Presider: Fr. Justin Lopina Parish: St. Francis Borgia Choir: Heart of the Nation www.MySundayMass.org Text from the Gospel and Homily: The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to mark. Glory to you, O Lord. The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” They replied “Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. From the beginning of creation, God made the male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together no human being must separate.” In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this. He said to them “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; if she divorces and marries another she commits adultery. The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore what God has joined together no human being must separate. Jesus states that boldly and with all the authority of the prophets who came before him. From some of the oldest portions of our sacred texts we hear that two of them become one flesh. Of course Jesus takes it one step further as usual for Christ and Gospel of Mark. He warns his listeners about hardness of their own hearts. A bill of divorce is a thing Moses permitted on the count of some people’s empathy drying out to practically nothing. Moses talked about the worst case scenario of partnership and Jesus calls on us to live out the best case scenario of partnership. Perhaps that is exactly what we need to hear then, now, throughout all ages of history: a call to be the best husbands and wives that we can be. It’s like a rallying call of virtue and you know I am glad that we still have both of these readings. I'm glad that we read them back to back because we need to hear both teachings. The fact is, divorce is real. It is a part of life and has always been a part of life. It is never pleasant, it’s never the goal that people strive for and nevertheless some of us wind up in a position where divorce is the only viable solution, the only way to move forward with any sort of hope that life will improve in the future. Getting divorced does not make you a failure. It doesn't mean that you are incapable of love or that you didn't try hard enough. Divorce is a sad thing that some of us are called to endure for one reason or another and it can happen to anyone even so we need Christ's message. What God has joined together we must not separate. We must not destroy beautiful things in this world and marriage is one of those things. It is a wonder of itself. It is a precursor to the kingdom of heaven. At weddings we have a prayer that reminds the bride and the groom that married life is the one blessing not forfeited by original sin or washed away in the flood. Think about that today, think about how powerful the sacrament must be in light of that prayer. Marriage is not ordinary. It is not automatic and it’s not easy, so I’ve heard. Many people seek it without understanding it. Plenty seek it with a faithful heart and still experience the sad end of divorce and of course some make it to the end. Wherever you are on that spectrum let us hold fast to an utterly sacred value: what God has joined together no human being must separate. Let us hold fast to the principle that marriage is worth fighting for and worth holding on to perhaps because it’s so terribly fragile. Surely we owe that to our spouses, we owe that to ourselves, we owe that to Moses and we owe that to Christ.

• published: 03 Oct 2015
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