the Church and the Christian family, (and society itself) will only survive in those areas where the Church upholds boldly the nature and indissolubility of marriage.

Homily for Mark 10: 2-16 Twenty Seventh Sunday

Today in the Catholic Church in America we celebrate Pro-Life Sunday and the Fact that every human life must be protected, defended and promoted from Conception to Natural death…there is no life that is not worthy of living...born or unborn, weak or strong, poor or rich, sick or healthy, mentally or physically disabled, male or female. And this weekend, we also recall an important teaching on which the entire teaching of Life begins and rests: the sanctity of marriage.

In the Holy Gospel today the Pharisees question Jesus about the nature of marriage. They ask Him, “Is it legal to divorce your wife?” Knowing that they were just trying to justify themselves and trap Him, Jesus, points out that Moses only allowed divorce because of their hardness of heart. Jesus reminds them and us that in the beginning it was not so.

It is important to realize here that the condition of women at the time of this Gospel was ignominious. In other words, women were basically deprived of all human dignity and rights and were seen merely as the property of their husband and nothing more. Even slaves were considered higher than women; it was Christianity that would change this injustice.

And so, a woman could be merely set aside by her husband for virtually any reason whatsoever, with no recourse. The husband could then remarry but the woman could not and so she became despised and shunned by society, treated no differently than a leper. This is why Moses insisted that the husband give the wife a certificate of repudiation--a bill of divorce. By insisting on this, Moses was not giving his stamp of approval to divorce, far from it, but he was acting to protect the woman. Moses wanted women who were dumped by their husbands to be free to marry again so that their condition would not become even worse than it already was.

Jesus takes this opportunity to affirm the nature and the indissolubility of marriage as God originally intended at Creation. By quoting Genesis, Jesus recalls the Pharisees and the world to the original intention of God for man and for woman, for husband and wife, when Jesus says:
“But from the beginning of creation, God made them 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. What therefore God has joined together, man must not separate.”

Jesus, the Lord of Creation, declares, not only the nature of marriage between one man and one woman, but as well, that the unity and indissolubility of marriage had been established from the very beginning. This teaching so surprised his disciples that when they had Jesus alone, they ask him to explain it again. And so Jesus reinstates it even further, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery’. The disciples respond by saying, “Then it is better that one not marry.”

John Paul II in the Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) re-echoed these words of Jesus when he said,

It is a fundamental duty of the Church to reaffirm strongly…the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. To all those who, in our times, consider it too difficult, or indeed impossible, to be bound to one person for the whole of life, and to those caught up in a culture that mocks the commitment of spouses to fidelity, it is necessary to reconfirm the good news of the definitive nature of that conjugal love that has in Christ foundation and strength.
Being rooted in the personal and total self-giving of the couple, and being required by the good of the children, the indissolubility of marriage finds its ultimate truth in the plan that God has manifested in His revelation; He wills and He communicates the indissolubility of marriage as a fruit, a sign and a requirement of the absolutely faithful love that God has for man and that the Lord Jesus has for the Church.

The Pope here is upholding that constant teaching of the Church that a validly consummated marriage results in a bond that can only be broken by death. It must be so because marriage is the image of the bond between Christ and His Mystical body-the Church; that is, between Christ, the bride groom, and the Church His bride. And Jesus will never divorce His Church nor will He divorce either one of us for that matter.

Many couples use today’s Gospel in their wedding, as they pledge their love to one another for a lifetime. Everyone participating in the wedding, hopes and prays that the couple will be able to do this and most especially us priests pray for them. There is probably nothing that saddens and frustrates parish priests more than seeing marriages fall apart and end in divorce. All of our parishes, all of our families -- including priests' families of origin -- have been affected by divorce and family break-ups. We see couples so angry with each other that they can barely speak to one another. We see one or more of the couple completely devastated, facing pain almost as bad as losing a spouse. We see parents and the rest of the extended families upset, and treading on eggshells, not knowing what to do or what to say. And the saddest of all is seeing the faces of little children involved in a divorce.

Now, of course no one these days -- not even the Church -- will counsel people to stay in a marriage if there is physical abuse involved. Nobody deserves to get knocked around. And sometimes a civil divorce (sad as it is) is necessary. And of course, the Church admits there are marriages that were invalid at the very beginning; marriages that began with an impediment, a wall which prevented the two becoming one validly in the eyes of God--that’s why there are such things as annulments. (An annulment doesn’t annul a valid marriage, but only recognizes the marriage was invalid in the first place.) But too often, too many times, the situations -- which almost always include some form of emotional abuse -- those situations which lead up to a divorce, had they been dealt with in time, could have been changed, and the marriage saved. But the work of healing must begin sooner rather than later.

Too many couples are under the impression today, that once all the preparations and work for the wedding is over, then they can simply relax and live happily ever after. Wrong. Marriage is work. Marriage is very hard work. The two people involved are bringing all their personal baggage, their two families’ baggage, varying cultural expectations, and their own lack of perfection, along with them into the marriage. It takes work and time for them living together -- within the safe framework of marriage, not outside of it – to learn to get along; to know what the other is trying to communicate verbally and non-verbally; to make mistakes, and to learn from them. And if the marriage does begin to take a turn for the worse, it takes more work in marriage counseling to get things back on track.

I have worked with a group called Retrouvaille that assists couples in healing their marriage. I have seen marriages in terrible shape find reconciliation and forgiveness. The couples work very hard and the process takes time and energy. The marriage does not get into trouble overnight nor is it healed overnight. One of the amazing things that these couples discover in this whole process of healing is the very roots of their problems; the very root of their problems is their not knowing, understanding and not following the teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality and marriage. They realize that so many of their problems were caused by a failure to be chaste before marriage, a failure to be open to life in each and every marital act and failure to recognize the great dignity and sacredness of the marital act-(an act that is only for procreation together with the good of the couple). They realized that they just didn’t know or understand what marriage is really for, what the purpose of sex is for. They realize that the first duty in marriage is to help one another get to heaven, and then to bring God’s children in to the world and help them get to heaven. As one person said, “I realized that, the first thing Jesus is going to say to a married couple when they face him on the Day of Judgment, “Did you help your spouse get to heaven, and secondly, “did you help MY children get to heaven.” He won’t say, “your children,” He will say, “MY children.”

In their rediscovery of each other and their marriage, the couple learns that Christian marriage is not just a social institution, but it is really a supernatural calling and vocation. It is more than a contact or an arrangement between two parties that can be broken if either ones does hold up their end of the agreement, instead marriage is a covenant, literally a exchange of persons who come together by swearing an oath before God in which one says to the other, I give myself totally & exclusively to you, I lay down by life for you, I love you as my other self, so help me God!

In this, they realize that Marriage takes three. When it is lived with Christ, in His truth, and through the divine power of His Sacrament and grace, marriage, then and only then, becomes holy and thus life giving to the couple, to the children and to the whole church and world. With Jesus, He fills the souls of husbands and wife and invites them to follow Him fully. He transforms their whole married life into an occasion for God’s presence on earth and witnesses to His “un-breakable-covenantal love.

The key to healing and forgiveness in marriage and in the family is a humble, childlike attitude. We have to change, we have to allow our Lord purify us and heal us…we have to repent and confess our sins…this is humility. We have to confess our sins not only as individuals but even as couples and as whole families, coming together as a family to the beautiful, healing and restorative Sacrament of confession. Our Lord only invites the children who are humble to come to him-not the prideful.

The nature of Marriage as between one man and one woman and the indissolubility of marriage are the foundations of the family. And Family is the primary vital cell of society itself. And in a way, it is also the vital cell of the Church itself. In fact, the Church and the Christian family, (and society itself) will only survive in those areas where the Church upholds boldly the nature and indissolubility of marriage. The Church and her ministers know that marriage has a sacred status that must be upheld. And they know that the family which begins with marriage has a sacred status which deserves the veneration, protection and the attention of all its members, of civil society itself, and of the entire Church.

Let us today ask our Lord truly present in the Holy Eucharist to help us to live by the high demands of the Gospel. With the high demands also comes the help from on high, the grace, to live it, if we only receive the truth with a humble, Childlike faith. Let us end with these beautiful words of John Paul the II:

According to the plan of God, marriage is the foundation of the wider community of the family, since the very institution of marriage and conjugal love are ordained to the procreation and education of children, in whom they find their crowning.(34)
In its most profound reality, love is essentially a gift; and conjugal love, while leading the spouses to the reciprocal "knowledge" which makes them "one flesh,"(35) does not end with the couple, because it makes them capable of the greatest possible gift, the gift by which they become cooperators with God for giving life to a new human person. Thus the couple, while giving themselves to one another, give not just themselves but also the reality of children, who are a living reflection of their love, a permanent sign of conjugal unity and a living and inseparable synthesis of their being a father and a mother.
When they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift of a new responsibility. Their parental love is called to become for the children the visible sign of the very love of God, "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”