Marriage And Divorce

Quite recently the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago lamented the fact that divorces are on the increase here in our land. He was only echoing what many of us have been saying over the years. There are many factors which contribute to this increase, not least among which is the cultural phenomenon of the growing inability of people to have long term commitments. The truth is that stability is no longer a value. No longer are business persons impressed by individuals who work in the same firm for thirty or forty years. Today, by the age of forty, many persons have worked in three or four different jobs. The loss of the value of stability has disastrous consequences when it affects institutions, which for the betterment of society need permanence. Marriage is one of these institutions. To understand why marriage is meant to be permanent or stable institution, we need to understand the meaning of sacrament.

The old blue catechism defined a sacrament as an outward sign of inward grace through which we receive grace for our daily life. It can also be defined as an earthly institution which points to a divine reality. To what divine reality then does the earthly reality of marriage point? St. Paul tells us that it refers to Christ and the Church. When we read Ephesians 5, 22 – 23, we see this;

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

In other words, St. Paul is telling us that Marriage shows us something about Christ and the Church. If marriage is likened to the love of Christ for the Church, it is important to examine a little bit the love of Christ for the Church to understand what marriage is meant to be.

• The first characteristic of the love of Christ for the Church is that it is a totally self-giving love. That is what happened on the cross. Christ poured out his blood for his church.

• The second characteristic is that Christ’s love is capable of making us into better people and the church into a better community. That is reason and task of sanctifying grace.

• The third characteristic is that Christ’s love is a fruitful love and so generates new children for the church in the waters of baptism. This is what happens especially on Holy Saturday night when baptisms take place

• The fourth characteristic is that this love is a faithful love. It is always there, whether we are faithful or not, Christ continues to love us and continues to offer us his love, his grace his help.

If marriage is a sacrament, it must point to those four characteristics of Christ’s love for the Church. Divorce then cannot be accepted by the Church because divorce says that love is not permanent and therefore those characteristics of Christ’s love cannot be fulfilled. Divorce says that Christ’s fourfold love for the church cannot exist.

Marriage is therefore a vocation to live the sacrament, the earthly reality of marriage in such a way that we come to understand, and we help others to understand, Christ’s love for the Church or the relationship between Christ and the Church which is a relationship of love.

Prayer

All powerful and ever-loving God, You created the sacraments so that human beings could begin to understand the relationship which You wish to have with them. Help us, through the sacrament of marriage, to understand the relationship which you have with your Church and which You desire to have with us. We ask this through the intercession of Jesus, your Son and Mary, our Mother. Amen

Gospel: Mk 10:2-12

The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” They replied, “Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But 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.” In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”