The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. Mark 10:2
The Pharisees were not interested in the deepest truths
of God. They were only interested in twisting God’s truths in an attempt to
prove their own self-righteousness. The question they posed to Jesus was a
trap, but Jesus doesn’t fall into it. He asks them what Moses taught about the
love in marriage and then explains that their understanding of Moses’ teaching
was based on the hardness of their hearts and not the original intent of God as
was revealed in the beginning.
Our Church’s teaching regarding the indissolubility
of marriage flows from the teachings found in the Book of Genesis, subsequently
confirmed and clarified by Jesus in today’s Gospel. When a true marriage bond
is established by the free and total consent of a man and woman, that bond can
only be separated by death.
From a much broader perspective, the marriage bond of
which Jesus speaks also reveals to us the depth of commitment that God has made
to each one of us and the reciprocal commitment He invites us to make. God’s
covenant offered to us is freely given, total, and irrevocable. This is
important to understand. God will never change His mind when it comes to the
commitment He has made to each one of us. For our part, we must continuously
seek to reciprocate that commitment by giving ourselves to the will of God in
the same way.
Though much more could be said about this exchange
between Jesus and the Pharisees regarding earthly marriage, we must also see in
this exchange a common trap that we will encounter in our marital covenant with
God and our love of others. Just as the Pharisees used the law of marriage to
try to trap Jesus in His speech, caring nothing about the deeper truths that
this teaching revealed, we can also use the Law of God in a way that reveals
our own hardness of heart. Love, be it that of marriage or the love that is the
basis of our union with God, can easily be used as a weapon rather than a
source of unity. Regarding others, we can easily fall into the trap of using
the precepts of love as a source of manipulation and persuasion. “If you loved
me, then you would…” Regarding our love of God, we can often reduce our love
into a reluctant following of God’s most basic laws, such as “I have to go to
church.”
If love is to be pure and holy, it must rise above
erroneous interpretations of love and be lived in the way it was intended to be
lived. Pure love is always self-giving. It is sacrificial. It always looks to
the good of the other. Love is total and must be irrevocable. Love forges a
bond that should never be broken. It must endure everything and is possible
only when it is grounded in the love that God has for us.
Reflect, today, upon the way that you love. Does the
hardness of your heart lead you to misrepresent the love God wants you to share
with others? Do you minimize the requirements of love? Is your love total,
irrevocable, and freely given? Is your love self-seeking or self-giving?
Reflect upon the pure and holy nature of the love God has offered to you, and
recommit yourself to offer this same depth of love to God and to others so that
the covenants that result from your love will always endure.
Lord of the Covenant, Your love is perfect. It is
pure, it is selfless, self-giving, total and irrevocable. Please help me to
love You with this same love so that I can share in the divine marriage
covenant to which I am called. May this holy love also overflow into every
relationship so that You will be the foundation of those holy bonds. Jesus, I
trust in You.
Source: My Catholic Life
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