27th
Sunday (Year B)
Jesus told certain Pharisees who were publicly questioning
Him about the Law’s teaching on divorce, that Moses’ arm had -- so to speak -- ‘been
twisted’ into an inauthentic implementation to the God-intended relationship
between husband and wife in Israel, by condoning divorce; a measure about which
Jesus said, most authoritatively, that:
From the beginning of
creation, ‘God made them male and female.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother (and be joined
to his wife), and the two shall become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two
but one flesh. Therefore, what God has
joined together, no human being must separate.”
And that was the teaching preached by Our Lord’s most
faithful disciple Paul -- specially chosen by the Him to serve as Apostle to
the Gentiles -- when writing to the Church he had founded in Corinth (1 Corinthians 7:10–11), a prominent
Greek port open to sailors’ world-wide immoral practices:
To the married, however, I
give this instruction (not I, but the Lord): a wife should not separate from her
husband -- and if she does separate, she must either remain single or become
reconciled to her husband -- and a husband should not divorce his wife.
And Paul, prepared for opposition whether from both Jews or
Gentiles in his proclamation of Jesus’ Gospel truth, explained his own ministry
and authority as follows:
Thus should one regard us: as servants of Christ and stewards of the
mysteries of God. Now it is, of course, required of
stewards that they be found trustworthy; (however), it does not concern me in
the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal, I do not even pass
judgment on myself. I am not
conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the One
Who judges me is the Lord. (4:1–4)
Jesus had most deliberately and dramatically chosen Paul, and
Paul was a supremely devoted and committed servant of his Lord, a servant who
never thought it necessary to ‘adapt’ his Master’s explicit teaching to
the pagan circumstances prevailing in the lands where he happened to find
himself in the course of his proclamation of the Gospel.
In our modern world, according to Protestant teaching the
fullness of Christian doctrine is to be found in the Bible expressed in the
written words contained there; and because the words are there to be seen and
read by all, a devout Christian can appreciate the Scriptures as both the source
of what is generally taught and accepted and as the quarry where he can
discover his or her own personal heart-felt expressions of belief and devotion. Of course, there are some difficult passages
which might need explanation but, fundamentally, such difficulties do not
affect the basic position which is, that what one can see and read in the Bible
forms the basis of belief, and one reader’s serious belief is as good as anyone
else’s, because it is his or her personal and sincere response to what is
written objectively in the Scriptures.
It has never been like that in the Catholic Church … and
remember, the Christian body of believers in Jesus has always been called
Catholic and before 1054 had no other title whatsoever; it was simply the
Catholic Church. And, indeed, so it is
today to the extent that we, members of the Catholic Church, always consider
ourselves as Catholics, although others in our Christian fraternity refer to us
as Roman Catholics. We are not ashamed
to be called Roman Catholics for, understood aright, it is quite true; but we
are most of all attached to that which we have always been, and been called:
namely, Catholics.
Now, Catholics are, first and foremost, hearers, not readers, of the Word of God:
How then shall they call on
Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom
they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are
sent? As it is written: "How
beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad
tidings of good things!" But they
have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed
our report?" So then, faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:14-18)
It was ever so, even in the very founding structure of the
Church: preachers, as you heard, had to be sent, and those sent – originally by
Jesus Himself and subsequently ‘in His name’ -- were the Apostles, like Paul,
proclaiming Jesus’ ‘Gospel of peace’. As
a consequence of that Apostolic sending, those Churches were called Apostolic,
and became Apostolic Sees, that had either received the Gospel from such an
Apostle or had developed a special and proven historic connection with one, a
special relationship that other centres of Christianity did not have. Above all, it was the Church at Rome --
recognized as being founded upon the two supreme Apostles, Peter and Paul --
that was regarded as the ultimate witness to, and criterion for
membership of, the authentic Catholic Faith and Communion.
In that Catholic Communion our original Scriptures were the
Jewish Scriptures which the Church, however, termed the Old Testament, because she
regarded them as God’s revealed word only as read and understood in the light
of Jesus. The Jewish Scriptures, she believes,
are an imperfect revelation because they are preparatory, not final; they were
preparing the way for the coming of Jesus and can only be understood aright
when interpreted in the light of Jesus’ Person, teaching, and history.
Our New Testament Scriptures, on the other hand, are final,
there can be no others. Nevertheless, through
the passage of time, they too need to be understood, interpreted aright, since
they are a witness to the original Gospel proclamation made by Apostolic Church
under the ‘gifted’ guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, before any
‘self-standing’ writings were ever authoritatively written down and accepted.
Those eventual writings were, and are, always to be regarded as expressions of Mother
Church’s Rule of Faith and understood accordingly: their supreme purpose is still
to serve the Faith which gave them birth, and which they were originally intended
to maintain as the one, authentic, and Catholic teaching, for all human beings
of all time, and preserving intact its divinely-given saving purpose.
Therefore, in our attitude to marriage, we Catholics who
receive our Christian identity and life by our faithful response to the
Church’s Rule of Faith, are ‘hearers’ of the living Apostolic preaching, not
‘readers’ of unchanging books; for those books, supremely venerable though they
are for the divine truth contained in them, are only infallible as guides when
understood in accordance with, and expounded by, the living Rule of Catholic,
Mother Church’s, Faith.
Many today seem to assume for themselves the title
‘catholic’ while having but a minimal concern with faith, and there are many
today who -- perhaps unknown even to
themselves – show that they are of this persuasion by putting the messenger’s
person and presentation before the message itself: they demand that first
impressions should persuade them to like the person or find the
presentation interesting before they
attend to the message; and only if those first impressions are subsequently confirmed
will they consider giving both hearing and, perhaps, even a measure of commitment to the message thus acceptably proclaimed
and presented to them.
For us Catholics and Christians who are Gospel-hearers -- people
called by God by means of messengers sent by Him -- it is the message that
counts. That is precisely the nature of
our vocation: we hear the word of God, and we recognize it as the Word of God,
thanks to the Spirit of God given to the Church and working within all whom the
Father calls to faith in His Son. If we
are to be true children of God, reborn through faith in baptism, we have to recognize
the message proclaimed by the Church as God addressing us through the words of
her priests. God is the Speaker we
respond to, not the voice He uses. All
that we can require of the priest is that he has the necessary authority to
back up his message, for Jesus Himself always spoke with authority; and such
authority is not to be, cannot be, given by listeners who may like their preacher’s
personality, but by the Church of Christ herself which authoritatively guarantees
her priests’ public preaching of her Catholic doctrine:
He who is of God hears the
words of God; therefore, you do not hear because you are not of God. (John 8:47)
To put things very simply and somewhat bluntly, it is a
matter of distinguishing between the provisional packaging, and the contents
which abide. If the packaging is
attractive it helps, but the contents alone are what matters.
The widespread, contemporary, attitude of wanting,
demanding even, to be superficially pleased before considering the message or receiving
the gift, has its most serious repercussions in human relationships.
As the appearance or the appeal of a spouse may become less
attractive over the years, or when other difficulties almost inevitably surface
in the course of shared life, many who, through selfishness and superficiality,
have never recognized any obligation to re-affirm their mutual commitment, never
acknowledged their obligation to give as well as to receive, such people too
often abdicate their own, personal, responsibility for the permanence and
beauty of the bond which they originally sealed before God Himself, and seek a
pagan freedom which indulges personal whim and pleasure, while offering immediate
advantage and seeming convenience.
The Chosen People -- a people formed and prepared by the
grace of God over two thousand years to enter into and maintain a unique
relationship with Him and thus to hear, recognize, and proclaim His Law of
truth to all the nations -- had similarly turned out to be an unfaithful spouse. Entering into illicit relationships with the
gods of the surrounding nations, and failing to hear and respond to the Word of
the One, redeeming, God spoken by the prophets He raised up from their midst, they
ultimately rejected that Word, because the Messenger – the very Son of God
Himself -- did not come up to expectations they had wrongfully and sinfully
indulged for so long.
Dear People of God, in Mother Church, we have to become
children of the truth:
Assuredly I say to you,
whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means
enter it. (Mark 10:15)
As new-born babies, desire
the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted
that the Lord is gracious. (1 Peter 2:2-3):
As children of God, we long for God’s truth, we do not pick
and choose, even from such a quarry as the Scriptures, to form our own beliefs;
we embrace the Apostolic Faith offered to us by the continued proclamation and
preaching of the living and universal Catholic Church.
Let us therefore love each other in truth rather than pursue
personal indulgence. Let us be children
of Mother Church rejoicing in the divine truth of her proclamation which is the
Word of God amongst us still. Because
she lives, we who are born of her, are also born alive, living with that life which
the Father originally saw and pronounced to be beautiful and good. And in the beauty of that lovely, living, truth
let us endeavour above all to love the Lord at all times, to seek His blessing
in all circumstances especially in marriage relationships, and to praise and
proclaim His glory before all people.
(2021)
