TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

Words are powerful things. Words can bring us joy and happiness, but they can also bring us sorrow and pain. Words can encourage us and fill us with hope, but they can also cause us to become depressed and despairing. Words can comfort and reassure us in times of trouble, but they can also challenge us and make us uncomfortable.  

 This Sunday’s First Reading and Gospel in which Jesus quotes part of the reading  is all the more powerful for it comes on the day that marks the opening of the Synod of Bishops on the Family. Catholic bishops from across the world will meet in Rome from October 4 to October 25 to discuss issues facing families in today’s changing and increasingly secular society. Topics will include the sacrament of marriage, the indissolubility of the marriage, divorce and re-marriage, same sex unions, family life, the faith formation of children, the impact of poverty and migration on families, etc.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus speaks words related to the Synod. Jesus speaks of God’s original plan for marriage; he speaks of marriage as a union of a man and a woman, he says, “what God has joined together, no human being must separate." Jesus then goes on to speak of the special place of children in his eyes. "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

As the bishops gather to prayerfully reflect on the role of the family and the challenges that families face, Jesus speaks words that remind us of the ideal that God continues to set before us all. 

If we do not challenge one another to grow for the sake of the Gospel, then what is the point of committing for life? We’re just leading lives side by side. Pope Francis challenges us: Be bold! "In families, children bring headaches. I won’t speak about mother in laws. But in families, there is always a Cross. Always. Because of the love of God, the Son of God opened up that way. But also in families, after the Cross there is Resurrection.” (Pope Francis’ address at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, 2015)

If we bravely open our hearts towards the Lord and one another, we will surely be blessed all the days of our lives, experiencing resurrection and becoming a new creation in God.

Sunday’s Readings were assigned to be read on this particular date some 50 years ago, so they come at a time that makes the words especially significant. 
In the Old Testament Reading there are a couple of things to notice. First of all, this story is not as much about the roles of men and women as it is about what it means to be a human being. Also, it is not saying that everyone should be married or that only married people are whole people. That’s just not true. After all, Jesus, the perfect image of God, was single. But this is saying that we human beings can only grow into who we are created to be with and through the other -- through relationship and community. This growth happens in many ways, but it does not happen alone. If you ask an honest friar where his biggest and most important struggles come from, he’ll tell you “other friars.” We do not become whole or complete in isolation, but through community, through the “other.”

It is to this end that God has given us certain structures and situations in which we can, maybe, begin to discover what it means not to be alone, and where we can have our humanity drawn, and sometimes dragged, out of us. God has given us schools of love, places to grow.

Marriage and families are first of all about this. And while not everyone is called to the vocation of marriage, for those who are, this business of helping one another grow into who we are created to be is one of the primary reasons God created marriage.  

In much the same way, God has called us to be the Church, and he has called us into this church, because without something like this we simply cannot be very Christian. 
One of the central insights of Christianity is that being a part of a real, human, chunk of the body of Christ is essential to any serious Christian growth. Like marriage and family, parish life, church life, is not really about agreement, success, having our needs met, or happiness. Instead it   is about growth into wholeness. That is why, in Church as in families, the real ties that bind are ties of love and circumstances, not of any other sort of homogeneity. 

Such growth is simply not possible without commitment to a lifetime of effort and intentionally seeking the grace and help of God.  

Words are often more powerful because of when we hear them, and that is particularly true when it comes to the words of God!

[Archaeology cat]

Amen