Homily
for October 8, 2006
Liturgical Year B - Cycle II
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Dcn. Ray Alcouffe Topic:
The two shall become one flesh.
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Reading
I Gen
2:18-24 The
LORD God said: "It is not good for the
man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him."
So
the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various
birds of
the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man
gave
names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all wild
animals; but
none proved to be the suitable partner for the man. So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and
while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its
place with
flesh. The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib
that he had
taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, the man said: "This
one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall
be
called 'woman, ' for out of 'her man’ this one has been taken." That is
why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the
two of
them become one flesh. Gospel Mk
10: 2-12 The
Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, "Is it lawful for a husband to
divorce his wife?" They were testing him. He said to them in reply,
"What did Moses command you?" They replied, "Moses
permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her."
But
Jesus told them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you
this
commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them
male and
female. 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, no
human being
must separate." In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus
about this. He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and
marries
another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband
and marries
another, she commits adultery."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The
two shall become one flesh.”
I,
Ray,
take you Joan, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times
and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you
all the days of my life.
Such
straightforward promises in such simple words; yet they yield
repercussions that define what two lives will deal with in the years to
come. For Joan and me that was 42+ years ago; the setting was a church
and the witnesses to these vows were a priest (Msgr. Verhoeven) and our
families and friends. We were excited, everyone was happy (except maybe
my father-in-law) and we all got caught up in the celebration of Joan
and Ray becoming a married couple. What we were entering into was a
life that both Joan and I wanted; we were promising to be together for
the rest of our lives and we had no idea what that meant. People were
cautioning us that there would be a time called “after the honeymoon”,
and that time would last a lot longer that the honeymoon.
They
were right, of course. What they meant was that everything in married
life is not bliss and happiness and love conquers all. We knew that
intellectually but we really didn’t know what that meant until we
actually experienced it. Actually, love does conquer all but in between
there are a lot of disappointments and heartaches and even anguish and
disillusionment. But if you hang in there, we have found that our young
love was right; we could make and keep the promises that we made in our
vows, that we would be faithful to one another no matter what and that
we would be together forever. Just not in the way we thought. With that
our young love became our mature love not in the sense of an
accomplishment, but in the sense of true joy.
How
can
this happen with all the phases that our married life goes through?
From the honeymoon period, to the respite before children, through the
raising of the kids, the balancing of work and married life and
parenting, the time of the empty nest, and then retirement, and the
health problems as we age together. Running straight through all these
phases are the disagreements, conflicts, financial uncertainties,
crises of one kind or the other. These things boggle the mind, so what
sustains a marriage through all this?
I am going to answer this not by giving some kind of formula or
technique for success, but by mentioning some awareness. The first is
that love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. Love is a choice. In
our young love we are mainly at the feeling level - love feels good; it
feels good and positive to be in love. But that can’t be all there is
to love because feelings are transitory, they just happen and they
don’t last. True love comes not from our feelings or our emotions, but
from our will - it is a free choice. Love is a decision. Thus we love
in spite of our feelings not because of them, so that we can say: I
will love you and honor you all the days of my life and make that our
life’s commitment in a realistic way. In this sense, we cannot “fall
out of love.” It is our choice to be in love or not to be. Thus, this
vow of ours, this constant choice of ours, can only be sustained if we
immerse ourselves in God, who is love.
The
second awareness is that through all the phases of our married life, we
live through cycles of romance, disillusionment and joy. One definition
of romance is that it is a state of intense absorption in another to
the exclusion of everything and everyone else. Sometimes these romantic
interludes just happen like when we are doing something together and we
realize that we are saying - I love you so very much! It’s a shared
excitement as our lives together become new again. Sometimes romance is
planned times when we create a ‘romantic’ atmosphere where we shut out
everything else so we can just focus on one another; like having a
romantic dinner, just the two of us; or a picnic by a stream in the
mountains. Then there will be times of disillusionment where we wonder
if love has passed us by; where we wonder if disappointments are going
to be the main component of our married life together.
Disillusionments--where the other person is not living out our
expectations. It seems that we are not a couple but are living a
married singles lifestyle. These periods can last for moments or for
years. However, through communication, in all its various forms, we can
emerge from disillusionment to optimism and renewed love, which we call
joy. Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally
loved and nothing can take that love away. In this way, we are touched
at our deepest level because God is joy.
Thus
our next awareness deepens and we discover that God really is an
essential part of our marriage; it is God who is the foundation and the
best part of marriage - God is love and joy. We see that it is God who
is present as a witness to our vows and it is God who makes it possible
to live out those vows as we grow together.
This
is
what Jesus is addressing in our passage from the Gospel of Mark. He
says to us that from the beginning marriage in God’s eyes is a part of
the plan of creation. Marriage is the formation of a new creature, the
married couple, who grow in relationship to become one flesh that is
one being in two persons. Thus, marriage is raised up from some kind of
human institution to be an image of the very life of God. Marriage seen
from God’s eyes is designed to be a sign of God’s faithful love for
God’s people; marriage is thus a sacrament. So, God has a big stake in
each of our marriages which is what Jesus is telling us when he says
that what God has joined together, no human being must separate. Jesus
says divorce is incompatible with marriage in God’s plan and he also
says no to remarriage if there should be divorce. Unfortunately, when
we hear this we focus on the negative and forget the positive which God
wants to emphasize - thus we hear condemnation and not the call to
holiness. However, it is not in God’s nature to condemn, instead God is
obsessed with having us conform to the good because that is the way God
creates the universe. Creation is structured to bring forth life and
thus we will only have life if we conform to the good, if we conform to
the path that has life as its goal. In marriage, this means that we are
called to the path of love and joy. Thus, it is a good thing to live a
marriage, a marriage we call sacramental, and a marriage that has an
explicit Christlike depth. It is good to persevere in spite of
adversity - because when we are successful, this is a path that is not
necessarily always a path to happiness, but it is one to joy. That is
God’s promise to us as we fulfill those vows that we make to one
another as a married couple - we will grow into the joy that is God.