Contemplating today's Gospel
Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home; your children like olive plants around your table.
Behold, thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion: may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.
May you see your children's children. Peace be upon Israel!
And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.
“What God has joined together, no human being must separate”
Fr. Fernando PERALES i Madueño (Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain)Today, the Pharisees want to put Jesus to the test again, and they propose to him the question of divorce. But, instead of giving them a definite answer, Jesus asks them in return what the Scriptures say and, without criticizing Moses' Law, makes them understand that while that Law is legitimate, it is only temporal: "Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment” (Mk 10:5).
Jesus reminds them what Genesis says: “But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” (Mk 10:6; cf. Gn 1:27). Jesus speaks here of the unity of Humankind. Man will leave father and mother and will join his wife, and the two shall become one flesh to form Mankind. This represents a new reality: Two human beings form a unity, not as an “association”, but as a generator of Humanity. The conclusion is quite evident: “what God has joined together, no human being must separate." (Mk 10:9).
If we look at marriage as an association, its indissolubility cannot be fathomed. If marriage is just a matter of associated interests, we can then understand its dissolution may appear as legitimate. In this case, speaking of marriage in these terms is disdainful, because it refers only to the association of two single persons who have decided to make their lives more pleasant. When the Lord speaks of marriage, He is referring to something else. The Vatican II Council reminds us: «For the good of the spouses and their off-spring as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes. All of these have a very decisive bearing on the continuation of the human race» (Gaudium et spes, n. 48).
Back home, the Apostles asked him again about the demands of marriage, and this is followed by the tender scene with the infants. Both passages are related. The second lesson is like a parable that explains how the marriage is possible. The Kingdom of God is for those that become as infants and accept to build something new. And marriage is the same if we really understand what it actually means, that is: to leave, to join and to become.
September 29th
Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Gospel and commentary video
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