27TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B ~ OCTOBER 6, 2024

LOVE STRENGTHENS MARRIAGE

As we enter the month of October dedicated to Blessed Virgin Mary, we learn to be grateful for all the blessings God has given us. There were so many beautiful hymns and psalms in the Bible that could be used for our spiritual enrichment and strength. Three of them are significantly important to remember and read. First the song of Moses, second song of Blessed Virgin Mary and third the song of Zachariah. Out of many blessings, the Sacrament of Marriage has its own importance to cherish as people are joined together in a perfect and mutual love and union to start their own family. Marriage is all about thinking about and looking after each other. I found this little description on the internet, and I felt I should share as it very important in this DNA age when world is becoming selfish and we have gone to “me world” culture, to look at each other:

A message every adult should read, because children are watching you and doing as you do, not as you say…

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator, and I immediately wanted to paint another one.

When you thought I wasn’t looking I saw you feed a stray cat, and I learned that it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you make my favourite cake for me, and I learned that the little things can be the special things in life.

When you thought I wasn’t looking I heard you say a prayer, and I knew there is a God I could always talk to, and I learned to trust in God.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you make a meal and take it to a friend who was sick, and I learned that we all must help take care of each other.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you give of your time and money to help people who had nothing, and I learned that those who have something should give to those who don’t.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you take care of our house and everyone in it and I learned we must take care of what we are given.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw how you handled your responsibilities, even when you didn’t feel good, and I learned that I would have to be responsible when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw tears come from your eyes and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it’s alright to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw that you cared, and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I learned most of life’s lessons that I need to know to be a good and productive person when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I looked at you and wanted to say, ‘Thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn’t looking.’

Each of us (parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher or friend) influence the life of a child. How will you touch the life of someone today?

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) “Christ instituted the sacraments of the new law. There are seven: Baptism, Confirmation (or Chrismation), the Eucharist, Penance, the Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders and Matrimony. The seven sacraments touch all the stages and all the important moments of Christian life: they give birth and increase, healing, and mission to the Christian’s life of faith. There is a certain resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of the spiritual life.”. Furthermore, the CCC continues to explore the real meaning of the marriage for the faithful in this way:  “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.  Sacred Scripture begins with the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God and concludes with a vision of “the wedding-feast of the Lamb.” Scripture speaks throughout of marriage and its “mystery,” its institution and the meaning God has given it, its origin and its end, its various realizations throughout the history of salvation, the difficulties arising from sin and its renewal “in the Lord” in the New Covenant of Christ and the Church.

 “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws…. God himself is the author of marriage.” The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. “The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.”  “God who created man out of love also calls him to love the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. For man is created in the image and likeness of God who is himself love.   Since God created him, man and woman, their mutual love becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man. It is good, very good, in the Creator’s eyes. And this love which God blesses is intended to be fruitful and to be realized in the common work of watching over creation: “And God blessed them, and God said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it”.

“Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: “It is not good that the man should be alone.” The woman, “flesh of his flesh,” i.e., his counterpart, his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a “helpmate”; she thus represents God from whom comes our help.  “Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and joins to his wife, and they become one flesh.” The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been “in the beginning”: “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.” 

St. Therese of the Child Jesus opens our hearts to understand what it means to be with God and to love him; “By chance the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of the first epistle to the Corinthians caught my attention, and in the first section I read that not everyone can be an apostle, prophet or teacher, that the Church is composed of a variety of members, and that the eye cannot be the hand. Even with such an answer revealed before me, I was not satisfied and did not find peace. I persevered in the reading and did not let my mind wander until I found this encouraging theme: Set your desires on the greater gifts. And I will show you the way which surpasses all others. For the Apostle insists that the greater gifts are nothing at all without love and that this same love is surely the best path leading directly to God. At length I had found peace of mind. When I had looked upon the mystical body of the Church, I recognized myself in none of the members which Saint Paul described, and what is more, I desired to distinguish myself more favorably within the whole body. Love appeared to me to be the hinge for my vocation. Indeed, I knew that the Church had a body composed of various members, but in this body the necessary and more noble member was not lacking; I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love. I knew that one love drove the members of the Church to action, that if this love were extinguished, the apostles would have proclaimed the Gospel no longer, the martyrs would have shed their blood no more. I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraces every time and every place. In one word, that love is everlasting. Then, nearly ecstatic with the supreme joy in my soul, I proclaimed: O Jesus, my love, at last I have found my calling: my call is love. Certainly, I have found my place in the Church, and you gave me that very place, my God. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things, as my desire finds its direction”.

It always surprises me to see the reactions of the grooms and brides on their wedding day that how happy they are and the love they have for each other is beyond expression. I always ask one question whenever I officiate any wedding: “What was the most important aspect of his/her life that you decided to marry him/her? This week I want all the married couples to reflect on this question. And I guarantee you, that you will fall in love again with one another. After reflecting on the question, read the following story to each other. I can assure you that you will never fail in love journey which never ends like the wedding ring you wear.

“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again, I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.

She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company.

She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally, she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.

When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning, she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time, and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day.

She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door every morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she must face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So, when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us; daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young anymore. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.

On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy.

I drove to office… jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind… I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.

Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead.

My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon, and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push thru with the divorce –At least, in the eyes of our son— I’m a loving husband…

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So, find time to be your spouse’s best friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do you have a real happy marriage? The Sacred Scriptures do help us to know the secret of the happy marriage.

Today’s Sacred Scripture Readings bring us together to reflect on the Sacrament of Marriage where two people join to become husband and wife and later father and mother as they enjoy the company of their children. God has sketched his original plan for the marriage in the First Reading today “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall be one flesh”. How amazing is the sketch where husband and wife are depicted as one? According to the Holy Bible marriage is not a contract or agreement between people but it’s a covenant which each couple makes with God. They not only say yes to each other but give themselves to the Lord as well. Prophet Malachi highlights the covenant of marriage in this way “Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors?… So, look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth.  For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel” (2:10-16).

In the Gospel our Lord reconfirms the sacrament of marriage which was instituted by God who created Adam and Eve and bless them. The words of Jesus “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate “put seal to any division in the marriage”. The real marriage is compared with the love of Jesus to Church. The Letters of St. Paul and St. Peter emphasize on the importance of marriage which is the source of bringing nonbeliever spouses to the Lord through Christian way of life. Holy Father Pope Francis once reflecting on the Sacrament of Marriage showed his frustration and sadness “today we experience the paradox of a globalized world filled with luxurious mansions and skyscrapers, but a lessening of the warmth of homes and families; many ambitious plans and projects, but little time to enjoy them; many sophisticated means of entertainment, but a deep and growing interior emptiness; many pleasures, but few loves; many liberties, but little freedom… The number of people who feel lonely keeps growing, as does the number of those who are caught up in selfishness, gloominess, destructive violence and slavery to pleasure and money”.

Today we can see that marriages are falling apart for two main reasons: First love is being replaced by lust. For many people marriages have become mere piece of paper, entertainment and party. Secondly couples are failing to understand one another. Everyone wants to go his/her own way without supporting and caring each other. People are less and less serious about building a solid and fruitful relationship of love: in sickness and in health, for better and for worse, in good times and in bad are the promises couple make before the Lord on the day of with wedding. But how many keep these promises?   

There so many other aspects of marriage we can discuss or say but let’s ask the intercession of Blessed Virgin Mary as we begin the month of October to honour her, to help all the married couples to realize the presence of the Lord in their lives so that their love journey help their children to be strong in their lives. St. Paul says, “Love never ends”.

Two families lived nearby. One family had constant quarrels, and the other one lived quietly and friendly. One day, feeling jealous of the nice atmosphere flourished in the neighbouring family, wife told her husband:

– Go to the neighbours and look at what they are doing for such well-being.

The husband went, hid, and started watching. He saw a woman who was wiping the floor in the room. Suddenly something distracted her, and she ran to the kitchen. At that time her husband rushed into the room. He did not notice the bucket of water, occasionally kicked it, so the water overflowed.

Then his wife came back from the kitchen and said to him:

– I’m sorry, honey, it’s my fault because I did not remove the bucket from the pass.

– No, I ‘m sorry, honey, it’s my fault, because I did not notice it.

The man returned home, where the wife asked him:

– Did you understand the reason of their well-being?

– I guess that I did. You see, we always seek to be right, while each of them takes the blame on themself.

How is love strengthening your marriage?