Friday of the Seventh
Week in Ordinary Time
(James 5:9-12; Mark 10:1-12)
Divorce occurs more frequently than anyone likes. The couple may have married without knowing
each other well or without knowing themselves.
Their individual lives may have been on completely different
trajectories that they were unable to harmonize. Whatever its reason, divorce leaves behind
wreckage. One of the partners is usually
devastated with the sense of betrayal.
Children rightly feel the loss of love and often enough are relegated to
poverty. But it is not precisely for
these reasons that Jesus condemns divorce in the gospel today.
Jesus denounces divorce because it violates God’s plan
for the world. In creating men and women
as complimentary beings whose coming together transmits life to others, God constructs
the basic cell of human society. Its full
realization, however, is not a momentary achievement but requires continual
attention and sacrifice -- qualities that virtually define love. Only with healthy
cells replicated a billion times around the world, will there be a civilization
implicitly worthy of the name.
In the first reading the Letter of James tells us that
our “Yes” must mean “Yes.” This
admonition is hardly ever more important than in marriage. Yet it is not enough for marriages to succeed. Beyond fidelity, we must give of ourselves significantly
so that others as well as ourselves may thrive.
