The Gospel For Friday, the 19th week in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Matthew, 19:12 verse. Some Pharisees approached Jesus and tested him, saying, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatever? He said in reply, have you not read that 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. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, man must not separate.
They said to him, then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her? He said to them, because of the hardness of your hearts, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. But from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, unless the marriage is unlawful and marries another, commits adultery. His disciples said to him, if this is the case of a man with his wife, it’s better not to marry. He answered, not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted.
Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so, some because they were made so by others, some because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it. The fidelity that marriage requires. The law of marriage is not that you cannot leave it, that you’re bound to it, no matter what. Now what Jesus is opening up is a beautiful image of something that his Father said in the Old Testament. I want to marry you.
I want to be a part of your life. I want to enter into you, which eventually one day I will through my son. And in that intimacy we will grow together. That’s the model of marriage. The law is that you’re there to want to be a part of something bigger than both of you. You want to be a part of something that brings life to each of you.
To be there for each other in good times and bad are important. So that’s what Jesus is trying to open their minds to. It’s not simply that you’re bound to it no matter what. You’re rather bound to what it celebrates the intimacy of people growing together, changing each other through through the spirit, living in each of them. Foreign Father it’s difficult for us to really grow and change without pain and difficulty. Bless us with a heart that is committed to a work, no matter what it is, so that we can experience what you have planned for us in that experience.
And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.