27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16

As some of you may know, today in Rome
there begins the second phase of the Synod on the Family.
A synod is a meeting of bishops and others from around the world
to deliberate on matters of importance to the Church:
in this case, 279 bishops from 120 countries.
The Instrumentum laboris or “working paper”
that lays out an agenda for the synod
gives some idea of the topics that will be discussed:
divorce, annulments,
domestic violence, work pressures,
the plight of migrant and refugee families,
contraception, same-sex marriages, poverty,
as well as how the faith is or is not
passed on within families.

Call me pessimistic, but I suspect
that three weeks might not be enough time
to find adequate ways of addressing all of these issues.
But given the changes and challenges
to family life in the world today
it’s at least a start.

During the first phase of the synod last year,
one of the most controversial—
and still unsettled—issues
was the pastoral care of those
who are divorced and remarried,
particularly the question of participation
in the sacramental life of the Church.
And our Gospel reading this morning
puts us smack dab in the middle of that controversy.
Here we seem to find Jesus at his most uncompromising:
“what God has joined together,
no human being must separate…
Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
she commits adultery.”
The judgment passed in these words
strike our ears harshly;
they seem lacking in mercy,
lacking is appreciation
for life’s complexity and difficulty,
particularly in the emotionally fraught area of the family.

But do we really want to accuse Jesus
of not appreciating
life’s complexity and difficulty,
he who was made perfect through suffering?
Do we really want to say that Jesus does not understand
that real-life family does not fit easily into an idealized model,
that he does not know that, to be honest,
it is not just marriages that end in divorce that are “broken,”
but that all families come with some level
of brokenness
or dysfunction
or just plain weirdness?

He knows this.
Of course he knows this.
Jesus’s own family was, shall we say, decidedly “non-traditional”;
and in not being ashamed, as our second reading says,
to be called our brother
he has proudly joined himself to our real life families
in all their brokenness
and dysfunction
and weirdness.

What then of this uncompromising teaching
on divorce and remarriage?
Let us take Jesus at his word:
let us presume he really means
that marriage creates an unbreakable bond,
such that it really is impossible
to forge a new bond to replace the old.
Let us further presume that he really thinks
that with the coming of God’s kingdom
it is now possible, through God’s grace,
for his followers to overcome the hard heartedness
that has so often torn apart
the two whom God had made one flesh.
I do not know how all of this
fits together with God’s mercy—
some things remain mysteries to us in this life—
but I do know that even if we grant all this,
we still have no reason to think
that Jesus means for his words to be used as a stick
to beat up on those who do not live up to them.
We have no reason to think
that Jesus does not continue to love
those whose families break up
or break down
or break apart.
We have no reason to think that Jesus ever abandons us,
no matter how broken
or dysfunctional
or just plain weird
our family lives might be.
The bishops must listen to the words of Jesus,
but I pray they will hear them as the words of one
who has plunged headlong
into all the complexity and ambiguities
of human love,
of human longing,
of human solace and sorrow.
It is only then that they will hear them truly.

Speaking last week in Philadelphia,
Pope Francis said,
“In families, there is always, always, the cross.
Always….
But, in families as well, after the cross,
there is the resurrection.
Because the Son of God opened for us this path.”
As followers of Jesus,
all of us are trying to walk that path,
through the cross to the resurrection.
Indeed, we are called to find the resurrection
within our broken,
dysfunctional
weird families,
not beyond them,
because it is precisely in real families,
not ideal families,
that we learn what it means
to have faith,
to have hope,
to have love.

That’s the funny thing about families:
they don’t have to be perfect
in order for God’s grace to work through them.
We all fail to some degree
as spouses and parents,
as children and siblings.
But in the midst of our failure a miracle can occur:
With the help of God’s grace,
we can manage to love each other,
even as we struggle to show that love,
to accept that love,
to bear the burden of that love.

There are no perfect families;
but only families where love might grow
like a stubborn weed
that no amount of
human brokenness
or dysfunction
or weirdness
can uproot.
Sometimes we must carry our love
like a cross,
but in faith we carry it with Jesus
on the path of resurrection.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16

Some of you might recall the Catholic custom of “First Fridays.”

These were days especially devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

when Catholics would go to special Masses 

or perform other devotions.

This was sometimes associated with promises

of particular spiritual benefits

for those who received communion at First Friday Masses

for nine consecutive months,

most specifically the gift of dying in a state of grace

with the Heart of Jesus as their refuge in their final moments.

Now this might seems just a bit too calculating: 

in exchange for about half an hour a month 

over nine consecutive months

I can get my ticket into heaven stamped.

Seems like a pretty good deal.

It might be easy for some of us to be scornful

of such a simplistic spirituality

and be glad that the Church has grown beyond such things.

But the Church has not abandoned the custom of First Fridays;

in fact, I went to a First Friday Mass just this past week

at Loyola University, where I work.

I think it is actually a good thing 

that the Church has continued this practice,

because our Catholic tradition 

of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

is rooted in a profound theological insight

into the nature of God’s love for us.

Because God has become a human being in Jesus Christ,

God not only loves us with perfect divine love,

the dispassionate love of God’s benevolence to all creatures,

but God also loves us with the love of Jesus’s human heart,

a heart that, like our hearts, knows pain and distress,

a heart that is pierced and broken when love is rejected,

a heart that, precisely in being pierced and broken,

has become a source of grace, a place of refuge,

for all the brokenhearted of the world.

This theology is rooted in what we read today

in the Letter to the Hebrews:

Jesus is the one who by the grace of God 

tastes death for everyone,

who has been made perfect through suffering.

A human heart made perfect through suffering –

made perfect in the knowledge 

of what each and every one of us suffers,

an intimate knowledge of the failures and betrayals 

of human love,

as well as love’s glories and triumphs.

And, the writer of Hebrews says,

he is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.

This is good to bear in mind 

as we reflect on our Gospel reading,

in which we hear Jesus’s stringent 

and challenging teaching

regarding marriage and divorce.

His words offer no escape clauses,

and I am not going to try to invent one for you.

Even if we put the teaching in historical context

and understand that in Jesus’s culture

the way in which men could cavalierly abandon their wives

was a genuine social justice concern,

Jesus’ teaching still does not seem to recognize

the pain that often accompanies the collapse of a marriage:

the shattered hopes and broken hearts and rejected loves.

Of course, Jesus’s point here is to underscore for his hearers

the challenge of being his disciple

and the promise that the original integrity of creation

will be restored through him.

But we should also remember that this challenge and this promise

are made by one whose own heart is broken on the cross

by the rejection of his love.

However we deal with the challenge 

of Jesus’s teaching on marriage,

we must remember that he too is one 

whose human heart is wounded,

and that from his wounded heart 

he offers salvation and hope.

On Friday, as Mass was ending, 

I reflected on the people who were there.

Many of them were elderly,

and they undoubtedly had long experience

of the joys and sorrows of human life:

promises kept and promises broke,

hopes fulfilled and hopes destroyed,

marriages that survived and marriages that didn’t.

What drew them there to that church on that day?

Was it simply the promise of the benefits gained

by attendance at nine consecutive First Fridays?

Or was it, rather, the chance to worship the God

who knows from within the joys and sorrows of the human heart

and whose love can sustain us through those sorrows and into joy?

Whenever I officiate at a wedding in this church,

before the service I light a candle 

at our altar of the Sacred Heart,

and I pray that the couple would know 

the love of Jesus in their marriage:

the love of a heart that is broken, yet forgives,

a heart that knows our failings but is always open to us,

a heart that is a place of refuge and of healing.

I pray that all of us would come to know 

the love that flows from that heart

and would share it in turn with all those whom we meet.

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16
Today is designated by the Catholic Church in the United States
as “Respect Life Sunday.”
The phrase “respect for life” is not simply a code word
for the issue of abortion.
Catholic teaching on respect for life extends to issues
of poverty, healthcare, war, the death penalty,
the environment, the disabled and so forth.
As Eileen Egan put it, “The protection of life is a seamless garment.
You can’t protect some lives and not others.”
I would like to think that part of the strength
of our tradition of Catholic Social Teaching
is precisely the breadth of vision that is involved
when we speak of respect for life.
But I also think it is worth focusing at times
on respect for human life at its earliest stages of development
not least because many Catholics
feel confused and conflicted over how to think about this issue,
feeling as if they are being presented by our culture
with the demand that we choose between concern for the unborn
and concern for women.
Catholic teaching about respect for life says that this is a false choice.
But the only way that we will begin to see
another way of framing the issue
is if we begin with what, for Christians,
is the most fundamental question:
What does Jesus Christ require of us?

In today’s Gospel, we hear that Jesus
welcomed the children who were brought to him;
he blessed them, and told his disciples that
“the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,”
going on to say that “whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it.”
Jesus seems to be saying that those who inherit the kingdom of God
are those who, like children, are without power, without strength,
and who must rely entirely on others — who must rely entirely on God.
Those who are weak and vulnerable
have a privileged place within our community
because they are living signs of who we must become
if we wish to enter God’s reign.
As Catholics, our concern for the unborn
does not grow from a right to life that they possess,
but from the fact that we cannot be the people whom God calls us to be
unless we protect and foster the lives of those
who are least able to care for themselves,
unless we see the unique beauty and value
that grows from that vulnerability,
unless we extend to the most vulnerable
the same welcome that Jesus himself did.
To be who we are called to be as members of Christ’s body,
we must care for the unborn.

This is something distinct from the legal and political controversy
surrounding the issue of abortion.
In our Gospel reading today Jesus treats the question
put to him by the Pharisees
about the Jewish laws concerning marriage and divorce
as rather beside the point
when thinking about how his followers should approach these matters.
Jesus says that Moses gave them that law,
“because of the hardness of your hearts” —
to establish a minimum standard of semi-justice —
not as the standard by which we measure Christian discipleship.
If this is true of the Law given by God through Moses,
how much more true it is of our human laws.
Any legal structure will be at best
a distant approximation of the justice that God desires.
This does not mean that our laws are unimportant;
indeed, with regard to the issue of abortion,
I think every Catholic should desire
that our nation’s laws would foster and protect the lives of the unborn.
But, unlike some, I also think
that the exact nature of those laws,
and how they would relate to other goods
that need fostering and protection,
and how distantly or closely
they might approximate true justice,
are matters over which it is possible for Catholics to differ in good faith.
I have my own ideas about these matters,
and I am sure that many of you do as well,
and it might be interesting to discuss these sometime,
preferably over a drink, or maybe three.
But the political question, important as it is,
cannot be for us the first question.
The first question is not one of legislation
or court decisions
or executive orders;
it is the question, “what should we as the Church of Jesus Christ
do to help create a world
in which every child is welcomed
and cared for from the moment of conception,
and recognized as one of the ‘little ones’
whom Christ himself welcomes?”

In asking this question, we see that our concern for these children
is inseparable from a concern for the mothers of these children.
This is part of the reason why in Catholic teaching
the respect for life is a seamless garment:
we can’t separate the issue of abortion
from the fight against poverty or the fight for the dignity of women.
Our concern for the unborn must extend to the material needs
of women who are pregnant in difficult circumstances —
and this is an area in which individual Catholics
as well as numerous Catholic social service agencies
have an admirable record,
though there is of course always more that can be done.

But our concern must extend beyond material needs.
We have a gospel — good news — to share,
what Pope John Paul II called “The Gospel of Life.”
And part of the message of this gospel
is that even when it appears that there is no way forward,
when we can see no good choices,
when we seem trapped by circumstances,
we can have faith that God can make a way forward,
and, with the help of God’s grace and God’s people,
God can strengthen us to choose life.
People often see the abortion issue in terms of tragic choices,
and I would never want to underestimate the moral struggle
of women who find themselves pregnant in difficult circumstances,
or to suggest that choosing life
does not often require women to live lives of heroic virtue.
Choosing life might mean raising a child
when you are young or single or poor.
Choosing life might mean caring for a disabled child
long past his or her childhood, on into adulthood.
Choosing life might mean living with the life-long sense of loss
experienced by many women who surrender their children for adoption.
These are heroic choices.
But the Gospel tells us that God’s grace makes such heroism possible,
if we can receive that grace with the trust of a child
and if God’s Church is ready to be the kind of community
that will itself go to heroic lengths
to be a place where such heroic choices can be lived out.
The Gospel also tells us that when we fail to live heroically,
there is mercy and forgiveness to be found in God’s Church.

For Christians, there are no tragic dead ends,
because the world’s story is ultimately not a tragedy,
that ends with the bodies of the dead
strewn across the stage of history
and nothing left to do but the work of mourning.
Rather, for Christians the world’s story ends
with the marriage of heaven and earth
and the wedding feast of the lamb.
This is the vision that we have to offer to the world:
a vision that sees the beauty in vulnerability,
a vision that we possess only to the degree
that we actually put it into practice.
This is the vision that must sustain our hope
that our respect for life
can weave together concern for the unborn
and concern for women,
together with concern for the poor, the elderly,
the disabled and the imprisoned,
into a seamless garment in which we,
as Christ’s body,
can be clothed
as we bear witness
to the Gospel of Life in our world.