In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
My dearly beloved in Our Lord,
Today’s Gospel reminds us of the great importance and the great dignity of the Sacrament of marriage.
We know through the teaching of Our Lord and of the Apostles that the state of virginity or celibacy is in itself superior to the married state. This being said, the sacramental marriage – the marriage legitimately concluded between two Catholics – is of the greatest importance because of its implications for society .
Marriage is by its very nature turned towards the conception and the education of children. God had united Adam and Eve with these words: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth...” (Gen 1,28) And He repeated the same words to Noe after the great flood! (Gen 9,1) Today mankind has just about forgotten, or is positively denying the principal finality of marriage, and this is a disaster for the individuals and for society: For the individuals, men and women, because their common life is thus voluntarily deprived of a worthwhile end or goal; and for society because the upbringing and education of children requires a stable home and a family.
Our Lord therefore did not invent anything new when he taught: “Have you not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? And he said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” (Mt 19,4-6) He only restored the sacred pact of marriage to its original essence and dignity. And he made it into the last of the Seven Sacraments which he instituted.
At the time of Our Lord the situation with marriage was strange, as today’s Gospel hints: We can understand the words: “They have no more wine” in a moral sense - the divine institution of marriage had become insipid and vulgar with most. Moses had had to permit some kind of divorce because of the hardness of the Jews’ hearts, as Our Lord will explain.
Over the past decades unfaithful and unworthy pastors have done something similar among Catholics, thus helping to lead them far astray from the good path, the path that leads to Heaven. First they permitted and favored contraception, de facto; then easy separation through a flood of “annulments”, like a Catholic version of divorce; and now all kinds of abuses that clearly are against God’s will, including practical complacency in abortion, Bergoglio having permitted that all the NO priests simply give absolution from this crime.
Our Lord declares that purely and simply there is no such thing as divorce in the New and everlasting Covenant. This is so precisely because the New Covenant is irrevocable and permanent, and because marriage is an earthly and temporary image of the heavenly and eternal union between Christ and the Church. St Paul teaches this about marriage: “This is a great sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church.” (Eph 5,32)
Thus Our Lord restored the initial purity and dignity of marriage; and he added to it the spiritual vine or unction which God provides through the Sacrament.
Just as important is the fact that God chose to become man in a family, the Holy Family Jesus, Mary and Joseph which we have celebrated last Sunday in a feast instituted by Pope Leo XIII. God incarnate not only restored things to the purity and integrity He had wished when He first created them – He also shows us in his own person the example of all the good things through which we can save our souls. In other words, we are not only meant to believe Our Lord; but we can also imitate his example and his virtues. Thus St Augustine draws a very important conclusion from the very fact that Our Lord had accepted to be at the wedding of Cana, saying that the Savior implicitly acknowledges marriage to be something good – and not something evil, as many heretics (like the Manichees) have pretended throughout the ages.
Let us therefore be grateful and full of respect towards all that God has made.
Let us be clear that celibacy and virginity are a more perfect way of life, in themselves, than the married state, as the Church has always taught.
Let us also insist on the great importance of Christian marriage as a Sacrament, the dignity of which is great as a living image of the union between Christ and the Church; and which is so important as the institution in which children are conceived and educated so that they may one day be valiant members of the earthly society and worthy children of God!
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
P. Arnold Trauner (paterarnold@hotmail.com), njemački i engleski
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar