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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 of content: catholic-daily-reflections.com
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Featured image above: Christ among the Pharisees By Jacob
Jordaens, via Wikimedia Commons
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