Word to the Wise
Sunday, October 6, 2024 - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B
[Gen 2:18-24; Heb 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16 or 10:2-12]"This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called 'woman' for out of 'her man' this one has been taken." That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh." [Genesis]
Anyone who has spent as many years in campus ministry as I have (30+) has celebrated a lot of weddings. But a wedding is a day and a marriage is a lifetime - or so Jesus tells us. But this is one teaching of Jesus that humankind has had a hard time living up to. One of my favorite stories about marriage concerns a couple who were celebrating their 50th anniversary of their wedding. Someone asked them which years of those were the hardest. They answered, "The first 50!" The Catholic church has been known for its opposition to divorce. The reason for this opposition is rooted in Jesus' teaching in which he goes back to "the beginning" of creation and not to the Law of Moses. We know from the Gospel According to Luke that Joseph was planning to divorce Mary before an angel warned him not to!!!!
The rate of divorce among Catholics in the USA is close to that in the general population now. For this reason, a careful program of preparation is now required before receiving the sacrament of matrimony. Yet this is no guarantee of a lifetime commitment, only the creation of conditions favorable to one at the outset. In the past, I have served on matrimonial tribunals which deal with the situation existing at the "outset." The consciousness of couples in regard to the sacredness of the commitment has to survive very human challenges. Marital love has to be both tender and tough! "Faith" and "Hope" have to be present along with "Love." They have to be mixed into the moral virtues of "prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance!" It's a tall order, but with determination to make it work, a good marriage is an amazing witness to God's love. My own gratitude to my parents for their 52+ years of marriage is great.
Inevitably, in preaching about Jesus' teaching on marriage and divorce, there will be people in the congregation who will have been divorced and remarried. Their "status" has been a matter of debate. Pope Francis has urged a positive approach to find a way for God's mercy to enter into the discernment. In the meantime, at every wedding I celebrate, I think I am putting a man and woman together in a rowboat and handing each of them a paddle with the hope that they row together!! AMEN