Sirach 6.5-17
Psalm 119.12,16,18,27,34,35
Mark 10.1-12
It is important to note two points about Jesus’ teaching today. First, his prohibition against divorce is based on remarriage. He is telling us that once a marriage has been created, only death will end it. “’Til death do us part” is not just romantic language but a reality. Even if, sometimes for very good reasons, two people stop living together, never see each other again, even get a judge to split up the property in a civil divorce, they are still married. Such a person may have done nothing wrong, particularly if they are seeing to the care of their children, but they are not able to marry another person. They are still married.
The second point Jesus mentions in another place: this does not apply to unlawful marriages. In other words, if a marriage never actually got started, then a person is not bound to what does not really exist. The classic case of this is the shotgun marriage, where two people are forced into marriage against their will. No one can be forced to get married. They might say all the words and sign in all the right places, but marriage requires two people entering the life of their own free will. It is for such cases that the Church has annulments. In an annulment, the Church investigates the wedding and makes sure that nothing happened which prevented the marriage from ever existing. An annulment never dissolves a marriage that is a sacrament.
When two people are married, they make a decision, but how that decision is understood is at the heart of many difficulties in our modern age. Marriage is not a non-binding contract. Jesus says, “What God has joined together, no human being must separate.” When two people agree to be married, they are asking God to join them in an indissoluble contract. As part of the benefits of the union, God will give them the grace to live together, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, to live together and serve each other when a human agreement would not be enough. To give up one’s freedom and be bound to another, that is marriage. It is far more romantic. In the modern idea of marriage, nothing is sacrificed, nothing changes. In the true idea of marriage, the two become one flesh, the individuals no longer remain individual, a miracle only God can accomplish.
Daily Homilies
Showing posts with label Marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marriage. Show all posts
November 4, 2012 - Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Deuteronomy 6:2-6
Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 12:28-34
The debate that the scribe brings to Jesus today is about the first commandment. The scribes often would debate this question. The issue is which commandment overrides the others. If I can only follow one of the commandments, which one should it be? So, for instance, we should not steal, but we should go to Mass on Sunday. So what if the only way to get to Mass on Sunday is to steal a car? Which commandment takes priority? What if we choose a different commandment, about feeding the poor? What if there is someone starving and the only way to feed them is to steal food, should we do it? The scribes used to debate questions like this all the time. Some would say that the first commandment is the Sabbath. Others would say that the first commandment is the sacrifice at the Temple. So a scribe goes up to Jesus today and asks him his opinion on this debate.
Jesus answers the question directly. He does not duck it. He goes back to the Old Testament law, to the first reading we had today, and says, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And then he adds from another part of the law, “The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” In other words, the law of love is above every other law.
What is love? Love is a feeling. We know this, but it also must be something more than a feeling. If God commanded love in the Old Testament, and Jesus says that these two commandments of love are the most important commandments of all, love has to be an action too. Because how could God command us to feel a certain way? There is no way to make ourselves feel love for someone. We either do or we do not. Love has to be some kind of action that we can do. When these actions come naturally without even trying, that is what it means to be in love. But when they do not come naturally, we are still free to do them. We just have to make a decision to continue loving. The feeling is enough to get started, but eventually, every love requires work.
Blessed John Paul II wrote a book about the actions of love; he said that there are three parts. The three parts apply to every way we mean love: love of God, love of a spouse, love of family, love of the poor. The first part is attraction: thinking about how good the other person is. When we are in love, that is all we can do, even to the point of being blinded, but we can also do it by working at it. The first action of loving God is to think about how good he is: all that he has done for us, and how wonderful he is in himself. The first action of loving a person in need is to consider how good they are, that they are a human being with all the dignity that implies and their own personal accomplishments and talents. Then the person does not get defined by their need; the person is no longer just a problem to solve but an individual with so much to love about them.
The second part of love is desire: desiring to be with the other person. Again, when we are in love, that is all we desire. A person in love can forget to eat or sleep because they only want to be with the one they love. And this too can be done by anyone by working at it, not the desire but the being with. The second action of loving God is to spend time with him. It is what we are doing right now. Perhaps some of you did not have a great desire to come here this morning, but you are still here. With or without the desire, you have chosen to come spend time with God. When we love someone in need, we spend time with them. The need for human contact is just as real as whatever else they need.
The third action of love is doing good. When we are in love we want to bring presents and other ways of showing this love. If there is any way we can help the one we love, we are just as grateful to have the opportunity to help as they could ever be to receive help. When we love God we do good things for him. Of course this is difficult because he does not need anything from us. But Jesus says that what we do for the least of our brothers, we do for him. When we serve someone in need it is an act of love not only for them, but also for God. In this way, the love of neighbor is part of the love of God. Since we love God, we have to love his children too.
The feeling of love is perhaps the greatest feeling in all of existence. God gave us the ability to be in love because he wanted us to know how wonderful love is. But the actions of love are greater than the feeling. If we are in love with the feeling of love, we are like addicts going after our next hit. To simply chase that feeling misses the point. It is delightful when it is there because it makes it so easy to love, but the real accomplishment is loving when the feeling goes away.
When we begin following God, we often have that feeling of being in love, but then it goes away. Sometimes people think that they have done something wrong or that they were mistaken in their feelings in the first place. God is trying to draw us closer. When we begin serving the poor in a new way, we can have that feeling of being in love, and then it goes away. The test is whether we continue the actions of love without the feeling. Not because God is just trying to test us, but because if we do we will have something greater. Being young and in love is wonderful, but being married for fifty years, through good times and bad, never giving up on love, is better. Going on a mission trip and being on fire to help others is great, but serving the poor for fifty years, through good times and bad, never giving up on love, is better. Going to prayer and having an experience of love that brings us right up to heaven is amazing, but spending a whole life drawing close to God, through good times and bad, never giving up on love, is what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 12:28-34
The debate that the scribe brings to Jesus today is about the first commandment. The scribes often would debate this question. The issue is which commandment overrides the others. If I can only follow one of the commandments, which one should it be? So, for instance, we should not steal, but we should go to Mass on Sunday. So what if the only way to get to Mass on Sunday is to steal a car? Which commandment takes priority? What if we choose a different commandment, about feeding the poor? What if there is someone starving and the only way to feed them is to steal food, should we do it? The scribes used to debate questions like this all the time. Some would say that the first commandment is the Sabbath. Others would say that the first commandment is the sacrifice at the Temple. So a scribe goes up to Jesus today and asks him his opinion on this debate.
Jesus answers the question directly. He does not duck it. He goes back to the Old Testament law, to the first reading we had today, and says, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And then he adds from another part of the law, “The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” In other words, the law of love is above every other law.
What is love? Love is a feeling. We know this, but it also must be something more than a feeling. If God commanded love in the Old Testament, and Jesus says that these two commandments of love are the most important commandments of all, love has to be an action too. Because how could God command us to feel a certain way? There is no way to make ourselves feel love for someone. We either do or we do not. Love has to be some kind of action that we can do. When these actions come naturally without even trying, that is what it means to be in love. But when they do not come naturally, we are still free to do them. We just have to make a decision to continue loving. The feeling is enough to get started, but eventually, every love requires work.
Blessed John Paul II wrote a book about the actions of love; he said that there are three parts. The three parts apply to every way we mean love: love of God, love of a spouse, love of family, love of the poor. The first part is attraction: thinking about how good the other person is. When we are in love, that is all we can do, even to the point of being blinded, but we can also do it by working at it. The first action of loving God is to think about how good he is: all that he has done for us, and how wonderful he is in himself. The first action of loving a person in need is to consider how good they are, that they are a human being with all the dignity that implies and their own personal accomplishments and talents. Then the person does not get defined by their need; the person is no longer just a problem to solve but an individual with so much to love about them.
The second part of love is desire: desiring to be with the other person. Again, when we are in love, that is all we desire. A person in love can forget to eat or sleep because they only want to be with the one they love. And this too can be done by anyone by working at it, not the desire but the being with. The second action of loving God is to spend time with him. It is what we are doing right now. Perhaps some of you did not have a great desire to come here this morning, but you are still here. With or without the desire, you have chosen to come spend time with God. When we love someone in need, we spend time with them. The need for human contact is just as real as whatever else they need.
The third action of love is doing good. When we are in love we want to bring presents and other ways of showing this love. If there is any way we can help the one we love, we are just as grateful to have the opportunity to help as they could ever be to receive help. When we love God we do good things for him. Of course this is difficult because he does not need anything from us. But Jesus says that what we do for the least of our brothers, we do for him. When we serve someone in need it is an act of love not only for them, but also for God. In this way, the love of neighbor is part of the love of God. Since we love God, we have to love his children too.
The feeling of love is perhaps the greatest feeling in all of existence. God gave us the ability to be in love because he wanted us to know how wonderful love is. But the actions of love are greater than the feeling. If we are in love with the feeling of love, we are like addicts going after our next hit. To simply chase that feeling misses the point. It is delightful when it is there because it makes it so easy to love, but the real accomplishment is loving when the feeling goes away.
When we begin following God, we often have that feeling of being in love, but then it goes away. Sometimes people think that they have done something wrong or that they were mistaken in their feelings in the first place. God is trying to draw us closer. When we begin serving the poor in a new way, we can have that feeling of being in love, and then it goes away. The test is whether we continue the actions of love without the feeling. Not because God is just trying to test us, but because if we do we will have something greater. Being young and in love is wonderful, but being married for fifty years, through good times and bad, never giving up on love, is better. Going on a mission trip and being on fire to help others is great, but serving the poor for fifty years, through good times and bad, never giving up on love, is better. Going to prayer and having an experience of love that brings us right up to heaven is amazing, but spending a whole life drawing close to God, through good times and bad, never giving up on love, is what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
October 7, 2012 - Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Genesis 2:18-24
Psalm 128:1-6
Hebrews 2:9-11
Mark 10:2-16
So the election is in less than a month. Let me begin by saying what I am not going to say: I am not going to tell you who to vote for. When I was ordained, the bishop handed me the book of the Gospels and he said, “Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, practice what you teach.” That is why I am called to do, and nowhere in the Gospels does it specify who you should vote for. I suppose in order for me to say that, there would have to be somebody on the ballot who perfectly exemplified the Gospel like Jesus or Mary. If they were running, I would endorse them. I am also not going to talk about a specific issue, like what the capital gains tax rate should be. First of all, because I have no idea. Secondly, because it does not say anywhere in the Gospel what it should be. It does say to pay your taxes, and it says to take care of the poor, but it is for the experts to determine how to apply these principles into specific laws.
But then, in this Gospel today, there is an issue. It is right here, and those of you who know how this works, know that it is not as if we choose the readings each week and read whatever we feel like. It says right here: the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year B, which happens to be this Sunday in this year. It is a cycle, and we flip to this page, and it is time to read this reading. It is not as if we wanted to talk about marriage this weekend, but God in his wisdom, in the cycle given to us by the Church, has given this to us, and I would be remiss if I read this reading without talking about marriage. I would be failing in my mandate, if we did not talk about it.
But it is very difficult. Just last Sunday someone told me that they have two nephews who are both gay, and “God doesn't make trash.” That is so true. He does not. Every single person is a child of God. Everyone is loved by God, and therefore has a right to our love. If it seems as if anything the Catholic Church has ever said suggests that we think that people are trash, then we are saying it wrong or people are hearing it wrong somehow. Hatred of people is not the truth.
Nevertheless, we have to be faithful to the truth. There are some obvious truths. I am not talking about political opinions. I mean obvious, factual, indisputable truths: male and female go together in a way that male and male do not. This is indisputable. If anyone disagrees, they are lying to themselves. I am not saying yet where to go with that; I am just saying that we should begin with the truth, because if we do not begin with the truth, where are we going to end up? Another indisputable truth is that the foundation of marriage is sex. That is not all marriage is, but I am not married to my best friend; I am not married to someone I like to go on vacation with. What makes people married is that act that only a man and a woman can do, and the children that come from it.
We start with these two truths, and we come to the indisputable truth that marriage is for male and female. As Jesus says in the Gospel today, “In the beginning God made them male and female.” So, on some level the ballot question that is before you this November is asking whether to two plus two equals four. We have to say yes. Whether marriage is between a male and female is not a matter of opinion. It is obvious, biological fact.
Still, something stops us, because even though two plus two equals four, when I see a person made in the image of God, who am I to tell them what to do? Why complicate the Gospel that we preach with this question? I know that two plus two equals four, but they think it is five, and if they want to, then they can, right? I think that this is where a lot of people are right now. Even though the truth is obvious, there is a desire to simply say, “Well, whatever!” When I think of the time and energy and money we have spent on this question, particularly this year, I realize that it could have just been spent on telling people that Jesus loves them, which people like to hear.
But this is what Jesus is saying in the Gospel today. You cannot just say something is okay even if it is wrong. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We have to stay with the truth. When asked a fundamental question about truth, we have to acknowledge the truth. Jesus says today that when Moses was writing the law, he set up some rules for divorce. Why did he do that? Jesus says that it was because of the hardness of their hearts, because Moses knew that the people would not accept a law that simply forbid divorce, so he wrote some laws about divorce, such as a man cannot just abandon the woman and have her starve to death, which is what would have happened in that culture; he has to provide for her in certain ways. There is a certain wisdom to these laws, but now Jesus has come and it is time for the truth. The truth is that there is no divorce, and that is a hard truth. What God has joined together no human being should separate. It is more complicated. We have to know first what God has joined together, the question of annulments, but if we do not start with the truth, where are we going to end up? In this election year, I do not care who you vote for. That is for you to decide. There are complications about this person and that person, what they support, what they support. But when you get to that last question, and it says, “Is Marriage a relationship between a man and a woman?”, you have to answer yes. What can you put there other than the truth?
Psalm 128:1-6
Hebrews 2:9-11
Mark 10:2-16
So the election is in less than a month. Let me begin by saying what I am not going to say: I am not going to tell you who to vote for. When I was ordained, the bishop handed me the book of the Gospels and he said, “Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, practice what you teach.” That is why I am called to do, and nowhere in the Gospels does it specify who you should vote for. I suppose in order for me to say that, there would have to be somebody on the ballot who perfectly exemplified the Gospel like Jesus or Mary. If they were running, I would endorse them. I am also not going to talk about a specific issue, like what the capital gains tax rate should be. First of all, because I have no idea. Secondly, because it does not say anywhere in the Gospel what it should be. It does say to pay your taxes, and it says to take care of the poor, but it is for the experts to determine how to apply these principles into specific laws.
But then, in this Gospel today, there is an issue. It is right here, and those of you who know how this works, know that it is not as if we choose the readings each week and read whatever we feel like. It says right here: the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year B, which happens to be this Sunday in this year. It is a cycle, and we flip to this page, and it is time to read this reading. It is not as if we wanted to talk about marriage this weekend, but God in his wisdom, in the cycle given to us by the Church, has given this to us, and I would be remiss if I read this reading without talking about marriage. I would be failing in my mandate, if we did not talk about it.
But it is very difficult. Just last Sunday someone told me that they have two nephews who are both gay, and “God doesn't make trash.” That is so true. He does not. Every single person is a child of God. Everyone is loved by God, and therefore has a right to our love. If it seems as if anything the Catholic Church has ever said suggests that we think that people are trash, then we are saying it wrong or people are hearing it wrong somehow. Hatred of people is not the truth.
Nevertheless, we have to be faithful to the truth. There are some obvious truths. I am not talking about political opinions. I mean obvious, factual, indisputable truths: male and female go together in a way that male and male do not. This is indisputable. If anyone disagrees, they are lying to themselves. I am not saying yet where to go with that; I am just saying that we should begin with the truth, because if we do not begin with the truth, where are we going to end up? Another indisputable truth is that the foundation of marriage is sex. That is not all marriage is, but I am not married to my best friend; I am not married to someone I like to go on vacation with. What makes people married is that act that only a man and a woman can do, and the children that come from it.
We start with these two truths, and we come to the indisputable truth that marriage is for male and female. As Jesus says in the Gospel today, “In the beginning God made them male and female.” So, on some level the ballot question that is before you this November is asking whether to two plus two equals four. We have to say yes. Whether marriage is between a male and female is not a matter of opinion. It is obvious, biological fact.
Still, something stops us, because even though two plus two equals four, when I see a person made in the image of God, who am I to tell them what to do? Why complicate the Gospel that we preach with this question? I know that two plus two equals four, but they think it is five, and if they want to, then they can, right? I think that this is where a lot of people are right now. Even though the truth is obvious, there is a desire to simply say, “Well, whatever!” When I think of the time and energy and money we have spent on this question, particularly this year, I realize that it could have just been spent on telling people that Jesus loves them, which people like to hear.
But this is what Jesus is saying in the Gospel today. You cannot just say something is okay even if it is wrong. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We have to stay with the truth. When asked a fundamental question about truth, we have to acknowledge the truth. Jesus says today that when Moses was writing the law, he set up some rules for divorce. Why did he do that? Jesus says that it was because of the hardness of their hearts, because Moses knew that the people would not accept a law that simply forbid divorce, so he wrote some laws about divorce, such as a man cannot just abandon the woman and have her starve to death, which is what would have happened in that culture; he has to provide for her in certain ways. There is a certain wisdom to these laws, but now Jesus has come and it is time for the truth. The truth is that there is no divorce, and that is a hard truth. What God has joined together no human being should separate. It is more complicated. We have to know first what God has joined together, the question of annulments, but if we do not start with the truth, where are we going to end up? In this election year, I do not care who you vote for. That is for you to decide. There are complications about this person and that person, what they support, what they support. But when you get to that last question, and it says, “Is Marriage a relationship between a man and a woman?”, you have to answer yes. What can you put there other than the truth?
August 17, 2012 - Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63 or Ezekiel 16:59-63
Isaiah 12:2-6
Matthew 19:3-12
The question that the Pharisees and Jesus are discussing in the Gospel today is very interesting. Nowhere in the Law does God say that a man can divorce his wife, but several times the Law mentions divorce and sets down certain rules that were not to be broken. The Pharisees read the Law and decided that God would not set down rules about divorce unless it was okay to get divorced.
Yet something was still bothering them: getting married means making a promise to be with a person and take care of them. Normally, it is unacceptable to break promises, especially a promise as solemn and public as the marriage vows. So the Pharisees wondered what reasons justified breaking the promise. Indeed, the Scripture says that they were testing Jesus. Perhaps they had their own list of reasons and wanted to see if Jesus could come up with as good a list.
Instead, Jesus explains that their initial logic was faulty. Divorce is mentioned in the Old Law, but it was one of the imperfections of the Old Law. The Old Law was true as far as it goes, but it was coping with the how resistant the human heart is to the Truth. God does not allow divorce, but a commandment forbidding divorce would have been too much for the Israelites to put up with. So God set down certain rules, saying, if you are going to get divorced, here are some absolute minimum standards of conduct: a man who divorces his wife should not keep her as a slave, and, if a man is free to remarry, so is his wife.
What changed in the 1500 years since Moses? Human nature did not change. True, 1500 years of living the Old Law had prepared the world to receive the New Law, but the New Law is not just the Old Law with more difficult rules. The New Law is the Holy Spirit. By the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, we do not have to settle for the best we can handle, our standard now is perfection. The Holy Spirit, God himself, lives in our hearts; he is a law written on our hearts. If we let him, he can make us perfect. A life-long marriage between two sinful human beings (and we are all sinful) is impossible without the Holy Spirit, but with God all things are possible.
Isaiah 12:2-6
Matthew 19:3-12
The question that the Pharisees and Jesus are discussing in the Gospel today is very interesting. Nowhere in the Law does God say that a man can divorce his wife, but several times the Law mentions divorce and sets down certain rules that were not to be broken. The Pharisees read the Law and decided that God would not set down rules about divorce unless it was okay to get divorced.
Yet something was still bothering them: getting married means making a promise to be with a person and take care of them. Normally, it is unacceptable to break promises, especially a promise as solemn and public as the marriage vows. So the Pharisees wondered what reasons justified breaking the promise. Indeed, the Scripture says that they were testing Jesus. Perhaps they had their own list of reasons and wanted to see if Jesus could come up with as good a list.
Instead, Jesus explains that their initial logic was faulty. Divorce is mentioned in the Old Law, but it was one of the imperfections of the Old Law. The Old Law was true as far as it goes, but it was coping with the how resistant the human heart is to the Truth. God does not allow divorce, but a commandment forbidding divorce would have been too much for the Israelites to put up with. So God set down certain rules, saying, if you are going to get divorced, here are some absolute minimum standards of conduct: a man who divorces his wife should not keep her as a slave, and, if a man is free to remarry, so is his wife.
What changed in the 1500 years since Moses? Human nature did not change. True, 1500 years of living the Old Law had prepared the world to receive the New Law, but the New Law is not just the Old Law with more difficult rules. The New Law is the Holy Spirit. By the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, we do not have to settle for the best we can handle, our standard now is perfection. The Holy Spirit, God himself, lives in our hearts; he is a law written on our hearts. If we let him, he can make us perfect. A life-long marriage between two sinful human beings (and we are all sinful) is impossible without the Holy Spirit, but with God all things are possible.
June 13, 2012 - Memorial of Saint Anthony of Padua, priest and doctor of the Church
1 Kings 18.20-39
Psalm 16.1b-2ab, 4, 5ab+8, 11
Matthew 5.17-19
This saying of Jesus today is a difficult saying. He tells us that until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass away from the law. Yet we believe that many letters of the law do not apply anymore. We do not keep the ritual cleanness demanded by the law. We do not rest on the Sabbath. We eat many forbidden things. How is this possible?
Jesus says that he came to fulfill the law. He fulfilled the requirements of ritual cleanness by the grace of baptism which cleans a person once and for all. We do not rest on the Sabbath because we have entered into the rest that is found in Jesus. We eat pork and lobster and other things because God declared such things were clean, so they no longer are unclean. The laws did not change, but the world that they apply to is changed in Christ Jesus.
Which makes us wonder, why not all of the law? If I can eat shrimp and wear 50%-50% wool/cotton mix pants, why is it still wrong to worship other gods or for a man to treat another man as a woman? Because in Christ Jesus, the truth was made more visible, not less. In truth, shrimp is good food. That it was ever forbidden must have been because of particular circumstances. In truth, there is nothing wrong with mixing fabrics or eating cheeseburgers.
But in truth, God is the only god. To worship someone else is a lie. In truth, marriage is a relationship based in gender-difference. To pretend otherwise is a lie. Every law that revealed the truth must remain and indeed the obligation is stronger than before inasmuch as the truth is now more fully revealed. Every law which was arbitrary no longer applies, for Jesus has fulfilled the meaning behind those laws perfectly.
The arbitrary laws, which could have gone either way logically speaking, carried the principles of obedience, purity, and community. Because everyone lived under such laws, the Israelites were bound together into a community that obeyed God and was pure of defilement. It took over a thousand years, but these laws worked their effect. But when Jesus came, our obedience is in following him, our purity is in choosing him and no one else, our community is sacramental, bound together by love. The point of these laws has been fulfilled and the truth more fully revealed.
Psalm 16.1b-2ab, 4, 5ab+8, 11
Matthew 5.17-19
This saying of Jesus today is a difficult saying. He tells us that until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass away from the law. Yet we believe that many letters of the law do not apply anymore. We do not keep the ritual cleanness demanded by the law. We do not rest on the Sabbath. We eat many forbidden things. How is this possible?
Jesus says that he came to fulfill the law. He fulfilled the requirements of ritual cleanness by the grace of baptism which cleans a person once and for all. We do not rest on the Sabbath because we have entered into the rest that is found in Jesus. We eat pork and lobster and other things because God declared such things were clean, so they no longer are unclean. The laws did not change, but the world that they apply to is changed in Christ Jesus.
Which makes us wonder, why not all of the law? If I can eat shrimp and wear 50%-50% wool/cotton mix pants, why is it still wrong to worship other gods or for a man to treat another man as a woman? Because in Christ Jesus, the truth was made more visible, not less. In truth, shrimp is good food. That it was ever forbidden must have been because of particular circumstances. In truth, there is nothing wrong with mixing fabrics or eating cheeseburgers.
But in truth, God is the only god. To worship someone else is a lie. In truth, marriage is a relationship based in gender-difference. To pretend otherwise is a lie. Every law that revealed the truth must remain and indeed the obligation is stronger than before inasmuch as the truth is now more fully revealed. Every law which was arbitrary no longer applies, for Jesus has fulfilled the meaning behind those laws perfectly.
The arbitrary laws, which could have gone either way logically speaking, carried the principles of obedience, purity, and community. Because everyone lived under such laws, the Israelites were bound together into a community that obeyed God and was pure of defilement. It took over a thousand years, but these laws worked their effect. But when Jesus came, our obedience is in following him, our purity is in choosing him and no one else, our community is sacramental, bound together by love. The point of these laws has been fulfilled and the truth more fully revealed.
February 25, 2011 - Friday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
It is important to note two points about Jesus’ teaching today. First, his prohibition against divorce is based on remarriage. He is telling us that once a marriage has been created, only death will end it. “’Til death do us part” is not just romantic language but a reality. Even if, sometimes for very good reasons, two people stop living together, never see each other again, even get a judge to split up the property in a civil divorce, they are still married. Such a person may have done nothing wrong, particularly if they are seeing to the care of their children, but they are not able to marry another person. They are still married.
The second point Jesus mentions in another place: this does not apply to unlawful marriages. In other words, if a marriage never actually got started, then a person is not bound to what does not really exist. The classic case of this is the shotgun marriage, where two people are forced into marriage against their will. No one can be forced to get married. They might say all the words and sign in all the right places, but marriage requires two people entering the life of their own free will. It is for such cases that the Church has annulments. In an annulment, the Church investigates the wedding and makes sure that nothing happened which prevented the marriage from ever existing. An annulment never dissolves a marriage that is a sacrament.
When two people are married, they make a decision, but how that decision is understood is at the heart of many difficulties in our modern age. Marriage is not a non-binding contract. Jesus says, “What God has joined together, no human being must separate.” When two people agree to be married, they are asking God to join them in an indissoluble contract. As part of the benefits of the union, God will give them the grace to live together, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, to live together and serve each other when a human agreement would not be enough. To give up one’s freedom and be bound to another, that is marriage. It is far more romantic. In the modern idea of marriage, nothing is sacrificed, nothing changes. In the true idea of marriage, the two become one flesh, the individuals no longer remain individual, a miracle only God can accomplish.
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