MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

Homily for August 16^th, 2019: Matt. 19:3-12.

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus is asked in today’s’ gospel reading. Jesus responds not by an appeal to law, but by reminding his questioners of what God did in creation. “From the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” -- something possible only for people of different genders. Divorce, Jesus says, was never part of God’s plan. It originated “because of the hardness of your hearts” – in other words, as a result of sin.  

 There is hardly a family today which is not touched in some measure by divorce. Despite talk about “no fault divorce”, it is always painful. How could it be otherwise when marriage is the union of a man and a woman “in one flesh”? The ending of such a one-flesh relationship is comparable to the amputation of a limb.          

Since Jesus refers his questioners to the Creation story, it’s worth looking back at the first two chapters of Genesis. In chapter one God says after each stage of creation: “It is good.” After making man and woman together, he tells them: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Parenthood is thus the first purpose of marriage. And only a man and a woman can fulfill that purpose. At the end of that first chapter, God looks at all he has made and says: “It is very good” (vs. 31).      

The first thing that God looks at in Creation and says, “It is not good” is loneliness: “It is not good for the man to be alone,” we read in Genesis 2, verse 18. The creation of woman follows. Her fashioning from the man’s rib is of course a pre-scientific tale. But it shows that woman was made to complete man. The two sexes were not made for rivalry: domination on the one hand manipulation on the other. That came about through sin. They were created by God to complete and support one another. That is the second reason for marriage.

Mindful, then, of Jesus’ teaching, we pray in this Mass especially for married couples who are experiencing difficulties or stress in their marriages; that God, for whom all things are possible, will help them to remain faithful.