Last month, walking through Chinatown in downtown Philadelphia my good friend John Boyden mentioned the Gospel for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 4, 2015. He pointed out the irony -- this reading in the Lectionary is the condemnation of divorce by Christ Himself, to be read during the first Sunday Mass at the Synod.
The reading is from Mark 10 where the Pharisees, knowing the permission of Moses about divorce, test Jesus, but Jesus reminds them of God's intention for the unity of marriage. Divorce followed by remarriage is adultery.
Mark 10: 2-16
"Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?' Jesus answered them, 'What did Moses command you?' They said, 'Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.'
But Jesus said to them, 'Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.'
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. Jesus said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.'
People were bringing little children to him in order that Jesus might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, 'Let the little children come to me; do not stop them: for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.'
And Jesus took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, there it is plain and simple. Why the need for a synod? Jesus speaks.
ReplyDeleteBut, then did not some nun last year say we need to move beyond Jesus.
It is tough to be a follower of Jesus. But there is a great joy in it and a calm that is inexplicable.
We serve God in this world so as to be with him in the next.
Heresiarch "theologians" like Cardinal Kasper don't care much for the words of Our Lord. They care more about their organized Heathendom. Their "theology" is agnostic what-not. Modernism leaves nothing of Catholicism, but the name, and according to Pope St. Pius X, it is a sure path to atheism.
ReplyDelete