As a priest, I am used to being asked a lot of questions. Some are easier to answer than others. “What time is Mass?” That can be answered pretty easily. “Why do we believe in Purgatory?” That one takes a little longer.
Maybe the most difficult questions though are the ones not about beliefs but about behavior. “Is such-and-such wrong?” “Can I do X?” “Why should I feel bad about doing Y?” These questions are hard because to answer them well can take a long time. It’s easy enough to say, “No, you shouldn’t do that,” but explaining the “why” behind it is often a more elaborate exercise. Generally, the point that I try to explain is that when the Church teaches us that not to do something, it is so that we can fulfill a higher or deeper good. A child hears its parent say, “No,” – perhaps as it reached out to touch a hot stove or tried to run out into traffic – but that “No,” is really founded upon a deeper and fuller, “Yes,” a “Yes” to the child’s ultimate well-being and happiness. In just the same way, our faith teaches us that many things are wrong – not because it wants to spoil our fun, but because it wants us to avoid those things that can turn us away from the deeper happiness that God wants for us.
In the Gospel today, the Pharisees confront Jesus with a seemingly simple question: “Is divorce lawful?” The question is straightforward but also deceptive. Divorce was lawful for Jewish people, since it had been allowed by Moses; but it also was understood as something less than what God had intended in the beginning. The Pharisees pose the question in the hope that Jesus will either seemingly compromise the higher ideals, or contradict Moses, either of which would make him appear ridiculous to his followers. But Jesus is the Son of God – he is the very Author of human life and love, the one “through whom and for whom all things have been created” (Col 1:16). To answer their question, he will not be tricked into giving a simplistic “Yes” or “No,” but rather he wants to give them a deeper explanation, the full “why” that lies at the heart of their question.
The Pharisees are fixated upon divorce as a legal reality, as something “right” or “wrong” in the context of behavior. But Jesus shows that to consider the lawfulness of divorce, you really have to consider what marriage is and what purpose it has in the plan of God. In creation, marriage has two natural purposes: the loving partnership of husband and wife, and the procreation and education of offspring. That is God’s plan “in the beginning”, as Jesus says – that man and woman should find in each other a commonality and a complementarity such that together they form a new family, and from the love of their “one flesh”, new life springs forth. Marriage, in short, has a purpose in God’s creation of helping us to thrive, to prosper, and to be happy.
Jacob de Backer, The Garden of Eden (c. 1575)
God’s plan for marriage doesn’t end there. It has those natural ends that I mentioned – the union of the spouses, and the raising of children – but it also has a supernatural purpose as well. God foresaw in the love of man and woman an image of his love for humanity. In the radical self-gift that is marriage, he foresaw the total self-gift of his Son on the Cross for us, to save us from sin and to reconcile us to him. Thus, marriage in God’s plan is not just an earthly reality but a heavenly sign. It is, in short, a sacrament – a means by which human beings can participate in the very love of God himself and become themselves a symbol of the union he intends for us to have with him for all eternity.
After looking at what God desires marriage to be, perhaps we can better see why divorce is a corruption of his plan. If marriage were only about making us happy on earth, we might conclude that divorce is fairly sensible; after all, who wants to be in an unhappy marriage? But marriage is about more than mere happiness on earth – it’s intended to be a sign of the heavenly marriage of God and his creation. Through the mutual sacrifice, commitment, and self-gift of marriage, spouses learn to love each other in a way that goes beyond mere nature – they learn to love with God’s love, and so help each other get to heaven.
That, in short, is God’s vision for married love – but as we know, that is not always how it works out. Some people, for example, deeply desire to be married, but never find the right person to whom to give themselves. For others, they know personally the sting of divorce. While God has intended for marriage to be lifelong, it is true there are times and situations – such as chronic instances of infidelity or abuse – in which divorce might be not only justified but necessary. And some people are called to give up their natural desire for married life in order to give themselves to a higher reality – to priesthood, to religious life, or to the consecrated single life.
We can’t really do justice to all of these matters here – they would have to be topics for other homilies. Instead, if there is one thing that we should take away from today’s readings it is this: as Christians, we have to view everything about our earthly lives in view of the heavenly calling we each have. God’s plan for marriage is about earthly happiness, but even more it is about preparation for the life to come – a kind of training course of sacrifice, of mutual self-gift that opens our hearts to learn to love with the love of Christ. That is not just God’s plan for marriage, though – it’s the plan for every vocation, every call to holiness that is planted in the heart of the Christian.
Friends, the great thing about our God is that he never ceases to draw us to himself. If you are married, or if you believe yourself called to marriage, God is offering you the amazing gift of allowing your married love to be a sign to all of his eternal love for humanity. Remember though that marriage, like all the things of this world, is a preparation for the life to come and we have to keep that eternal destination in mind whenever it, or anything else in life, becomes challenging. If marriage is not your calling – or if something happened along the way, and loss or divorce or some other sadness has touched your life – do not despair! Our primary identity, as Jesus says at the end of the Gospel, is children of the heavenly kingdom, and whatever the circumstances of our lives, God can transform the love we have now into one that is purer, deeper, more like the love of Christ’s, more like the love of heaven.
Our lives our filled with numerous questions – about what we can do and about what we should do. All of us are created for relationship, either in marriage or in some other vocation. At times, we will run up against a hard “No” to what we may desire, either because of the circumstances of the world or because of what our faith teaches. But when that happens, we must discern beneath it the deeper “Yes” that God speaks to each of us – the calling to eternal life with him, and the invitation to regard all of the things of this life as an aid in getting there. That is the answer to every question, the response to our every desire. May the Eucharist we will receive in a few moments help us to regard our relationships, our marriages, our sins and struggles, and every aspect of our lives, in such a way that we may hold fast to that eternal reality to come.
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