MALE AND FEMALE HE MADE THEM

MALE AND FEMALE HE MADE THEM

The world will hardly notice but for Catholics the gathering in Rome starting on Sunday, October 4^th, is long awaited. We have had meetings on marriage and family before but their outcomes were largely predictable. This time Pope Francis wants an unmanaged meeting where he calls the bishops to take the initiative and come forward with answers to pressing issues in marriage and family life.

And it so happens that the readings for this Sunday are on marriage and the family. In Genesis we have the myth of the creation of the woman from Adam’s rib and in Mark the words of Jesus, “from the beginning of creation God made them male and female.”

The world will hardly notice because it has long ago decided that it does not need the Church to tell it about marriage and relationships between people. It has decided that these things are matters of justice and equality and are inherent in our understanding of human rights. There is no need to listen to “medieval” institutions like the Church or any other religious community, such as Islam, on these matters. Ireland has been a Catholic country for centuries but today her people listen to the voice of human rights – not the Church – in deciding about same sex marriages.

So what is there behind the expectation of Catholics in looking to Rome this October? Catholics, and all Christians though in different ways, see something more to marriage and family than a contract based on human rights. Such a contract is a just foundation and it has brought great advances in recognition of the rights of women and children.

But while the Church embraces these rights, she looks beyond them to the transcendent meaning of marriage. That t word might sound obscurantist to our contemporaries who do not believe the Church has a role in interpreting the will of God. They might not even believe in God. Yet the meeting in Rome is based on the premise that marriage and the family is something more than what strikes the eye.

The Church holds that marriage is a mirror of the relationship (covenant) between God and his people. The mutual love of man, woman and children, manifest, for those whose eyes see, the mutual relationship of love in the Trinity. And there is another trinity in that God is the third party in the marriage bond. There is a solemnity surrounding the act of two people expressing their marriage vows which goes far beyond the foundational human contract recognised in civil law.

It is because there is this sacred dimension to marriage and the family that Catholics struggle so much with deciding norms for marriage, divorce and issues connected with marriage failures. In the past the church tended to be “cut and dried” about it all. It was easier that way! Today, led by Francis, we are finding our way towards a more compassionate approach while at the same time holding to the ideal of marriage that has been there since the time of Jesus. The next few weeks will tell how successful we are in doing this.

4 October 2015                                   Sunday 27 B

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