Friday of 19th Week, uneven numbered year
“Some Pharisees approached him, and to put him to the test they said, ’Is it against the Law for a man to divorces his wife on any pretext whatever?”He answered, ’Have you not read that a Creator from the beginning made them a male and female and that he said: This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife, and the two become one flesh?“The Pharisees asked Jesus questions to test him and Jesus replies on man’s future, giving a meaning about celibacy as well as marriage. Thus he exhausts all forms of foreseeable life so as to be able to express altogether the true meaning of human life. For the meaning of life is more about the way we are to be in our daily life rather than in the choice of our life status. The faith relationship with our Creature can be expressed just as well in marriage as it can in a perspective of celibacy for the Kingdom. We celebrated Saint Jeanne of Chantal some days ago. She showed this fact in an admirable way, for she had lived holiness as a young girl, as married woman, as a mother, widow, nun, and as a founder of a religious congregation. Adam, in a state of rapture as a new creature, cried out : ’She is the bones of my bones, the flesh of my flesh’, that is ,a face to face; allowing to move progressively forward towards the only lasting vis-à-vis that is eternal and who is God. The unity of man and woman is put into question by the Pharisees because of their”hardened heart.“”Jesus answered them, ’It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but it was not like this from the beginning.Now I say to you : anyone who divorces his wife-I am not speaking of an illicit marriage- and marries another, is guilty of adultery."
Beyond this test they hand out to Jesus, it is a question in our relationships of unity of friendship and love.In the Pharisees’ hardened heart we come face to face with accusation and doubt introduced at the beginning of humanity by the
Liar. The same accusation is at work, ’It was to put him to the test.’ Jesus said with sadness : ’It is because of your hardened heart.’ The perspective Jesus gives does not spurn life’s hazards and situations, which, very often are the result of peoples’ hardened hearts, for example, violence amongst people, wounds given and received.The perspectives of Jesus is to welcome all our life’s difficulties, all upsetting situations, in order to heal them.Filiation can always find a way to express itself…Our life is therefore from one end to another called to signify, maintain the secret it carries, namely that we are all children of God.It is in the union between us that we are given to mold our existence as a sign of God’s Life. We are created in the image and resemblance of God in order to participate in God’s Infinite Life by loving each other in a unique way. In us there is a filial, paternal, maternal love as there is also a fiery love : man will leave his mother and father , he will be attached to his wife, the love of the Holy Spirit is given to us in plenitude. In each one of us there is this marvelous capacity to live a unique love. The Creation of man (man and woman) begins by man being marveled before the creature that God made in his image and likeness.
“Jesus answered tem, ’It is not everyone who can accept what I have said, but only to those to whom it is granted.There are eunuchs born so from their mother’s womb, there are eunuchs made so by human agency and three are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”
Whatever our situation might be, what is required of us is that we love, are open to our brothers and sisters and that we walk humbly with them, in the wake of Christ, moving towards Life. We are also called to express in our daily life the mystery by which we live, one which we receive from God Our Father. In the evening of our life, we shall be judged upon love. We are the unity of our mother and father, we are neither one nor the other, we are another, and yet we are ’something ’of their unity! It is God Himself, the Holy Spirit, who gives to each being in Christ, what he is and what unites us in his Infinite Love. Living according to an attitude that marvels and is one that is faithful, provokes trust in the Love of God.