Jesus deals with the issue of divorce by taking his hearers back to the beginning of creation and to God’s plan for the human race. In Genesis 2:23-24 we see God’s intention and ideal that two people who marry should become so indissolubly one that they are one flesh. That ideal is found in the unbreakable union of Adam and Eve. They were created for each other and for no one else. They are the pattern and symbol for all who were to come.

Jesus sets the high ideal of the married state before those who are willing to accept his commands. Jesus, likewise, sets the high ideal for those who freely renounce marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Both marriage and celibacy are calls from God to live a consecrated life, that is, to live as married couples or as singles who belong not to themselves but to God. Our lives are not our own, but they belong to God. He gives the grace and power to those who seek to follow his way of holiness in their state of life. Do you seek the Lord and his grace in your state of life? That is what God expects from us always. He is always on our side to help us to go forward. His grace is enough to go forward peacefully.

According to Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers, marriage is “Mutual Servants, equally Serving.” He says, “For all around the earth young people do not rightly and lawfully wed without their parents’ consent. The kind of yoke is that of two believers who share one hope, one desire, one discipline, one service. They enjoy kinship in spirit and in flesh. They are mutual servants with no discrepancy of interests. Truly they are ‘two in one flesh.’ Where the flesh is one, the spirit is one as well. Together they pray, together bow down, together perform their fasts, mutually teaching, mutually entreating, mutually upholding….”

We shall ask the good Lord to help us to do his will and live according to his way always.

Love and prayers,

Fr. Charley