Bible
Study: Genesis 2, 18 to 24. Hebrews 2, 9 to 11. And Mark
10, 2 to 16.
Today, my
dear friends in Christ, we shall be looking at the Sacrament of Marriage to
which we all belong and from which we all originated. As a church, we are part
of a sacred bond of Marriage to Christ who wedded us on the Cross of Calvary,
we all constitute the spouse of Christ and Christianity itself can be defined
as a spousal relationship or better put, a marital union between us humans and
Christ. We all are married!
On the
individual level, we are part of the sacred bond of Marriage with our spouses
and we were born into life by our parents who came to be united by the bond of Marriage
on the day of their wedding.
Marriage is
so central to our lives as human beings because, God from the beginning of time,
designed us in such a manner as to be in constant need of the support and
companionship of others. Our first reading from Genesis this morning passes on
a message: God himself was the one who observed us and noticed that “it is not good
for the man to be alone.”
Many tend
to understand and interpret this statement from God in the context of physical
union of the spouses thereby making celibacy appear as something bad or inhuman.
Some even accuse priests and religious of not been fair to God by opting to
live in that manner saying that they can still minister to the people even in marriage.
Dear
friends in Christ, today I bring to you a deeper understanding of what it means
to be alone. Being alone is much more than not having the physical presence of
another person, being alone basically is another word for STINGINESS,
SELFISHNESS, SELF-CENTEREDNESS, SELF-INTEREST and so on. To be alone is to be
living in YOUR OWN WORLD, a world that everything centres around you, a world
where the only person you love and can sacrifice for is YOURSELF. This is what
being alone means.
Now, if we
allow this definition to sink in, we would immediately realise that many people
today are married, yet they are very much alone. They are living with a spouse in
the same house having pledged their vows for each other but are so STINGY, so
SELFISH that the other spouse is reduced simply to a tool or an object of
SELF-SATISFACTION. They love their spouse only to the extent that it suits or
benefits them. Should their love demand going the extra-mile, letting go of their
personal comforts or forgiveness, they immediately begin to look for the
nearest exit.
This is
what is responsible for the breaking of marriages in our world today.
In fact, if
couples could learn how not to be alone, if couples would learn how to love
even when it hurts, how to imitate the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for
each other, the question of divorce would never arise. Once upon a time, a
couple were invited to a ceremony, they had been married for over seventy years
and were still living happily together. The question was asked: “what is that
that has kept you together all this while?” The man stood up first to answer. Having
struggled to rise to his feet and handle the microphone, he said something that
sent cold shrills down the spine of everybody in the gathering. He said: “Our
marriage has lasted this long because I decided a long time ago be a fool.”
On the day
of their wedding, every couple makes vows to each other. “I promise to love and
cherish you in good times and in bad times, for better for worse, in richer or
poorer, in sickness and in health till death do us part.” Even when they utter
those words, they always assume and hope that there would be no bad times, they
say those words while at the same time reject the for-worse aspect. Dear friends
in Christ, marriage is like a school, every time we need to be promoted to a
higher class, we are given an exam to write. The exam is called a test and in
marriage, the for-worse aspect comes at the end of each semester. Difficulties and
misunderstandings are allowed by God in marriage so that couples would
strengthen and deepen their love for each other. Trials are not meant to break
you apart but promote you to a higher level.
According
to Fr. Amadasu in his homily for this Sunday, “If the vocation of man and woman
is to become one in marriage, to say that it is possible for the oneness to be
divided is to undermine the power of God to make and help them to remain one,
just as it also diminishes our human capacity to undertake a permanent bond. To
promise at marriage to remain with somebody even when times are worse,
materially, spiritually or otherwise, is to say ‘I have faith in God's power to
keep us one even in bad times.’ This is why marriage is not just a contractual
or a moral union that can be cancelled when the terms of contract no longer
holds, but it is an ontological union, a union at the level of the being of the
couple, which the language of Scripture has expressed as one body/flesh.”
As humans,
we can survive entirely all by ourselves physically but we cannot survive
alone, that is to say, we cannot survive without giving out love. As such,
priests and religious who take vows to remain celibate and chaste are not in
any way going against the natural law, they are not doing something bad rather
they are even more human by accepting to love all of God’s people by sacrificing
conjugal relationships.
No priest
and religious is ever alone because by virtue of their vocation, they are not
selfish or self-centred. They understand they are what they are for the sake of
the all-round physical, psychological and spiritual development of the people,
so they make themselves available all the time for the people. They are able to
love the people without attaching themselves to any particular person(s), and
in that way, they are loved by the people in return. They experience marriage
with the people to whom they minister to, on a different level, free from the
corruption of sin. And by so doing, they proclaim in themselves what we shall
all be in the life to come. This is why priests and religious are to the
surprise of many people very happy and fulfilled people.
The worst
thing that can ever happen to a person is to be married or to be a priest and
yet to be alone. Self-centredness is another definition of living in hell, a
selfish person does not know how to forgive and he is never satisfied, he feels
always empty within and looks for things to fill the hole in his heart without
realising that his problem is his inability to give love.
A selfish
person finds it difficult to sacrifice for another, whether married or not, he
lives only for himself, people exist simply to provide his needs and they are
only important to him as long as they benefit him. Such a person believes
strongly in divorce and would opt out of marriage the moment he feels the
spouse is not beneficial anymore. He can afford to marry over and over again in
search of a person who would sacrifice it all for him and worship him as a god.
Divorce is
not bad simply because of what the church teaches or simply because of what the
Bible says. Divorce is bad because it is very inhuman, it is not the way God
created us. While we say God is all-merciful and is ever ready to forgive us
despite our limitations, divorce proclaims that some sins are unforgivable and some
quarrelling parties are un-reconcilable. Can you imagine what the world would
be if Christ the bridegroom of the church decides to divorce us all? If God
pulls out of his relationship with mankind, what would become of the world?
As Jesus
says in today’s Gospel passage, to divorce a person is to commit adultery and
to re-marry another person is to live in perpetual adultery. This may sound
like a very difficult teaching but as far as the word forgiveness exists in the
human vocabulary, it is a testimony to the fact that no marriage is irreparable.
One may wonder why Jesus loved having children around him and why he often
said: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the
kingdom of God.” There is a quality we must learn from children, it is
forgiveness. Children do not carry past hurts in their hearts, they quarrel and
even before you settle them, they are playing again. Married couples are called
to be like children not just for the sake of a lasting marriage but for the
sake of entering heaven. As Jesus says: “Truly I say to you, whoever does not
receive the kingdom of God like a child, shall not enter it.”
Let us
pray:
Lord
Jesus, bless our marriages and may we never be alone. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. Happy Sunday.
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