Posted by The WORD in other words (2018) by Fr. Magdaleno Fabiosa SVD – Villa Cristo Rey, Christ the King Seminary, Quezon City
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time – B
In answer to the question of the Pharisees regarding the legality of divorce, Jesus quotes a passage from the Genesis story: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother. . .” then He adds: “Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one put asunder.” What Jesus meant is that God enters into the lives of married man and woman and He stays with them as long as they allow Him to be present in their married life.
Marriage is an awesome reality in the Catholic tradition. Of the seven sacraments, it is only the sacrament of marriage where the priest is not the celebrant; the husband and wife are the celebrants. This means that when they say “yes”, each will give to the other not only themselves; each will channel to the other, GOD. He will never be far from them. He will always be there for them in good times and in bad. He will be faithful to them. This ceremony is a solemn pledge of his presence and faithfulness in their marital life. But God’s presence can never be one-sided. They have to be present to God. He must be real to them as they are real to each other. If He is, then the odds are in their favor. If he is not, then I fear for them.
Jesus taught us how to make God present in our lives – by living on in his love. We live on in his love if we keep his commandments just as Jesus kept the Father’s commandments and lived on in the Father’s love. And Jesus continues: “This is my commandment; love one another as I have loved you. If you have this love, then, the Father and I will dwell in you and make our home in you.”
Here we have the formula and the secret of a happy and a lasting marriage – a love patterned according to Jesus’ love for us, a love that was ready to give up one’s life out of love for the other. It is not the kind of unrealistic and sugar-coated love presented to us by the movies and TV canned shows. There, love is characterized by the electricity of companionship, a nice feeling towards the other and a kind of “kilig-to-the-bone” experience. These are not essential in love because they inevitably disappear in time. Those who have been married already for some time will surely bear this out.
The love I am talking about is a love modeled according to God’s love. St. Paul, in his 1st letter to the Corinthians, names the down-to-earth qualities of this love. He says: love is patient and kind; it not jealous or conceited; is not selfish and irritable; it does not keep a record of wrongs. No marriage without these qualities described by St. Paul will ever last.
A priest related this story: I joined the family when my father’s remains were transferred to a Memorial Park in Metro Manila. Before going back to my assignment in Mindanao, I went to visit my father’s new grave accompanied by my mother. As we stood there, I saw my mother weeping quietly. Then, out of the blue, she said to me: ”You know that your father never hurt my feelings during all the years of our marriage.”
When I was on the plane on my way back to Mindanao, I reflected on what my mother said. There must have been much love in that marriage, for her to remember that after so many years after his death. Perhaps what made this possible was God’s assurance of his accompaniment and presence in their marriage. There was no jealousy, no selfishness and irritability; they did not keep a record of wrong doings; there was kindness and patience, as Paul describes what Christian love is. These characteristics of love are sure indicators of what God assured them the day they were married: His presence in their married life.
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