerva, or the Greek Athena; deities not unacquainted with hierogamy.

More explicitly, Teresa of Avila spoke of her mystical marrage with Jesus in a way that modern observers would clearly grasp a subtext -

….I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it…

Sculpture "Ecstasy of St. Teresa" by Bernini. Her expression has been described as 'submissive' and 'orgasmic'.