THE ANALOGY OF CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH

SUNDAY, TWENTY SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Gen 2:18-24; Ps 128; Heb 2:9-11; Mk 10:2-16

The two shall become One, mystery of Christ and his Church

The readings and theme for this week propel us toward understanding the gift God promised to man, which is beyond his knowledge and experience. Because of this, he gave us the analogy to understand the mystery, which is the divine gift. The analogy given in the reading from Genesis is a man’s union with his spouse. This analogy is profound because it has various levels of meaning. The good thing with analogies is that they work with what is easily given to our experience to transport us to the realm beyond our senses. God made man to be a temple where his Word would dwell. The indwelling of the Word in man would not be realised suddenly, for it must follow the free will and acceptance of men who are made in the image of God. The divine project is to make man like God to facilitate mutual communion. Hence, the statement: “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.” The creation and presentation of the various animals was not a trial-and-error thing as it would seem; each level of sophistication was meant to draw the man nearer to the knowledge of himself. This is where the analogy plays a unique role. The woman was a suitable helpmate for the man in the sense that each would draw the other out in a complete manner and fill the other in a full sense.

This mutual drawing out and filling of the spouses is in their knowing and loving each other. The possibility opened by the mutual outflow and inflow into the other is the meaning of communion. “The man exclaimed: ‘This at last is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh! This is to be called woman, for this was taken from man.’” Marriage is possible when a man and a woman can fill each other’s mind and heart in this unique way and remain comfortable and fulfilled in each other. This is why the scripture referred to marriage immediately after the man expressed knowledge of himself in the woman. “This is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife, and they become one body.” The understanding and contemplation of this analogy help us to ascend to the mystery that is represented. The passage from Hebrews tells us about the incarnation of the Eternal Word. It is the inflow of divinity into human nature; it is about the Eternal Word knowing man in a unique human way, thereby making it possible for man to know God in a unique way that God knows himself, though humanly. It is a mystery. “For the one who sanctifies, and the ones who are sanctified, are of the same stock; that is why he openly calls them brothers. Entering into human nature, the Eternal Word knew our nature in a human experience. He knows our nature through and through as the Creator. Now, encountering him in our nature, we can flow into him by our mutual nature and know him as our brother and our Lord at the same time by sharing in the Holy Spirit.

As in the case of man and woman, the interflow and mutual filling is not an instantaneous occurrence, but a gradual emptying and filling by the other, that is what we call falling in love. This process is what the Hebrew passage referred to. “As it was his purpose to bring a great many of his sons into glory, it was appropriate that God, for whom everything exists and through whom everything exists, should make perfect, through suffering, the leader who would take them to their salvation.” Falling in love is ceasing to live in oneself and beginning to live more and more in the other. It is dying to self to live for the other. Christ died so that he may live in each of his own. His indwelling in us is our glory and salvation. This is how he intends to achieve the original purpose of creation, given the fall of Adam and Eve and our sins.

The explanation our Lord gave to the Pharisees who approached him to test him, was a clarification on the issue of divorce, which confirms the insight above. The separation of a man from his wife begins when he withdraws his consent to the indwelling of the woman’s presence, which happens with his continual and gradual replacement of the presence of his wife with another in his mind and heart. One or both cease to make the other his or her habitation. Thus, divorce starts from the minds and hearts of the spouses. When their minds and hearts cease to be identical, become two minds and two hearts, then divorce has taken place. It is the same with our marriage with Jesus Christ. We grow in our union with Jesus Christ as we read, meditate, and contemplate the word of God daily. The union is efficacious as long as his presence fills our minds and hearts daily and informs every activity we carry out. As we see him in everything, we safely journey into his mystery. The fruits of this union of our minds and hearts with Jesus are blessed and spiritual, just as children from the holy union of husband and wife are blessed. They are from God, the cause of the union of the spouses. Similarly, the fruits of our labours in Christ are works of God the Father who willed our union with his Son Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask.