Tag: <span>Marriage</span>

June 2, 2021May 27, 2021

One Bride for Seven Brothers

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Who knew: There are two passages about seven men marrying the same wife in sequence, each dying in his turn. And they’re both found in today’s liturgy.

Love between a man and a woman is considered by many the height of happiness. In both of today’s readings, though, there is a lesson to be learned about the fleeting and unreliable nature of what humans tend to rely on for happiness. In the first reading, poor Sarah’s husbands keep dying immediately upon wedding her, and in the gospel, the Sadducees cite a hypothetical example of a woman marrying seven men in sequence.

In both readings, we see that the ultimate bringer of reliable happiness is God. In the first reading, God remedies Sarah’s plight after she moves from despair into hope and prays to Him; and in the gospel, the source of eternal happiness in the resurrection from the dead is God.

Still, we must not divorce our view of God’s Providence from the ordinary realities of life. We are body and spirit, and God cares for us lovingly in both. Sometimes we suffer, but even this suffering is curated caringly by God, for those who trust in Him.

And He often manifests His providential love in simple details in everyday life: Unexpected blessings, positive outcomes.

Perfect trust involves detachment from any particular gift or outcome, and at the same time, certainty that God will ultimately bring about the best possible outcome.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to transform your life such that it is led by perfect trust. Aware that you cannot trust this way yourself, ask Him with confidence for the gift.

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December 27, 2020December 23, 2020

Power Unit

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

During this octave of Christmas, we are reminded that Jesus’ mission, from the moment He took on flesh, was not a one-man show. It was the mission of a family.

St. Joseph’s (earthly) portion of that mission ended before Jesus’ public ministry. His job was to bring Jesus successfully to manhood, and He fulfilled that mission fully.

Mary’s part in the mission continued as the perfect accompaniment and complement to Jesus’ own role. If Jesus was God who took on flesh to pay the infinite debt for our sins as only God could, Mary was the sinless creature who gave the definitive “yes” to God’s action, and indeed the gift of her whole life, to second, further, and augment the reach of Her Son’s infinite merit.

The first reading from Sirach illustrates the beauty that is the family unit, and the rewards for respecting and living its sacred character. The second reading from Colossians explains how holiness is lived out in a family.

Marriage, as we know, is a sacrament that is received throughout the life of the union, renewed in its sanctifying power over and over again through the fulfillment of the state of life that today’s readings describe.

If marriage is a sacred sacrament, a sacred state, then the Holy Family is the prototype of that sacred sacrament, the prototype of that state. It is a community wherein, in a sense, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The family relationship becomes an entity unto itself, as a reflection of how the Holy Spirit–the embodiment of the love between the Father and the Son–is a true entity.

If we understood the exalted character of the sacred Christian family, we would fight harder to preserve and cultivate its relationships in all their pristine beauty–even while each constituent member is inevitably replete with imperfections and limitations.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Contemplate your family–each member, and the family unit as a whole. Consider it’s special character, that makes it so different from other families. Thank God for this unmerited gift that plays such a critical role in your life, and ask Him for His grace to protect, enhance, and perfect it for His glory.

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August 14, 2020August 14, 2020

Ingratitude for Love

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

If we are prostitutes, stepping out every day on the husband who loves us tenderly for a little money, we may become habituated to this lifestyle over time, and–if our husband does not violently reproach us–even convince ourselves that he has gotten over it. But this indifference and numbness does not make our actions any less heinous, or his heart any less broken.

In the first reading, we see a heartbreaking allegory of how tenderly God has cared for us after we sinned and were cast out, and the horrifying indifference represented by the sins to which we tend to attribute so little importance.

In the Gospel, Jesus underscores the beauty and preciousness of God’s original plan for marriage, which so often is cast aside in divorce. In the face of this plan, divorce, no matter the understandable reasons in each case, is a horrid aberration of something sacred.

So it is with all our sins: Because they feel natural, understandable, we do not take them seriously. But the first reading helps us understand how offensive they are to God. The key to understanding it is the tenderness of His love.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Read and reread the first reading. Ask Jesus boldly to show you what elements in your life are similar in horrid indifference to the those of the rescued woman in the reading. And ask Him for the courage to expose them to His tender forgiveness in confession.

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