2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14
Ps 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15
2 Thes 2:16-3:5
Lk 20:27-38
Today’s Gospel speaks about this moral scenario that the Sadducees conjure up for our Lord. A Judaic brain teaser, if you will. Our Lord doesn’t even bat an eye and answers this question straight away saying that those in the Resurrection, neither marry nor are given in marriage, thus ensuring everyone that there is indeed a resurrection of the body, but then also provoking more questions: this idea that folks aren’t married in heaven. If we believe in the Resurrection, which I am sure you all do; then we are in a bit of a pickle. Chances are you are sitting next to your spouse or maybe your spouse has died and is no longer with you and the idea of not having your spouse in heaven can be a bit distressing (and maybe for some liberating). But I hope we can reflect a little bit further on this passage.
I came across this man’s blog entry entitled, “Marriage Isn’t For You”. This past week it actually garnered an incredible amount of hits and went “viral”. It was so popular that the couple was actually interviewed by a major television network. Of course if you google it, you’re gonna find critiques left and right about it; and chances are there are as many opinions as there are people married or have had experience with marriage. This includes Yours Truly.
So there’s this blog about “Marriage Isn’t For You” – or rather this man is writing about the time when he was worried if the one he was about to marry was “the one”. His Father’s solution was simple:
'…marriage isn’t for you. You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy. More than that, your marriage isn’t for yourself, you’re marrying for a family…for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them? Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married.'The blogger goes on to say: “… a true marriage (and true love) is never about you. It’s about the person you love—their wants, their needs, their hopes, and their dreams. Selfishness demands, ‘What’s in it for me?’, while Love asks, ‘What can I give?’” I thought he nails this understanding of love right on its head. Yes, love and marriage is about the other!! BUT…as beautiful as those words in his blog sounded; I believe it is an incomplete and imperfect love.
Without God, without the One who has loved us first, our love will only model that which we have experienced around us: the “imperfect love” between our parents and the “imperfect love” that our parents has shown us. Even if your relationships were as perfect as Leave it to Beaver, Brady Bunch, and The Partridge Family all rolled into one, without God it is only as good as your weakest link; because it is a natural love, not necessarily supernatural. However when we have God, the Father as a model of love, we see the perfect sacrificial and fullest expression of love. As St. Augustine writes, “God loves each one of us as if we there were only one of us.” This expression of love for us is uniquely personal and is freely given to us and we are blessed to receive it. Our receptivity of God’s love allows us to turn around and love others as He has loved us – before we even think about a “significant other” in our life, there is first God and our relationship with Him.
But lest we go too far in saying that marriage is exclusively completely for the other, we must remember that there is surely a return, reciprocity. As we look at the Holy Trinity, we see God, the Father, love His only Begotten Son. We see a return of that ever eternal bond of love shared and consubstantial in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, love always has an origin/source which returns/reciprocates in response. Love is a two-way street, we all know that. And since we have God in the picture, love becomes a two-way super highway, shared between you, your spouse, and God; also Trinitarian in nature. The Husband and Wife is a team journeying together and helping each other towards heaven. Again, the model of love first received and understood as a single person is intensified in this new relationship involving another person, which comes back to our first point of why it is so important, as Catholic Christians, to know how God loves you and to love Him before you start being so intimately connected with another person. It’s gonna be a lot harder to help “save” another person, if you can’t even save yourself. (Not saying it’s impossible, but the odds are against you.)
In a Sacramental Marriage, the bond between husband and wife is given a greater meaning because their baptismal nature gives them a unique and divine relationship with God. If you recall from your Baltimore Catechism days– a sacrament is an outward sign of an inward reality or a visible sign of an invisible reality. The question then is asked, what is a “sacramental marriage” modeling? What is the visible sign of husband and wife pointing to? What is the invisible reality? It is of course pointing to the unconditional, eternal, and free gift of love God has for His people, the Church. Married couples show to the world the possibility of Divine Love; that it is possible for love to exist. This is an important mission for married couples. Unfortunately because the institution of marriage has taken such a beating, it is all the more important for the family to stay faithful. So it is true (in a sense) that “Marriage Isn’t For You”; marriage is also for all of us!! -- to show the world that Christ (the Bridegroom) is married to the Church (His Bride). That’s why marriages must be complementary, exclusive, faithful, permanent, and lifelong. It is why the Catholic Church takes marriage so seriously, it has been radically changed to have a supernatural purpose in the world, not just for human enjoyment.
Once one spouse dies, the sacramental bond is broken; the visible reality is no longer needed because, hopefully God willing, your spouse will have reached that invisible reality of Heaven where their joy will be complete in God – the beatific vision. If I had a spouse and I had to choose between my wife and God, it would be God. If I had to choose between my parents and loved ones and God, I would rather have God. Does it mean that I love my loved ones any less or hate them? No, it means that as much as I love them, I love God more.
When we come back to the Gospel, we realize that our Lord’s words are not so disturbing. They reinforce the fact that the reality of our destiny is true, it is what we have all been waiting for and hopefully what we all desire in our heart of hearts. The marriage in this life is to foreshadow the marriage with God in the afterlife. [If you are wondering what this looks like, look no further than to your nearest celibate, the consecrated single in the religious life. =) That’s another vocation, and another story.]
Suffice it to say, it may be hard for you to part ways from your loved ones and it might be difficult to hear these words; but our Lord gives us this Gospel not to burden us, but to enlighten us to seek first the Kingdom of God and to hold fast to the promise of the Resurrection. And until we are called from this life into the next, we will have to “settle” with the eternal Wedding Banquet of the Lamb in Heaven here on earth in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
For other good takes on the blog entry: http://beckyeldredge.com/marriage-is-for-all-of-us/
