Deacon Stu Dobson’s Reflection – February 25, 2022
7th Friday in Ordinary Time, Year 2
Jas 5:9-12; Ps 1-3:1-4, 8-9, 11-12; Mk 10:1-12
The two shall become one. When I first heard this in regard to marriage, I had no idea what it really meant. Sure, we were getting married and will be together, but how could we become one? Well, as Jesus says, you have to go all the way back to the beginning, to Genesis Chapters 1 and 2 where God made the world. In Genesis 1, verses 27-28, it says, “God created man in his own image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.’” In Genesis Chapter 2, we hear a slightly different version where God made man out of the clay of the earth, and then made women from the man’s rib. “This one shall be called ‘woman’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.“ For the two to become one is completing the way God made us as male and female, and it is the only way we can be fruitful and multiply. It takes two, male and female. God made us this way, so God joins us, and nothing can separate us. The two, become one, forever.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, in paragraph 1644, that married couples are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving. Further completed by communion in Jesus Christ through the sacrament of Matrimony. When we get married we are standing in front of God asking for God’s blessing and promising to be faithful, shared by our common faith and receiving the Eucharist together. This creates a covenant relationship that is blessed by God and cannot be broken.
It is unfortunate that many couples these days do not take the marriage covenant seriously and only look at it as a civil contract that can be broken. If they would only look at the covenant they are making, and understand the commitment and promise they are making, many of the marriages that fall apart, would stay together. Keep in mind I would never condone staying in a situation that is dangerous to either party, but if looked at properly from the beginning, many of those situations may have been able to be avoided. One of the questions engaged couples are asked is, “Why do you want to get married in the Church?” The question is not to embarrass them or call them out, it is to get them to understand how God is part of their marriage. Marriage is like a three-legged stool. With two legs, it is merely a ladder, something to lean on and start to climb up, but one that can easily fall over if you are not careful. But with God as part of your marriage, that ladder becomes a stool, firm in its foundation and difficult to tip over. Marriage is not easy, it takes a lot of work, sacrifice, and patience. But with God being part of it, that two-legged stool becomes a stool with three legs, strong and secure, and less likely to fall over.
Saint James Catholic Church 