32nd. Sunday of Year (C)
(2nd Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2nd.Thessalonians 2:16 – 3:5; Luke 20:27-38)
Our readings today are very topical and timely because we
hear so much about the family at this time; and with the government trying to
help -- so they say -- the family, there is a danger that some people may be led to think that the secular power has also some moral authority over essential aspects of Christian marriage.
We who are Catholics, however, whilst we are grateful for
any real help given to support and strengthen the institution of Christian marriage,
do not admit that governmental authority can in any way determine its nature as
established by God, or change the rules
whereby the sacramental grace of Christian matrimony leads both to the
sanctification and personal fulfilment of the spouses and the human and
spiritual good of their children, whilst contributing in a unique measure
towards the stability and growth of society as a whole.
The last Vatican Council teaches us that God Himself is the
author of marriage when it declares: The intimate community of life and love which
constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed
by Him with its own proper laws.
God is love, absolute and eternal, loving all that He has
made; supremely, however, loving mankind created uniquely in His own image and
likeness, and therefore created,
above all, to love: God Himself supremely, and our neighbour as ourselves.
This love which God blesses is intended to help mankind:
Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it.
Man and woman were created for each another, and Jesus shows
that marriage signifies a fulfilling and unbreakable union of man and woman by
recalling that the plan of the Creator had been in the beginning:
that they (be) no
longer two, but one flesh.
However, corruption, death, and disharmony entered into the
world through human sin, and now everyone has experience of that evil: stirring
within our very own hearts and minds, and active all around us, being perpetrated
in secret or openly displayed, for power or for pleasure, but always and above
all, for SELF.
And yet, the divinely willed order of creation persists in
its essential integrity, even though notably disturbed. And, to face up to, overcome, and heal those
wounds of sin, man and woman need the help of God’s gift of sacramental grace,
for without such help, they cannot suitably and fruitfully achieve that union
of their lives for which God created them in the beginning.
All you who are thirsty, come to
the water! You who have no money, come,
receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and
milk! Come to me heedfully, listen, I
will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to
David. (Isaiah 55:1-3)
Jesus had a great respect for the institution of marriage
as we see from the fact that, on the threshold of His public ministry He
performed His first miracle – at His mother’s request – during a wedding feast;
and in the course of that ministry, He taught unequivocally the original significance
of the marital union of man and woman as willed by their Creator from the
beginning:
What God has joined
together, let no man put asunder.
No matter what the trendy press may print, no matter what
public figures may do, no matter how much off-course human-rights activists may
agitate against it, Christian marriage is for man and woman only and
exclusively, and it cannot be terminated or broken by any merely civil authority. From these two principles we should begin to
see something of the seriousness of marriage and the dignity both of the
marriage bond itself, and of the man and woman who, trusting wholeheartedly in
each other, enter together into that covenant before the Father in heaven, in
the name of Jesus the Risen Lord, and in the power of the most Holy Spirit of
love and truth; and that seriousness and dignity cannot be either impugned or
decried by popular clamour since Our Blessed Lord Himself never tried to
promote His teaching by accommodating it to the desires or expectations of
people around Him:
Great crowds were traveling with Him,
and He turned and addressed them, “If any one comes to Me without hating his
father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own
life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever
does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” (Luke
14:25–27)
Let us now, therefore, in the light of Jesus’ teaching in
the Church, have a short glance at today’s readings. Let us begin with the Gospel reading. You can see how the stiff-necked people whose
hearts were hard, and who had forced Moses to wrongly allow them to divorce,
came to regard matrimony; for the attitude of the Sadducees with their story of
the seven brothers who died and the one wife who survived them all, shows
neither reverence for what is holy, nor awareness of what is spiritual. For them marriage was carnal and functional,
nothing more.
However, Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees gives us guidance
with regard to another and more modern error.
Marriage is not an end in itself, nor is it eternal: it is, indeed, one
of the supreme means God has established for the preservation and sanctification
of human beings, created -- as we have said -- to love; and those who live
their married love-life aright here on earth are thereby helped to become
worthy, as Jesus said:
Of a place in the other world as children of the resurrection and sons
of God.
However, an overly worldly and sentimental view of married
love can – occasionally and most sadly -- lead the partners to expect too much
from their marriage; and, consequently, demanding too much of each other, they
can become unforgiving in their mutual relations.
Finally today, let us have a short look at the first
reading, for here is an example and a teaching which is certainly much needed
today. What a wonderful woman is shown
us in that reading: she did indeed live the role marriage had brought her, that
of a mother! She taught her sons, and
she disciplined her sons, by the love she had for them; let me just recall for
you how she disciplined, by love, her youngest son:
As the youngest brother was still
alive, the king appealed to him, not with mere words, but with promises on
oath, to make him rich and happy if he would abandon his ancestral customs.
When the youth paid no attention to him at all, the king appealed to the
mother, urging her to advise her boy to save his life. In derision of the cruel tyrant, she leaned
over close to her son and said in their native language: “Son, have pity on me,
who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought
you up, educated and supported you to your present age. I beg you, child, to
look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them; then you will
know that God did not make them out of existing things; and in the same way the
human race came into existence. Do not
be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death,
so that in the time of mercy I may receive you again with them.” She had scarcely finished speaking when the
youth said: “What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king’s command. I
obey the command of the law given to our forefathers through Moses. At that, the king became enraged and treated
him even worse than the others, since he bitterly resented the boy’s contempt.
Thus he too died undefiled, putting all his trust in the Lord. The mother was
last to die, after her sons. (2 Maccabees 7:24ss.)
Learning from that sublime example, you who are mothers
should recognize that you have, from God, a most special key to your children’s
hearts, and that you and your husband have also God-given authority over and
for your children. Use those gifts with
confidence and prayer: do not let your children do what they want but guide
them, discipline them, with love; and, realizing that your children are gifts
from God, bring them up as children of God who have been entrusted to you. Do not let them, supposedly, guide
themselves; do not leave them to turn to and follow the example of their most
vocal peers who know nothing of the possible restraints of faith or morals, or
of those most decisive companions and leaders who have no awareness of any
qualms of conscience. Parents and children
are meant to thank God eternally for each other; however, above all perhaps,
mother and child should be eternally grateful for those early years of infancy
and childhood when they are so uniquely close and instinctively responsive to
each other. Mothers, don’t disappoint the goodness of God
Who gave you your child; don’t fail the
child so sensitive to your influence and subject to -- needy of -- your supporting
love; do not lose the glory which can unite you with Mary, the most beautiful mother
of us all.
What have we got here today? A priest, one who is celibate, talking about
marriage? Yes, indeed!! Note, however, that I do not speak about, or on
the basis of, sexual experience; but only about the Catholic proclamation of
God’s creative and redeeming truth, the ultimate right understanding of, and supremely
solid basis for, all human living and loving.
Of this, may I add, I have been made humanly appreciative, thanks to my personal
indebtedness to a wonderful mother.
