Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?"

The US Census bureau of 2000 showed that

v     28.1 % of households in Indiana were “married without children;”

v     25% were single persons living alone;

v     23.5%, of households were “married with children;” and

v     9.2% of households were headed by single parents.

The Indiana Economic Digest concludes that the “Norman Rockwell” image of family life is fading away, and perhaps disappearing. Divorce, abortion, and contraception are taking a heavy toll on marriage as we knew it. Age is a factor too, as married couples who have children will live most of their lives in homes without children. The report doesn’t say how many grandparents are raising their grandchildren and great-grandchildren; but, anecdotally I see that growing demographic. Nor does the report list how many of those married individuals are formerly divorced and now in their second, third or fourth marriages.

If the next millennium in our Church will be the Age of the Lay People, the prophets will be not priests or nuns but married couples who love each other. Our Catholic Church sounds more and more like a voice in the wilderness when we say, “Children have a right to live in the same house with their own biological fathers and mothers who are married and love one another.” What should be taken for granted now must be spelled out in a long, cumbersome sentence.

But, of course, the problem is not new. Jesus addressed the same issue two thousand years ago when he said,

… they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.” 

I was still a baby priest (less than five years ordained) when I joined the Marriage Encounter movement. I feel most blessed for that reason. I saw married couples working hard to make their relationships grow in grace. I learned that the “original sins” of marriage are taking their sacrament and one another for granted. I learned that differences can evolve into disputes in the twinkling of an eye; and the alert couple learns to listen with their eyes, ears, hands and hearts at every moment of the day. One fellow told me he could sense trouble as he turned into the driveway. They taught me to recognize what I had overlooked in my parents’ relationship, their daily sacrifices for one another and their children.

Weddings are still enormously popular. Even gay people want “weddings” with elaborate ceremonies and fancy clothes. They have shown us how easy it is to “marry” someone who mirrors yourself. But to marry someone who is significantly different; whose body is unlike ones’ own; whose perceptions and sensibilities and preferences will always be markedly different than one’s own; and to remain within that relationship year after year until only death can drag you apart – that takes more than human courage. It requires a deep commitment to grace.

His disciples said to him,
“If that is the case of a man with his wife,
it is better not to marry.”

Many people today agree with the disciples even as they go through the motions of a wedding. They don’t intend a lifelong commitment to an exclusive relationship which will gladly receive children. Jesus knew that:

He answered, “Not all can accept this word,
but only those to whom that is granted.
Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so;
some, because they were made so by others;
some, because they have renounced marriage
for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.
Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Many adults – perhaps most adults -- have not been granted the call to marriage. I include myself among them. We must honor the sacrament by respecting the integrity of married couples, by supporting their sacrifices in every way we can and by practicing the virtue of chastity in our solitude.