OUR INDISSOLUBLE MARRIAGE WITH YAHWEH


FRIDAY, NINETEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Ezek 16:1-15,60,63; Isa 12; Mt 19:3-12

Indissoluble Marriage with Yahweh

God, through the mouth of Ezekiel the prophet, narrates how he found Israel for himself. From the narration, we see that Israel, like every one of us, did nothing to merit being adopted by Yahweh and married to him. It was all due to God’s infinite compassion and mercy that he picked up Israel from birth and brought her to himself. Israel, who now prides herself as the chosen, was born of pagan parents and abandoned in the wild. “Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her filthy crimes. Say, “The Lord says this: By origin and birth you belong to the land of Canaan. Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. At birth, the very day you were born, there was no one to cut your navel string, or wash you in cleansing water, or rub you with salt, or wrap you in napkins.” God used this romantic illustration to describe Israel’s indebtedness to him. Just as Israel is married to Yahweh by dint of God’s gracious condescension to her wretched state to restore and adorn her in his glory, the same way we owe everything we possess, which is of any worth, to God’s graciousness. It is also a call to reflect on our lack of gratitude to God for all we have received from him.

God adorns us with natural and spiritual or supernatural gifts out of love for us and wants us to love and follow him in gratitude for what he has given us and made us to become. Because God created human nature in the likeness of his divine nature, he cannot force us to love him in return but must coerce us gently to fall in love with him and bring ourselves to worship him. We need to reflect daily on all the gifts of God to us, both natural and supernatural, are bestowed on us by God. We must never allow these gifts to turn our heads and make them swell to the point that we turn away from God. “You have become infatuated with your own beauty; you have used your fame to make yourself a prostitute; you have offered your services to all comers.” To guard against this evil infatuation and pride that the evil one incites in us, we must never cease praising the Lord for all we have received and become. We must, with our Blessed Mother Mary, ingrain our nothingness without God deep within our consciousness. This is the bedrock of deep spirituality, which the Fathers of the Church called knowledge of self as nothing without God. This knowledge keeps us humble and open to God’s operative grace.

This knowledge is good for our remaining married to God, but also establishes a good relationship between us and our neighbours, and between husband and wife. Husbands and wives must first be faithfully married to God before they can be faithful to each other. We see this in the teaching of our Lord about marriage in the gospel. “Have you not read that the creator from the beginning made them male and female and that he said: This is why a man must leave father and mother, and cling to his wife, and the two become one body? They are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.” God made us and united us to himself. He also united the male and female to each other in marriage. None of these unions made by God should be divided. The first is the cause of the second, for we are faithful to each other only if we are faithful to God. Hence, those who are not comfortable with what God made them, male or female in his image, cannot be comfortable with God. Husbands and wives must come to understand that unfaithfulness to each other is unfaithfulness to God and unfaithfulness to God is unfaithfulness to each other. The two bonds are interwoven as cause and effect, each reinforces the other and enriches it. When the disciples expressed astonishment at the difficult teaching on marriage, the Lord allayed their fear by reminding them that marriage, as entering heaven, is possible only by God’s grace.

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, the grace to constantly reflect on the many good things we have received from you, natural and supernatural gifts, which we do not merit in any way, but have received through your infinite goodness and love, that we may remain infatuated with your love for us in Jesus Christ our Lord.  

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