Tad Brain Power

 TWENTY SEVENTH ORDINARY SUNDAY OF THE YEAR B!

Once, an English teacher asked her 9th Std. Students to give her a word denoting a marriage with many wives. A student answered, “Maam, it is polygamy.” “Correct,” she said. “How about a marriage with two spouses,” another student replied, “Maam, it is bigamy.” “Correct,” the teacher said, “And how about a marriage with only one wife?” A student raised his hand and blurted out, “Maam, monotony!”– Actually, what the student meant was “monogamy,” of course. However, unwittingly, his answer touched on a problem in marriage, that is, monotony, the absence of love and happiness, which can lead to divorce, which Jesus condemns in today’s Gospel. Today, on this 27th Sunday, our Lord teaches that marriage should be monogamous, permanent, and indissoluble.

We touch today on a very topical, very sensitive, and very painful reality of life in our time—the question of divorce. Similarly, today’s Gospel indicates that it was a controversial question in Jesus’ time and in his society as well. In reply to the Pharisees’ question about the permissibility of divorce, Jesus quotes from the book of Genesis in a passage used in our First Reading today. It expresses in beautiful language the ideal of the perfect marriage. Speaking about the companion God had given him: The man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. What God has united, man must not divide. The man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery,” and vice versa. This teaching of Christ forms the basis of the Catholic Church’s teaching against absolute divorce.

We are hardly shocked nowadays when we hear that a couple we know have decided to divorce. There are some places where as many as half of the marriages end in the divorce courts. The percentage among Catholics is often on a par with the rest of the population. Even where the figures are not high, they are growing nearly everywhere and are a matter of serious concern. We should well remember dear spouses that divorce is the absence of love; patience, forgiveness, and understanding of each other. It is also a broken consent and promise of staying together in good times as well as bad times taken on the day of the blessing of the marriage in the church.

I remember an incident of a lady who was seeking divorce from her husband. She came to the office of Dr. George W. Crane, a Newspaper columnist and a psychologist, wanting to divorce her husband. She confided that she hated her husband and intended to divorce him. She declared firmly, “I do not only want to get rid of him, but I want to hurt him as well before I divorce him,

Dr. Crane suggested a brilliant plan “Go home and act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate, and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him. After you have convinced him of your undying love and that you can not live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you are getting a divorce. That will really hurt him.”

With revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, “Beautiful, beautiful. Will he ever be surprised!” And she did it with enthusiasm. For two months, she showed love, kindness, listening, giving, reinforcing, and sharing. When she didn’t return, Dr. Crane called her. “Are you ready now to go through with the divorce?”

“Divorce?” she exclaimed. “Never! I discovered I really do love him.” Her actions had changed her feelings. Motion resulted in emotion. The ability to love is established not so much by fervent promise as often repeated deeds.

That is the power of love! Love is the best medicine for any sickness which cripples human life. The reason for this incredible power of love is simple: True Love flows from the heart of the one who is Love... God! Genuine Love gushes forth from the fount of the One who is Love Incarnate.. Jesus!

The Gospel of the Day is a wonderful exposition of Jesus emphasizing the importance of love, unity, and faithfulness in the relationship of marriage. Marriage is built on love. However, it is not only a romantic love. One set of readings that many couples chose for the wedding Mass are the readings from St. Paul. We are all familiar with the words, “love is kind, love is gentle, etc.” Well, for those who are married those words sound great on the wedding day but, often, as two people live together, they learn that true love is not just the words spoken at the nuptial celebration. Love is not only an emotion. Love is also a decision. The emotion doesn’t become the reality of love until both parties personalize the words. A wife will be kind to her husband... the husband will be gentle with his wife. The words are not as important in a marriage as the decision each party makes to put the words into action for living and loving together for eternity in good times as well as in bad times. That requires sacrifice of one’s ego and a sacrifice of owns own selfish requirements.

As we all know from the scriptures that marriage is an eternal covenant between husband and wife made before God Himself. The couple makes this together with a promise that they freely give themselves, one hundred percent and not just fifty-fifty, to each other. This covenant is different from an ordinary contract that covers property and others. For example, if we want to rent an apartment, we sign in the contract stating if how months or years, let’s say year, we are going to rent this apartment. Marriage is different. It is because this is not for how many years but a contract with a permanent union

We know that marriage is founded on love, but we also know that marriage is much more than love. Marriage entails more than physical attraction. Sam Levinson, the Jewish humorist, says, “Love at first sight is easy to explain. It is when people have been looking at one another for 40 years that love becomes a miracle.” We are a community that believes in that miracle. We believe that life-long growth and faithfulness are possible. Yet to reach that possibility, the high ideals of patience, forgiveness and sacrifice must be embraced. We are proud to recognize that there are people here this morning, people that we know in our family and friends who have taken on those high ideals and have made them real.

My dear spouses, please do note what Helen Rowland has to say for eternal happiness and togetherness in their married life, “To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little and to be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.”

At the end, let us reflect on these words: “A marriage may be made in heaven, but the maintenance must be done on earth.”