A Broad, Expansive Love

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflecting on the Word

By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger

A friend came into the break room and announced, “Today, my  husband and I have been married for thirteen happy years!” We all  congratulated her. When the room quieted, she said, “Well . . . we’ve  been married for twenty-four.” 

Marriage can be beautiful. Marriage can be broken. There is  nothing that can get an argument going as much as the topic of  marriage. That was true in the times Jesus lived in. That is still true  in our own. 

Some of the priests whom I coach in homiletics tell me that they’d  rather talk about anything else than preach on marriage and divorce.  They know people in their pews who have been hurt by betrayal  and brokenness; some had their childhood ripped apart when their  family split up, leaving wounds that have never healed. Why would  you want to awaken that pain? 

The words of Jesus teaching about the permanence of marriage  can feel rigid and even harsh from a Teacher who was neither. Yet  his words have been slung like a weapon ever since. But what is the  ideal that Jesus, the man of love, is looking for? 

At the center of this scripture are the words “joined together.” They  connote a God-given intimacy; not just walking beside someone, not  simply a physical union, but an integral give-and-take of one’s whole  life. Jesus extols becoming childlike, but childishness has to be left  behind for two people to come together to serve one another.

Sometimes we get glimpses of God’s expansive vision for what  marriage can be. I recall Tom and Sally at daily Mass. She was frail  and leaned like the Tower of Pisa. He led her into church by the  elbow. When he smoothed her hair, she looked up at him and smiled.  They had gone through many decades and many sufferings, but the  two of them seemed to be “joined together” in mutual joy. I think  they made God smile. 

Consider/Discuss 

  • God’s vision for marriage is broad and expansive—a gift of belovedness  from one person to another. Where have you seen that vision take hold?  Who do you know as a model of being “joined together”? 
  • Just as the Pharisees put Jesus to the test over the issue of marriage and  divorce, so our culture wrangles over the issue of marriage. It is deeply  divisive topic. What kinds of disputes arise among your family and friends?  In Christian charity, how can you speak to those conflicts in a way that will  be heard as love? 

Living and Praying with the Word 

Jesus, you saw a model of marriage in your childhood home in  Nazareth. And yet even your Holy Family was not free from its  trials. Early on, Joseph thought about divorcing Mary. There may  have been conflicts about how to raise you properly, whose fault it  was you got left behind in the temple, how to carry on as Joseph lay  dying. Married life is full of the tug and pull of conflict. Send your  grace upon all families. Help us to handle our differences with love  and kindness. Your vision is that we be one. On our own, we cannot  make it happen, but come, Prince of Peace and make it so.

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