Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

We do our family a disservice if we focus only on divorce today. If we "all have one origin", then all of us together are "one flesh", not just the married couples. How often do we seek to deny or even break the bonds we share with our brothers and sisters? And how many laws and customs exist to facilitate such actions, not for the sake of justice or love, but because of the hardness of our hearts? From the beginning of creation, we have been family. And from the beginning of creation, that truth has terrified us. It is hard enough being bound to those we love, but to strangers and enemies as well? Only a fool or a child would embrace a truth like that, and the latter for only a short while; we adults make sure of that. But what if we chose to live as fools? Would we open our hearts and recognize that the kingdom we crave was right there in the "bones of our bones and flesh of our flesh"? Would we come to accept that what our Parent has joined together can never be separated? May we be blessed to live like fools all the days of our lives! And may peace be upon our family until the end of time!

Genesis 2:18-24; Psalms 128:1-6; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Genesis 2:18-24; Mark 10:2-16

We were created to be together as "one flesh," but we let "real" life and all its obligations get in the way. Jesus tells us that we must "accept the kingdom of God like a child," for only a child is fool enough to believe in the power and reality of faith, hope, and love. Children get first kisses and first loves, then are expected to grow up and join the "rat race." Why? Youth knows that marriage is the property of poets, storytellers, and mystics. We adults are the ones who turn it over to the lawyers, politicians, theologians, and scientists. Divorce is simply the natural triumph of our jaded, rational maturity. But it doesn't have to be that way. True love is not a fairy tale; it's part of our Parent's design. And we don't need to be children to believe in it, just a foolish, childlike faith.