Trong cuộc sống của đa số chúng ta hôm nay, dường một số người đã không đã đánh giá cao và có sự hiểu biết của Bí Tích Hôn nhân, đặc biệt là trong xã hội với sự phổ biến của việc ly hôn, Qua bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu mời gọi chúng ta hãy suy ngẫm về những kế hoạch ban đầu của Thiên Chúa, đó là, khi một người đàn ông sẽ bỏ cha mẹ mình và sống với vợ mình, và cả hai nên một xương, một thịt. Sự kết hợp như vậy của người đàn ông và người phụ nữ được kết hợp như một mãi mãi, để rồi sự kết hợp này sẽ trở thành một đáp ứng cho cuộc sống trong sự trung thành với lời mời gọi của Thiên Chúa.
Tin Mừng hôm nay Chúa Giêsu muốn mời gọi chúng ta nên biết cảm nhận, tri ân và hiểu biết hơn về Bí Tích Hôn Phối để chúng ta có thể hình dung ra những buổi ban đầu mà Thiên Chúa đã tạo dựng ra con người chúng ta. Đối với những cặp vợ chồng vẫn đang còn sống với nhau, chúng ta cầu nguyện xin Chúa sẽ tiếp tục chúc lành cho sự kết hợp và hiệp nhất của họ. Đối với những người đã chia tay vì lý do nào đó, những người đã phải tìm kiếm cho hôn nhân của họ có một cơ hội khác. Và đối với những người đang nghĩ đến việc kết hôn, xin hãy suy nghĩ cẩn thận, không chỉ suy nghĩ có hai lần nhưng thật nhiều lần với những lời hứa cam kết hôn nhân mà chúng ta đang tìm hiểu và chúng ta cần suy xét một cách nghiêm túc. Nếu chúng ta thực sự sẵn sàng vì tình yêu và sự tôn trọng mà chúng ta đang dành cho nhau, Thì chúng ta có thể yên tâm rằng Thiên Chúa sẽ ban phát cho chúng ta bất cứ những gì là cần thiết để chúng ta có thể giữ cho cuộc sống hôn nhân đó được bền bỉ. Khi làm như vậy, chúng ta thực sự mới trở thành bí tích của Thiên Chúa, và lúc đó mới chính là lúc mà chúng ta có thể chứng kiến sự hiện diện của Thiên Chúa đang hiện diện ngay giữa chúng ta.
In our times today, there are people who do not believe in marriage. They claim "Why get tied down when live-in is a possibility?" Commitment seemingly becomes a hindrance to true freedom. Yet, we know that it is only when we commit ourselves, we truly become free. We are freer to love the other person and think of their welfare. Some would say that it is just a document that would attest to the state of these persons. Why go for an extra step of marriage when love is already present? Exactly, it is borne out of love that people would want to share and announce it to all. Hence, we say about premarital practices: just because many people do it does not make it right. In the light of the seeming lack of appreciation and understanding of the Sacrament of Marriage particularly with the popularity of divorce, Jesus invites us then to ponder on the original plan of God, that is, when a man leaves his father and mother and stays with his wife, and the two of them become one flesh. Such union of man and woman is destined forever. It then becomes a response to live in fidelity to the call of God.
The Good News is an invitation to a better appreciation and understanding of the Sacrament of Matrimony as originally envisioned by God. For those who have stayed together, we pray that the Lord will continue to bless your union. For those who have parted ways, one has to seek the necessary steps to give the marriage another chance. And for those who are thinking of marriage, please think not only twice but many times of the commitment you are seriously considering. If you are truly ready because of the love and respect you have for one another, then you can be assured that God will provide whatever is necessary in order to keep that marriage. In doing so, you truly become sacraments of God, an actual witnessing of God's presence in
our midst.
The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. Mark 10:2
The Pharisees were not interested in the deepest truths of God. They were only interested in twisting God’s truths in an attempt to prove their own self-righteousness. The question they posed to Jesus was a trap, but Jesus doesn’t fall into it. He asks them what Moses taught about the love in marriage and then explains that their understanding of Moses’ teaching was based on the hardness of their hearts and not the original intent of God as was revealed in the beginning.
Our Church’s teaching regarding the indissolubility of marriage flows from the teachings found in the Book of Genesis, subsequently confirmed and clarified by Jesus in today’s Gospel. When a true marriage bond is established by the free and total consent of a man and woman, that bond can only be separated by death.
From a much broader perspective, the marriage bond of which Jesus speaks also reveals to us the depth of commitment that God has made to each one of us and the reciprocal commitment He invites us to make. God’s covenant offered to us is freely given, total, and irrevocable. This is important to understand. God will never change His mind when it comes to the commitment, He has made to each one of us. For our part, we must continuously seek to reciprocate that commitment by giving ourselves to the will of God in the same way.
Though much more could be said about this exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees regarding earthly marriage, we must also see in this exchange a common trap that we will encounter in our marital covenant with God and our love of others. Just as the Pharisees used the law of marriage to try to trap Jesus in His speech, caring nothing about the deeper truths that this teaching revealed, we can also use the Law of God in a way that reveals our own hardness of heart. Love, be it that of marriage or the love that is the basis of our union with God, can easily be used as a weapon rather than a source of unity. Regarding others, we can easily fall into the trap of using the precepts of love as a source of manipulation and persuasion. “If you loved me, then you would…” Regarding our love of God, we can often reduce our love into a reluctant following of God’s most basic laws, such as “I have to go to church.”
If love is to be pure and holy, it must rise above erroneous interpretations of love and be lived in the way it was intended to be lived. Pure love is always self-giving. It is sacrificial. It always looks to the good of the other. Love is total and must be irrevocable. Love forges a bond that should never be broken. It must endure everything and is possible only when it is grounded in the love that God has for us.
Reflect, today, upon the way that you love. Does the hardness of your heart lead you to misrepresent the love God wants you to share with others? Do you minimize the requirements of love? Is your love total, irrevocable, and freely given? Is your love self-seeking or self-giving? Reflect upon the pure and holy nature of the love God has offered to you, and recommit yourself to offer this same depth of love to God and to others so that the covenants that result from your love will always endure.
Lord of the Covenant, Your love is perfect. It is pure, it is selfless, self-giving, total and irrevocable. Please help me to love You with this same love so that I can share in the divine marriage covenant to which I am called. May this holy love also overflow into every relationship so that You will be the foundation of those holy bonds. Jesus, I trust in You.
1. God’s Original Design for Human Love: In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has begun his way or journey to Jerusalem (Mark 8:27-10:52). As his disciples follow Jesus on the way, they learn about the “way” of Christian discipleship (Healy, The Gospel of Mark, 159). Along the way, Jesus invites his disciples to be humble servants who give their lives for others (Mark 9:33-37). In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus uses the question of the Pharisees about the law of Moses concerning divorce to teach his disciples about God’s original design for human love in marriage. “With this pronouncement on marriage, Jesus brings his teachings on suffering, self-denial, humility, and service into the most intimate sphere of human life. It is in the daily challenges of family relationships, in the struggle to live out God’s design for human love – especially in lifelong fidelity to another fallen and imperfect person – that ‘taking up the cross’ (Mark 8:34) has its most concrete application” (Healy, The Gospel of Mark, 198).
Opening Prayer: As I turn to you on this Lord’s Day, I ask you to send me the light and grace I need to fulfill the mission you have given me. I want to worship you as you deserve to be worshipped and to live my life in perfect harmony with your goodness and truth. Teach me, Lord, to “walk in your ways” (Psalms 128:1).
1. Gender Fluidity Is Not Part of the Christian Worldview: Jesus revealed clearly and forcefully in this conversation with the Pharisees that an essential part of God’s purpose for the human family is the fundamental complementarity between man and woman, between male and female. We were created by God in God’s own image and likeness, the Book of Genesis reminds us, and that image and likeness includes the complementarity between the two sexes: “God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:17). Popular culture today denies this basic truth. Popular culture today violently denies this truth and constantly attacks it. We live in the midst of and surrounded by this popular culture. Perhaps it would be wise for us to respond to Jesus’s reminder in today’s Gospel simply by taking some time to renew our adherence to God’s wise and loving plan for the human fam ily, to explicitly say to the Lord, “Lord, I believe you created the world and everything in it out of love. I believe you created the human family in your image, out of love. I accept your wise plan and I renew my commitment to live in accordance with it. Thank you.”
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