[ Today's Readings ]
God wants to create relationships for us that are stronger than the circumstances in which we find ourselves. He wants to help us to find faithful friends because they are a sturdy shelter and a treasure beyond price. He wants marriages to be so immune to circumstances that divorce is out of the question. He desires a union so complete that it cannot be broken. God has the power to give us relationships like this if we turn to him.
A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy,
such as he who fears God finds;
For he who fears God behaves accordingly,
and his friend will be like himself.
We need to be attentive to the laws God gives us. They are designed to promote human flourishing. They are not simply arbitrary or oppressive. Rather, they describe the conditions under which we can thrive and relationships can reach their full potential
Lead me in the path of your commands,
for in it I delight.
Laws are given that we may live in harmony with the divine order that is built in to the universe. That is why it is important to look at them not only in relation how they have been applied or disputed recently but to look back to see why they were made in the first. place.
Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
Looking at marriage only as it exists in these past few decades might lead us to believe it is a merely human institution with no greater purpose. It might seem like something malleable which we can shape into whatever is convenient for us as a society. God reminds us that he has a better plan for marriage and for friendship than any ideas we can come up with. We do tend to reduce all such institutions for contracts we can use to promote our own self interest. They become things that isolate rather than unite.
From the beginning it was not so. And by God's grace it need not be so for us.
Therefore what God has joined together,
no human being must separate.
No comments:
Post a Comment