Thursday, August 16, 2012

19th Week, Ordinary Time, Friday, 17-08-12

Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63 / Matthew 19:3-12

Just as love is "many a splendored thing", so can we say the same for marriage; or at least on the day of the wedding.

A couple enters into a marriage covenant and they certainly want it to last a life-time, be it good times or bad times, in sickness or in health.

Yet when a marriage fails, and the couple separates, one of the questions that will be asked is that can there be a divorce and will that be accepted in the eyes of God.

That is the current question for our times, and that was also the question in the gospel when the Pharisees posed it to Jesus, although they had the other motive of trapping Jesus in what He would say.

Jesus pointed it out that it was the plan of God from the beginning that marriage was a covenant, and that the man and woman are intimately joined in marriage by the love of God.

Yet as much as it was the plan of God that marriage should be as such, that plan was also one that God Himself commits Himself to in the covenant with His people.

The 1st reading describes how God entered into a covenant with His people, binding Himself in love with a lowly and despised people, and yet blessing them with dignity and wealth and status.

Yet, they became proud and infatuated, and became unfaithful and turned away from God.

We can hear the anger of God when He told Ezekiel: Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her filthy crimes.

But in the end, God wanted to pardon His people for all those filthy crimes they committed against Him.

Love may be many a splendored thing, but love is most splendidly manifested in forgiveness. God showed it to us. May we also show it in our lives, in our relationships and especially in our marriage.