13 August 2021
Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Our Gospel reading gives evidence that divorce has not become a more comfortable topic over the centuries. It was and is as divisive a topic then as it is today. The Pharisees goad Jesus to enter the ongoing public debate between various schools of interpretation in his Jewish context. For background information, divorce in the ancient Israelite world was typically male-initiated and would need to be for a serious offense. The debate centers on the meaning of a “serious offense,” with a range of permissive or restrictive explanations offered.
Jesus cites the two passages of Genesis, stressing the unity of a married couple. He teaches that what God has brought together should not be separated. This language of unity inspires, along with other passages, the description of marriage as a covenant, similar to the enduring bond between God and Israel in Hebrew Scriptures. Likewise, from earlier limited contractual undertones, the Second Vatican Council tried to shift the view of marriage as “an intimate partnership of life” (GS, §48). I hope we all have had experiences of thriving marriages, one’s own or a loved one’s marriage.
We are also likely acquainted with divorce and the pain that it causes for all parties involved. The interior suffering and wounds people carry from divorce require a compassionate response from the Church. If you have not read Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation on “Love in the Family,” Amoris Laetitia, I would highly recommend it to you. In the exhortation, he continually advises that the Church needs to have a pastor’s heart who engages in discernment around marriage and family issues.
I do not think Francis speaks only to professional ministers, whether lay or ordained, with his exhortation. He is addressing the whole Church. Pastoral discernment is required of all of us to know how we can support fragile marriages, help someone pick the pieces of their life after a marriage has fallen apart, and protect the most vulnerable in cases of violence and domestic abuse. Discernment is at its heart the attentiveness to the voice of Christ, which speaks to us in the innermost recesses of our being. Like the crowd surrounding Jesus in the Gospel, let us pray for the grace to listen once again to him and teach us the way to love.