24 May 2024 - Only By Grace Reflections
#OnlyByGraceReflections #CFC #CouplesforChrist
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TOPIC: WHAT DRIVES MANY TO INFIDELITY?
First Reading: Acts 25: 13b-21
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 103: 1-2, 11-12, 19-20ab
Alleluia: John 14: 26
Gospel: John 21: 15-19
In today’s Gospel reading, we find the religious leaders again testing Jesus. They were filled with jealousy and envy, fearing that the Jews were turning away from their authority, and noting that Jesus’ popularity was rising.
By quoting the Torah and citing Moses, they believed they had cornered Jesus. Will Jesus, a Jew, go against the Torah? Jesus throws the Torah right back at them and asks, “What did Moses command you”? The key word here is command. The Pharisees replied that Moses permitted a man to give a bill of divorce to his wife, and therefore to them, no commandment or law is seen here.
Jesus reminds them that Moses permitted a bill of divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. Husbands were abandoning their wives and children leaving them to fend on their own without any legal support, and worse, even murdering their wives to get rid of them. “But from the beginning, God made them male and female, one flesh joined together by God never to be separated by man”.
Jesus does not play the games the Pharisees wanted to play. Jesus wants us to see the beautiful, true nature of marriage and the hardness of hearts that leads to divorce. Marriage is a covenant, or a sacred pledge of loyalty with God as witness, between a man and woman, sacrificing for the good of each other. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1643), there are three elements of marriage - unity, fidelity, and openness to children. Marriage is to be a reflection of God’s relationship with us. Divorce, therefore is inconceivable and not part of our vocabulary
This is the
