Read­ing Time: 3 minutes

Introduction

After his teach­ings on the import­ance of becom­ing great by serving, Jesus left Caper­naum and trav­elled to the region of Judea and bey­ond the Jordan. As usu­al, Mark says “crowds gathered around him; and, as was his cus­tom, he again taught them” (Mark 10:1). The Gos­pels emphas­ize Jesus went about teach­ing. Everything he did was foun­ded on teach­ing. Teach­ing to heal people phys­ic­ally and spir­itu­ally. This week’s Gos­pel read­ing is par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing. It con­cerns mar­riage or more spe­cific­ally, the sac­ra­ment of mat­ri­mony. It is about mar­riage and respons­ib­il­ity. It is par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing because, for some years now, there has been series of dis­cus­sions, con­ver­sa­tions, and debates, some­times intense, con­cern­ing and around this theme – mar­riage. Jorge Mario Ber­goglio, the present Pope (Fran­cis), has been in the fore­front of this discussion/debate.  

Hardness of heart

“Jesus answered the Phar­isees, what did Moses com­mand you? They said, Moses allowed a man to write a cer­ti­fic­ate of dis­missal and to divorce her. But Jesus said to them, because of your hard­ness of heart he wrote this com­mand­ment for you” (Mark 10:3–5). To the inter­rog­a­tion of the Phar­isees: “Is it law­ful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2), Jesus replied with a counter-inter­rog­a­tion: “What did Moses com­mand you?” (Mark 10:3). When they answered that, “Moses per­mit­ted a man to write a cer­ti­fic­ate of divorce and send his [wife] away” (Mark 10:4), Jesus imme­di­ately reminded them that it was due to the hard­ness of their hearts that Moses wrote such law (cf. Mark 10:5).

Marriage and responsibility

A cru­cial moment of the cel­eb­ra­tion of the Sac­ra­ment of mat­ri­mony is the exchange of con­sent between the man and the woman. Both the man and the woman express their free con­sent in and with the fol­low­ing words: “I, (Name) take you (Name), to be my wife/to be my hus­band. I prom­ise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sick­ness and in health. I will love you and hon­our you all the days of my life.” In the United States and oth­er places, the con­sent takes this form: “I, (Name), take you, (Name), for my law­ful wife/husband, to.….…

Conclusion

Mar­riage is not for social con­veni­ence. It is not for social status. It is not made by man. It is not for fin­an­cial sta­bil­ity. It is not an out­dated insti­tu­tion for the 21^st cen­tury. It is not a pris­on cell. It is not for phys­ic­al attrac­tions. It is man’s response to the divine abil­ity. It is a respons­ib­il­ity. Fam­il­ies must meet the family’s mater­i­al needs for food, shel­ter, cloth­ing and emo­tion­al needs. For mar­riage to suc­ceed, part­ners must be will­ing and able to take on these respons­ib­il­it­ies. Yes! It is a shared respons­ib­il­ity. Both hus­band and wife must know their roles and ful­fil them prop­erly. A happy mar­riage is the work of two people, nev­er just one. A good wife encour­ages the hus­band to give his best to the rela­tion­ship, so as a good hus­band motiv­ates the wife to give her best to their mar­riage. A good mar­riage is always a rela­tion­ship of bal­ance. Each couple should know what makes their mar­riage func­tion. In fact, there is no writ­ten recipe to a happy mar­riage because each mar­riage is different.

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPIES OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vols. I and II)!! The reflec­tion for the 27^th Sunday of the year (B) is found in vol. II pages 441–453. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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