Good Shepherd Catholic Parish

27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Year B

          Peace be with you and greetings on this, our celebration of the Mass for the 27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  You know, one Sunday afternoon, pre-COVID, I was in the checkout line at Publix and the lady in front of me was a neighbor.  After the clerk had wrung everything up for her, she was digging through her purse for her wallet and I happened to notice a TV remote control and couldn’t help asking, “Ann, do you always carry your TV remote in your purse?”  “No” she said with a big smile.  “I asked Bill to come with me to help with the shopping, but he said he had to stay home and watch football games, so I figured this was the most wicked thing I could do that was still legal.”  So – here we are today, having just listened to that beautiful story from Genesis 2 about the creation of the first man and the first woman and the story continues, doesn’t it?

          You know, I heard another homily a while back, where the Priest suggested this Creation Story from Genesis we just heard, actually lays out the fundamentals for human anthropology.  Specifically, from the very beginning the Bible tells us we are all created to be social creatures.  Now I know that may not track with what our Western culture teaches however, about how important our personal individualism is, but like it or not fellow Christians, the Bible tells us we are all created to be social by nature.  Listen one more time to what we just heard from God in Genesis, “It is not good for the man to be alone I will make him a suitable partner.”  With his uniquely human capacity to love, Adam needs someone coequal, a soul mate, someone to share his life.  That good old heathen Aristotle even said, “We can only be friends with someone who is our equal.”  “A friend” he said, “is a second self.”  And this relationship between a man and a woman presented in Genesis is meant to be the deepest form of friendship.  These words create the primordial sacrament.  The Bible tells us, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.”

          Wow, now that’s a very sensual sounding Bible verse, isn’t it?  Well again interestingly, in our modern American culture, we Catholics are often criticized for being overly puritanical or opposed to human sexuality as though it is something evil.  My sisters and brothers there certainly couldn’t be anything further from the truth.  Follow me here for just a minute.  I read an article by Dr. Scott Hahn recently, where he says Satan is probably a greater theologian than any human alive.  He says Satan could probably quote the Bible better than anyone on earth.  Dr Hahn points out that every single demon Jesus ever drove out knew exactly who Jesus was, the Holy One, the Son of God.  Now how did they know that – because those nasty old demons had faith?  Oh, come on Doc, how can that be, demons with faith?  You see, he says, faith alone – without love – collapses in upon itself and of course; Satan and his demons have no love.  Everything in the Christian world must be related to love and just like faith, that includes human sexuality.  You see, God is love and as Thomas Aquinas said, “love is willing the good of the other.”  Consequently, a casual recreational philosophy, where sensuality is good in and of itself, as simply pleasure or entertainment, without love and commitment, will eventually collapse upon itself and ultimately cause pain, hurt, and suffering.  Remember, love is willing the good of the other and it must be elemental in every Christian’s life.  With love human sexuality is a beautiful gift from God.

          Why is love so elemental for our human existence, the Bible emphasizes it, especially in the New Testament.  All people are called to holiness and if God is love, holiness and love must be codependent.  With this emphasis that all people are called to holiness, Vatican II articulated this about marriage; “marriage is every bit as much a vocation or spiritual calling as the Priesthood or religious life.”  My friends, marriage is a vocation from God.  When two people are married they actually mirror what God is, because, as Trinity, God is a loving relationship.  The Father and the Son are equal and their love of each other as the Holy Spirit is also equal.  The Biblical image is clear.  Marriage is not simply some secular or social arrangement.  It is part of God’s plan for God’s purposes.  Marriage is a symbolic sign of God’s very way of being.  Now meditate on that for a while folks.  Marriage is a symbolic sign of God’s very way of being.

          Now we have the Gospel reading for today and along with it, we have an elephant in the room no one wants to talk about – divorce.  You know, because of everything going on in our country right now concerning marriage, I’ve stopped referring to what we do here in Church as simply a marriage ceremony, I now call it Sacramental Marriage.  Shucks, in Alabama right now you can get married at the bank without any ceremony at all.  You download a form from AL.com, two spouses sign, have their signatures notarized, and Zap, they are civilly married.  If you want a Catholic Sacramental Marriage however, it will take place in a Church and a Priest, or a Deacon will preside.

          Today, we heard Jesus himself quote Genesis 2 before he said, “Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”  Friends, in a Catholic Sacramental Marriage the vows recited establish a sacred covenant between a man, a woman, and God.  Sadly however, in our fallen world, we realistically know many marriages are not “happily ever after” unions.  Consequently, our Church has a unique process, very few people really understand called Annulment.  Wait, that’s just Catholic for divorce, right?  Wrong!!!  Annulment is a type of investigation that proves, a Sacramental Marriage did or did not take place and unfortunately, there are many, many reasons why the authentic truth might say, it did not.

          Regardless, wherever any of us in this broken world may be, in our own personal lives right now, above all else remember, GOD IS LOVE and God’s greatest attribute is mercy!  Go home today and reflect on what Paul tells us at the end of Romans 8; “Neither height, nor depth, nor anything in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”