LOVE, MARRIAGE, DIVORCE: THE CATHOLIC ANSWER
“The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked,
‘Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?’. . . . Jesus told them,
‘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.’” Mark 10:2, 6-9
This is one of Msgr. Tim’s statements from last week’s Bulletin Column. It is something we all need to ponder seriously and take to heart:
“We don’t ‘sin’ by accident or by forgetting or in ignorance;
but we can definitely ‘sin’ by conscious, deliberate, knowing choice
of an attitude or behavior that violates God’s law,
whether it is expressed in a Commandment
or is a clear expectation of the ‘spirit’ of the divine law.”
CAFETERIA CATHOLICS
You probably have heard the term “cafeteria Catholics” which means Catholics who choose the Church teachings, laws, commandments and the “spirit” thereof that align with the way they want things to be, and they bypass or ignore the rules that are not according to what they want them to be. Well, let’s consider where that is taking us along our God-given life journey and where we are fooling ourselves and depriving ourselves of what will bring us true joy.
I expect that, as Sunday’s Gospel (above) is being proclaimed at Mass, some of us will be tempted to dismiss part of the message. I ask that all of us, even those who do not have that reaction, consider promising to spend some time pondering the following resources (not all at once) and allow ourselves to be open at least to hearing the messages of the Church on these teachings. You may be pleasantly surprised. Read them slowly, giving time for you to let the Spirit reveal the messages. Try to overcome objections to the content, if any arise, face the ideas and try to comprehend the Church’s reasons for its position.
Sister Loretta
REFLECTIONS ON THE SACREDNESS OF MARRIAGE AND THE LINK BETWEEN OUR SEXUALITY AND THE NATURE OF GOD
These reflections on the Sacredness of the Human Body and of Marriage.
SEX, LOVE, AND GOD: THE CATHOLIC ANSWER – Bishop Robert Barron
“Throughout the history of religion and philosophy, a puritanical strain is indeed apparent. Whether it manifests itself as Manichaeism, Gnosticism or Platonic dualism, the puritanical philosophy teaches that spirit is good and matter is evil or fallen. In most such schemas, the whole purpose of life is to escape from matter, especially from sexuality, which so ties us to the material realm. But authentic Biblical Christianity is not puritanical. The Creator God described in the book of Genesis made the entire panoply of things physical — planets, stars, the moon and sun, animals, fish and even things that creep and crawl upon the earth — and found all of it good, even very good. . . . When, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus himself is asked about marriage and sexuality, he hearkens back to the book of Genesis and the story of creation: ‘At the beginning of creation God made them male and female; for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become as one. They are no longer two but one flesh’ (Mk. 10:6-8). That last sentence is, dare I say it, inescapably ‘sexy.’ Plato might have been a puritan, and perhaps John Calvin too, but Jesus most certainly was not.” Click here to read this article.
SEX, LOVE, AND GOD
Two Videos From the Theology of the Body Institute:
God Has Given Us Clues (Just listen through minute:second 1:38.)
Why Theology of the Body is for Everybody | The Ultimate Meaning Why Theology of the Body is for Everybody | The Ultimate Meaning
Fr. Tim’s October 3, 2021 Bulletin Column Reflection
“AND THE TWO OF THEM BECOME ONE FLESH”
INTERRELATEDNESS OF MAN AND WOMAN IN THE DESIGN OF GOD
“The seeming simplicity of the second account in Genesis about the creation of woman in Chapter 2 (The first account, in Chapter 1, was the more general ‘male and female he created them’.) can mask the account’s theological sophistication, which, in the Church’s view, reveals the essential interrelatedness of man and woman in the design of God for humanity. That interrelatedness mirrors the ‘communion of love’ in God the Creator— ‘Let us make man in our image’, as Chapter 1 has God declare, revealing the divine nature to be interpersonal, what we hold as the Mystery of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—the Power bringing everything into being.
HUMANKIND: MEANT TO BE A ‘PARTNER’ OF GOD HIMSELF
The ‘suitable partner’ God determines to provide for ‘the man’ is not found among all the animals and birds—the companionship they offer is not the same as the partnership God intends for humankind, which by that same intention is to be a ‘partner’ of God Himself, given ‘dominion’ over the created order as His obedient servants.
THE COMPLEMENTARITY AT THE CORE OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
In this vision of woman’s creation, ‘built up’ from a rib taken from near the man’s heart, is revealed an essential complementarity at the core of human sexuality. ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’, the man cries out, both in delight and in reverence for this gift of God. The intimate connection between man and woman affirms both their distinctive differences and their fundamental sameness: their sexual union (‘the two of them become one flesh’) reflects a more profound unity in their shared human identity. Sexual union of man and woman, in the Church’s teaching, is always to be at the service of both love and life, in a context of permanent, often sacrificial, commitment that offers stability for the nurturing of the new life that is designed to be its physical fruit and is meant to deepen the bond of mutual affection and support between the partners. That vision is what Jesus affirms in response to a question about divorce, praising the sublime vocation that recognizes the seriousness of the human sexual relationship as well as the challenges posed to living its demands faithfully.”
FROM SAINT JOHN PAUL II’S TREATISE: THE THEOLOGY OF THE BODY
In the First Chapters of Genesis, Marriage Is One and Indissoluble -GENERAL AUDIENCE, Pope John Paul II, Wednesday 21 November 1979
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NEWARK ARCHDIOCESE WEBSITE INFORMATION ON ANNULMENTS
Metropolitan Tribunal A tribunal is an ecclesiastical court where a case can be presented to be judged according to canon law. The most common types of cases presented judge the validity or the invalidity of marriage.