The Bible starts with two accounts of the creation of the world by God. The first one (Genesis 1:1-2:3) details the order in which God created the world and life on earth. At each stage, the narrator tells us that God looked at his work and saw that it was good. The final stage is the creation of human beings: "God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). God then blesses humankind, tells them to multiply and fill the earth, and gives them dominion over the rest of creation. After the creation of human beings, God looks at his work and considers it very good. Up until now, everything was called good, but now that human beings have been created, creation is described as very good. Humanity is shown to be the pinnacle of God's creative work, the height of the order of creation on the earth.
The second account of the creation of the world (Genesis 2:4-25) focuses on the nature of humanity. We see from the account that neither man nor woman is whole independently on a natural level, but that they are meant to complement each other and form one whole through the union of marriage. In the Gospel passage for this Sunday, Jesus states: "from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 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" (Mark 10:6-8). The first account of creation shows that human beings are the greatest of God's creative work on earth. The second account shows that our nature is designed for man and woman to complete each other on a natural level through marriage. Thus, taken together, the two accounts of creation that open the Bible tell us that the marriage of man and woman is the height of the natural order God created in our world.
I should also remark that, notwithstanding the above, the Church has always valued the celibate life undertaken in service of God. Celibacy accepted for God rises above the natural order and anticipates our heavenly state, where we will be completely united with God and will have a deep spiritual connection with all those in Heaven. Additionally, not everyone who is called to marriage is able to get married or to stay married. With God's grace all those people's lives can also bear great fruit.
Having said the above, marriage between a man and a woman is, as we have seen, the greatest act of God's creation in the natural order of the human world. Marriage is at the heart of the healthy functioning of society. In our contemporary culture, marriage is under sustained, severe attack. We can see in the Western World today that as the institution of marriage crumbles, so does our society itself.
As we seek to address the problems of society, we tend to focus on a variety of issues that are the result of the decline of the institution of marriage. In doing so, we are treating the symptoms rather than the problem. To make our society strong and healthy, we need to focus our energy and resources into building up marriage, which God himself placed at the pinnacle of the natural order of earthly human life. We need to help couples prepare for marriage better and we need to work hard as a society to support married couples through the ups and downs of daily life.
As discussed above, the second account in Genesis shows the fundamental yearning of man and woman for mutual completion on the natural level. However, there is an even deeper existential yearning that every human being has, which no spouse can fulfill. At the core of the human heart is a profound inner hunger for union with the divine, which only God's love can satisfy.
On the one hand, married couples cannot fulfill the existential yearning for God that their spouse innately has, but, on the other hand, a part of the role of both husband and wife is to help each other become more and more open to God's love. Husbands and wives are to help lead each other to Heaven. By doing so, their bond with each other also deepens. Marriage has sometimes been described as a triangle, with the husband and wife in the bottom corners and God in the top. As the couple ascend toward God, they also get closer and closer to each other.
The spiritual growth and blessings of the couple are not meant for just themselves. They are to share those blessings with their children, leading them toward Heaven as well. A spiritually grounded couple will also be a shining beacon of God's love in the whole community, influencing many others to open their hearts to God.
In the Gospel reading for today, Jesus also prohibits divorce. The question that may arise is, what about Catholics who have gotten a divorce and then an annulment through the Church? By giving annulments, isn't the Church essentially providing divorce? The answer is no.
From a Catholic perspective, a certain set of conditions need to be in place for a valid marriage to come into being. The couple have to be free of natural and canonical impediments. They have to be able to consent freely to the marriage, committing to an exclusive and perpetual union, to be lived for the benefit of each other and with an openness to the natural procreation of children. If any of these conditions is missing from the beginning of the marriage, then the sacred bond of marriage never comes into being. When granting an annulment, the Church is not granting a divorce, but declaring that the marriage, though civilly recognized, never came into being in the eyes of God. Thus the couple are seen as never having been married. If they were to marry again, that marriage would not be seen as remarriage, but as marrying for the first time.
The reality of the high rate of divorce in our society should inspire us all the more to help couples prepare for marriage more extensively and to support the institution of marriage at every level of our society. We need to uphold and celebrate sacred marriage in all aspects of our culture. By doing so, we can help restore the divine order God brought about through the creation of the human world.
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The readings for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B are:
Gn 2:18-24
Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6
Heb 2:9-11
Mk 10:2-16
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: The Church at Cana, where Jesus performed his first public miracle. (c) 2016 by Zoltan Abraham.