Homily
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Respect Life Sunday
7 October 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
On the communications inventory given to couples approaching the Church for the sacrament of marriage, there is a 'trick' true/false statement that reads as follows: As long as we love each other, everything will work out. The correct answer to the question is false. The purpose of the communications inventory is to show that a couple has lots of things to work on, lots of things to talk about, lots of things to prepare for. Because marriage is not easy. From Jesus' time until now, marriage has never been easy, and who would argue that it is perhaps harder today than ever?
So the correct answer to the true/false statement - as long as we love each other, everything will work out, is false. Marriage is not only a naive falling in love, it is a working out of a lot of things, even when you don't feel in love anymore. That being said, almost all couples answer the question true. That love is all that matters in the end. That love is stronger than anything. That if they did not believe in the love that they have found for each other, they wouldn't get married in the first place.
So who's right? The inventory or the couples? I would have to say in the end that the couples are right. The real reason people get divorced is because they fall out of love. There are other circumstances, to be sure, curveballs that life throws our way, things no one could see years ago that end up destroying a marriage. But circumstances always change. Nothing stays the same. So Jesus is right in telling his disciples that it is because of the hardness of their hearts that Moses allowed them to divorce. It is people falling out of love that is the problem. So Jesus points his disciples to little children as a sign of how to fall in love again. See, the young couples, not the inventory, are right. Unless we fall in love, and become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of God.
By saying this I am not trying to pour salt in the wound of anyone who has been through divorce, and there is a lot of pain in this society and in our Church which leads the world in annulments granted. Yet rarely if ever do I meet a divorced person who has completely given up on love and marriage. Despite failure, people want to try again, and they want love for others. For if any of us quit believing in love, we are already dead, for love is man's origin, love is his constant calling, and love is his perfection.
There are some who think we have arrived at the point now where the sacrament of marriage as Jesus gave it to us has little to contribute to the modern meaning of love and sex and family. There are others who think that since the Church and culture seem to produce fewer young people who are capable and desirous of marriage, and since divorce shows marriage to be a flawed and unnecessary institution, and since the definition of marriage seems to be moving quickly in a direction that the Church cannot and will not accept, that now is the time for the Church to get out of the marriage business. As one who works with engaged couples, I can honestly say the thought has crossed my mind that this one sacrament is more work than the other six sacraments combined.
But only the evil one can dull the desire for the fullness of life that Jesus teaches and offers to his beloved disciples. Now cannot be the time to shy away from the Church's teaching on sex, marriage and family. Now is the time to double down. For the Church is not the Church if she has a treasure that she simply hides and tries to preserve for future generations; no, our Church is only the Church if she evangelizes, and does not hide from the culture but seeks to transform it. It is imperative that we keep the sacrament of marriage as Jesus gave it to His Church before our young people and work diligently to make it a real possibility not for fewer people in the future, but for more. We have to believe that we have the real thing, for the Lord has given us the sacrament of marriage that is a real participation in his life and love.
If marriage will survive in our culture, and trust me, we should all pray until our knees are worn out that it does, for the common good of our society and especially for our children, then it will depend upon the Church's proclamation of marriage precisely as Christ gave it to us; namely, that marriage is more than a couple falling in love with each other, but even moreso a man and woman falling in love together in something that is bigger than them. Marriage is grounded not in our ability to redefine it however it suits us, but in hearing a call from Jesus, the ultimate groom whose marriage lasts not for a lifetime but forever, to enter into and to imitate his love for his bride, the Church, a love that makes her holy. In this, a couple is to fall in love with this marriage of Christ more than they fall in love with each other, and so surrender themselves to its incomparable fruitfulness and generosity. Jesus gives us the litmus test of the real thing. Let the children come to me. Real marriage leads not to children that are artifically manufactured when wanted and discarded when they are not, but children who are always welcomed no matter what.
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time B
Respect Life Sunday
7 October 2012
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas
On the communications inventory given to couples approaching the Church for the sacrament of marriage, there is a 'trick' true/false statement that reads as follows: As long as we love each other, everything will work out. The correct answer to the question is false. The purpose of the communications inventory is to show that a couple has lots of things to work on, lots of things to talk about, lots of things to prepare for. Because marriage is not easy. From Jesus' time until now, marriage has never been easy, and who would argue that it is perhaps harder today than ever?
So the correct answer to the true/false statement - as long as we love each other, everything will work out, is false. Marriage is not only a naive falling in love, it is a working out of a lot of things, even when you don't feel in love anymore. That being said, almost all couples answer the question true. That love is all that matters in the end. That love is stronger than anything. That if they did not believe in the love that they have found for each other, they wouldn't get married in the first place.
So who's right? The inventory or the couples? I would have to say in the end that the couples are right. The real reason people get divorced is because they fall out of love. There are other circumstances, to be sure, curveballs that life throws our way, things no one could see years ago that end up destroying a marriage. But circumstances always change. Nothing stays the same. So Jesus is right in telling his disciples that it is because of the hardness of their hearts that Moses allowed them to divorce. It is people falling out of love that is the problem. So Jesus points his disciples to little children as a sign of how to fall in love again. See, the young couples, not the inventory, are right. Unless we fall in love, and become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of God.
By saying this I am not trying to pour salt in the wound of anyone who has been through divorce, and there is a lot of pain in this society and in our Church which leads the world in annulments granted. Yet rarely if ever do I meet a divorced person who has completely given up on love and marriage. Despite failure, people want to try again, and they want love for others. For if any of us quit believing in love, we are already dead, for love is man's origin, love is his constant calling, and love is his perfection.
There are some who think we have arrived at the point now where the sacrament of marriage as Jesus gave it to us has little to contribute to the modern meaning of love and sex and family. There are others who think that since the Church and culture seem to produce fewer young people who are capable and desirous of marriage, and since divorce shows marriage to be a flawed and unnecessary institution, and since the definition of marriage seems to be moving quickly in a direction that the Church cannot and will not accept, that now is the time for the Church to get out of the marriage business. As one who works with engaged couples, I can honestly say the thought has crossed my mind that this one sacrament is more work than the other six sacraments combined.
But only the evil one can dull the desire for the fullness of life that Jesus teaches and offers to his beloved disciples. Now cannot be the time to shy away from the Church's teaching on sex, marriage and family. Now is the time to double down. For the Church is not the Church if she has a treasure that she simply hides and tries to preserve for future generations; no, our Church is only the Church if she evangelizes, and does not hide from the culture but seeks to transform it. It is imperative that we keep the sacrament of marriage as Jesus gave it to His Church before our young people and work diligently to make it a real possibility not for fewer people in the future, but for more. We have to believe that we have the real thing, for the Lord has given us the sacrament of marriage that is a real participation in his life and love.
If marriage will survive in our culture, and trust me, we should all pray until our knees are worn out that it does, for the common good of our society and especially for our children, then it will depend upon the Church's proclamation of marriage precisely as Christ gave it to us; namely, that marriage is more than a couple falling in love with each other, but even moreso a man and woman falling in love together in something that is bigger than them. Marriage is grounded not in our ability to redefine it however it suits us, but in hearing a call from Jesus, the ultimate groom whose marriage lasts not for a lifetime but forever, to enter into and to imitate his love for his bride, the Church, a love that makes her holy. In this, a couple is to fall in love with this marriage of Christ more than they fall in love with each other, and so surrender themselves to its incomparable fruitfulness and generosity. Jesus gives us the litmus test of the real thing. Let the children come to me. Real marriage leads not to children that are artifically manufactured when wanted and discarded when they are not, but children who are always welcomed no matter what.
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