homily Oct 3

The Catholic church has something to say about every aspect of human living and human freedom, because it has the whole truth about the human person. And today’s topic of marriage is hugely important. Marriage is the foundation of family. Family is the foundation of society. So marriage is the core of society, and as goes marriage, so goes society.

If you misunderstand what the human person is about, you are going to come to the wrong conclusions. Karl Marx thought it was all about class struggle and one group keeping another group down and out, ultimately leading to misunderstandings about many things, even directly attacking the institutions of marriage and family because they overvalue the importance of the collective. DesCartes popularized the perennial lie about the person being the soul trapped in a body and not associated with it, leading to many mistakes about what we can or should be doing with or to our bodies.

If you get the human person wrong, you will get his destiny wrong. If you have the destiny or goal wrong, you will spend your life headed in the wrong direction. This leads to misery, chaos, and dysfunction both now and in the future. If you are on the right road with the truth of the human person guiding you, you will find joy and peace and harmony. The human person, from Adam and Eve until now, is created out of love and for love by God who is love, yet also fallen, prone to selfishness, and fragile. The story of the Gospel and the truths God reveals in Christ allow us to know ourselves and our destiny truly and completely.

So the Church teaches many things about the person, our sexuality, and marriage, that are so essential because they flow from the truth of the human person, and thus when they are put into practice they lead to human flourishing. Some of these truths may not be popular, but truth has never been a matter of majority opinion. Truth is about what conforms to reality. The eye, working properly, receives the light from outside itself and makes a true image of what is beyond it. So too does the mind conform to the truth.

This is precisely what happens in the Gospel today when the Lord Jesus, against the culture of his time, teaches about the truth of the indissolubility of marriage. This teaching, continued in the Church to this day, is once again a point of discord with society.  G.K. Chesterton said “We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong.” Our blind spots are the most dangerous things for us when we are driving, and going through life with all it’s danger and constant choices is a lot like driving, so it would be good to know where those blind spots are. The pains of divorce which our society tries both to deny and to mitigate, are evident especially in those who are younger, and this tragic reality only makes clearer the truth of Christ’s words.

What is great about Church teaching is it knows where to be firm and where to allow for personal choice or preference. It is clear and precise when it should be, such as when Jesus makes it clear what God’s plan for marriage is; and has leeway and openness at other times, not over-reaching those divine rules, such as the Church supporting the separation of couples that cannot live in healthy ways for their good (or that of their children), and also the annulment process which can establish whether a marriage presumed valid was in fact not so due to missing an essential element at the outset in the ceremony and exchange of vows.

But Jesus does not want his disciples to focus purely on this negation of divorce. He wishes to turn their hearts to the truth that is much deeper: the kingdom of God. “Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Sometimes Jesus’ teachings do not fit with our moods, our way of thinking, or our culture. Chesterton says further: One word that tells us what we do not know outweighs a thousand words that tell us what we do know. And the thing is all the more striking if we not only did not know it but could not believe it. It may seem a paradox to say that the truth teaches us more by the words we reject than by the words we receive. So when we naturally want to reject what the Lord is teaching us, it behooves us all the more to receive it like a child. A child trusts their parents even when they don’t understand, when they don’t see the point, when it appears purely arbitrary or domineering. At those moments they must not fear the lie that their parents want to dominate them and make them suffer; they must trust that their parents love them and want what’s best for them. This is indeed what it means for us to accept the kingdom of God like a child. And as often with children, so too with us: in time, after we do it, the things begin to make sense as they lead to our flourishing.

Whether you are married or not, don’t be afraid of following God’s ways when His will is clear, even and especially when it is hard.