As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

I think the world today is upside down. Everybody seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater development and greater riches and so on. There is much suffering because there is so very little love in homes and in family life. We have no time for our children, we have no time for each other; there is no time to enjoy each other. In the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world. – Mother Teresa

Gospel Text: 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."

The Catholic Church has always maintained that marriage is a sacrament that is both sacred and lifelong.  To enter into marriage means you are bonded with your spouse until death do you part.  So how has the hardness of our hearts transformed marriage from a lifelong commitment to one another to just something people do when they feel like it?  I believe it is because we as a society have forgotten the fundamental meaning of love.

In taking marriage back to God's original plan, Jesus underlines four things relevant to why only one man and one woman can be joined in marriage:



1) «In the beginning, the Creator made them male and female» (Mt 19:4). Jesus teaches that there is great meaning to our masculinity and femininity in God's plan. To ignore it is to ignore who we are.



2) «Man has now to leave father and mother and be joined to his wife» (Mt 19:5). God's plan is not that a man leave his parents and cling to whomever he wishes, but to a wife.



3) «The two shall become one body» (Mt 19:5). This bodily union goes beyond the short-lived physical union that occurs in the act of making love. It points toward the lasting union that happens when man and woman, through making love, actually procreate a child. It is obvious that man and man, and woman and woman, cannot become one body in this way.



4) «Let no one separate what God has joined» (Mt 19:6). God himself has joined man and woman in marriage and whenever we try to divide what he has joined, we do so at our own and all of society's expense.

I once heard a priest define love as “choosing the good of the other.”  What is the good? The good is God.  God needs to play an important part in marriage.  The things we do for our loved ones should be done with the goal of bringing our loved one into communion with God while they’re living and hopefully into Heaven when they die.  And finally, love is about the other.  We are not acting in our own self-interest but completely and totally for the other.  Our purpose is to serve them in whatever ways we can and avoid using them for our own purposes.

Let us pray for all those married today that they may love each other as God has loved them.