FOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH

PRAYER MOMENT                      

Saturday 25 October 2014

FOR LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH

                     

Pause. Be still in God’s presence.

Reading: “Set me like a seal on your heart, like seal on your arm. For love is strong as death, passion as relentless as Sheol. The flash of it is a flash of fire, a flame of Yahweh himself.” (Song of Songs 8:6-7)

Reflection. We have a wedding today in our parish. Marriage has been there since the beginning but we can say, as with so much of our human story, it has gone through many stages. Desire and passion have always been there but marriage was not always a free contract that two people entered without pressure from society and family. Sometimes the emphasis has been on a traditional and social convention. Even today we have “arranged” marriages, which is not to say they are not often happy. But “love as strong as death” has not always been the mark of marriage. The marriage that fills us with awe is the one where husband and wife really live for one another and their children, “in season and out of season”, “in sickness and in health,” when things go well and when they do not go well. The passion that is “a flash of fire” is lived out daily in forgiveness and fidelity, graduating to a state beyond words and gestures to a deep union – something like our relationship with God.  

Prayer. Lord, help us and all married couples to live the fullness of our calling, manifesting the strength of your relationship with us. Amen..  

David Harold-Barry SJ