Gn.2: 18-24; Ps. 128; 1-2, 3, 4-5,6; Heb. 2: 9-11; Mk. 10: 2-16
Tradition today is talked about as old school. Progressiveness is considered modernity. Tradition represented commitment to God, family, work and community. Progressiveness today is acceptability and tolerance meaning for some anything goes.
Today in the readings we celebrate the sacred door of matrimony. We also see “bringing many children to glory” through him and to him. In an age when over 50% of marriages end in divorce, the institution of the family is being broken and the most affected “are the little ones”. United States divorces rank 10th in the world at 53% and from #9 France at 55% to #1 Belgium at 71%” with the highest rate (www.trendrr.net/8004/countries-with-highest-divorce-rates) you see a rise in secularism and liberalism. Belgium is considered the “European symbol of Modernity” *. The symbol of the most modern society is also a symbol of least stability for matrimony. In the U.S. every 1 in 6 seconds a divorce happens*, so if you have weathered that storm you are not alone. The more countries progress away from religious and cultural heritage towards “acceptability and tolerance” the less tolerant to commitment and acceptable lifelong marriage becomes. What was the norm is now abnormal. Say you have been married over 25 years to the same person and you are considered an anomaly.
“When attendance at church drops divorce rates rise. Spain has a law entitled ‘Divorcio director’ requiring a couple to be married for at least three months to assert for the divorce”*. How quickly the honeymoon is over that you have to endure 3 month before submitting for a divorce. Here perhaps sheds some insight to the rise in divorces and to some extent why annulments, meaning a valid marriage are declared never to have been so in the first place and are being facilitated by the church. These are what the church calls “impediments” to the capacity of making a lasting commitment and include seriously debilitating factors like drug and alcohol abuse, physical and sexual abuse, parental divorce, serial marriage, and other mental and emotional factors. Notice that the capacity of making a lasting commitment includes beside the individual and their relationship conditions also the history of parental divorce. Divorce impacts the children’s ability to grow in commitment to a lasting relationship. God’s plan was to bring his children to glory and it begins with the commitment in their parent’s marriage.
There is also St. Augustine’s famous line, “I was not in love as yet, yet I loved to love.” Love is a hunger of humanity, a need for someone who “at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” but is this the “one” woman or woooo-man, take your time don’t rush until the love for love puts some flesh on those bones. God is one and he joins man and woman to be one as the Lord of marriage. That flesh is a deeper understanding into the mind and heart of a person. A person recently shared with me how she fell in love with how her future husband was always dressed neatly with clothes pressed. Now married she discovers he likes to bathe 2 or 3 times a day and each time changes into clean pressed clothes. He somehow never finds the dirty clothes hamper and continues to dress real sharp but who gets the job of laundering? It’s not his mom anymore.
I suspect in general most young couples getting married have always lacked some maturity which impacts a commitment but after years when someone is still wondering when the other is going to “grow up” there may be some serious debilitating factors in a person’s commitment. What helps develop maturity is parenting a child to have lived experiences of commitment. You cannot give what you have not learned to live. Commitment starts young in life with responsibilities for completing chores, caring for a pet, turning in school assignments on time, contributing to the work at home, and keeping promises. A common mistake, “We want them to focus on their education”. Translation is they come home and have no responsibility to the family, the home, the church, or even the community. They can do it all when they are young. The get bored easily so you give them an IPad or a phone to entertain themselves. The underlying message, “it’s all about themselves” until they enter into that other world of a shared responsibility with and to someone else. For some it is jumping in the water without knowing how to swim or a life jacket and quickly deciding they want out.
One of the fastest growing businesses today is drive thru restaurants that have easy, cheap, and quick meals. Does anybody care to cook tonight? That is part of the early struggles of marriage that teaches us humility when we burn the beans but ooh so good a lesson we didn’t burn the house down…making progress. You cannot give what was not expected of you growing up. It is an impediment to the readiness of marriage. Commitment starts at home and develops in maturity with lived experiences of commitment, not only to education but many small and large responsibilities. Why do divorce rates drop when attendance to church increases? It is a commitment to growing our faith and fellowship, love of God and love of neighbor. Faith as in living a prayer life, studying scripture, reflecting on moral issues of the world and discussing what the church says to guide our faith. Fellowship is lived at home with family activities and extending that fellowship by coming to church and giving of oneself as a volunteer to the church and community.
The new tradition of acceptability and tolerance seems to grow in less acceptability and tolerance because we all want to be accepted and tolerated but we are not as willing to accept and tolerate even those who we say we love. Tradition of the past was commitment to a lasting marriage and we need to renew that tradition in our culture before we will see the beauty of lasting fidelity. Last weekend I had the fun and honor of celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary. I asked the congregation who had seen the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”. Surprisingly only about 5 hands came up. I did a monologue of one of the scenes from the musical reminding us of that lasting fidelity to marriage. I find it appropriate to close with it for you. In the scene Tyve, the husband has just given approval to a young man to be engaged to his daughter without talking it over with his wife, Golde. Big mistake! In marriage the saying “two heads are better than one” is not optional it is part of the requirement.
*(www.trendrr.net/8004/countries-with-highest-divorce-rates)
“Fiddler on the Roof” Musical from YouTube “Golde do you love me?”
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