Daily Gospel Reflection – Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
August 18, 2023
Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Mt 19:3-12
Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying,
"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?"
He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning
the Creator made them male and female and said,
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, man must not separate."
They said to him, "Then why did Moses command
that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?"
He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts
Moses allowed you to divorce your wives,
but from the beginning it was not so.
I say to you, whoever divorces his wife
(unless the marriage is unlawful)
and marries another commits adultery."
His disciples said to him,
"If that is the case of a man with his wife,
it is better not to marry."
He answered, "Not all can accept this word,
but only those to whom that is granted.
Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so;
some, because they were made so by others;
some, because they have renounced marriage
for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.
Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches the sacred unity of marriage. The physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and loving bonds between a man and a woman have, ultimately, a sacred purpose: to act as a conduit of the divine life in the world.
How does this work? In the unity of a man and a woman, which becomes in so many ways fruitful, we see an image of the Blessed Trinity: the Father and the Son love one another to such a perfect degree that their love gives birth to the Holy Spirit.
A married couple should see their relationship as an icon of the Holy Trinity—and more to it, a means by which the Trinitarian love bursts forth into the world. The two partners have a mission before God.
St. Paul saw that Christian marriage had a precisely Christian purpose: to symbolize the love of Christ and the Church. As a husband loves his wife (and as she loves him), so does Christ love the Church and the Church (at least ideally) loves him. What does Christ’s love for his Church look like? Well, it’s a deeply joyful reality, for it is the sharing of the divine life.
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