The Gospel of Mark, chapter 10:6-8

When you take time to stop and think, there are millions of men and women who are happily married in this country. The media seldom carries happy stories about marriage. Instead, we hear startling divorce statistics, tales of discontent, bizarre stories of spouses murdering each other and their children, and other assorted horrors.

Only rarely do we stop and give thanks for all the happy marriages around us. Just within our small parish of Sacred Heart, we have several couples who have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversaries so far this year. Others are celebrating their 25th, 30th, and 40th years together. Many others are getting married each year in our church.

Today’s scripture focuses on marriage-its beginnings in creation, and its indissolubility. For the married men and women out there, today is a good time to say thank you Lord for happy marriages. For all of us, it is a time to remember that marriage was created by God to make men and women holy.

Divorce is a painful affair. It may be unavoidable in certain circumstances but it was not in the original plan of God, as Genesis makes clear and as Jesus said so forcefully. Yet, many things we take for granted in our world were not in that plan either-war, poverty, injustice, death, and so many unfortunate realities of life. It is strange, isn’t it, that we do not try to assign blame for these other realities but are so quick to assign blame in each and every divorce?

Jesus did not wish to heap guilt and more pain upon those who had already suffered the anguish of divorce but He points out the ideal of God’s love: that all men and women should enjoy a bond of love that lasts unto eternity.

Before men and women become husbands and wives, they are brothers and sisters, children of the same God, created in his image and likeness. To help married couples live happily together, societies have defined their own expectations of a good husband and a good wife. As the ages roll on, these expectations may change since there is nothing divine about them. They are only the practical wisdom of each age.

What remains steadfast is God’s original plan: that men and women in marriage should be united in a bond of love that can overcome all forces that would divide them.

Fr. Hugh Duffy