Fr. Marsel Taruk
"THIS ONE, AT LAST, IS BONE OF MY BONES AND FLESH OF MY FLESH"
The story of Creation is a lovely story. God, in the very first place, wanted to create a living being that could share in the Trinity’s inmost characteristic, called deep love. For all eternity the three persons in God had loved each other so intensely that they are one. Unfortunately, in the sequence of the world, God made small mistake. Yes. He created the male first. God however diminished this mistake by drawing a partner for the man. Instead of creating the partner out of the earth, the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep and removed a rib from the him and fashioned it into a woman.
Significantly the two were made out of the same stuff. Thus, there was a great intimacy between the man and the woman, “Yes, this one at last, is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” The intimacy between man and woman became definite union (marriage) when “a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.
Such marriage is the subject of discussion in the Gospel when Jesus is given a test by the Pharisees, "Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?". The Pharisees seems to lead Jesus into a dilemma concerning about eternal love and life. He asks them in return, somehow aware of their stubbornness, about the judgment of Moses, who permitted divorce. Jesus, therefore, does not contradict the law of Moses. Rather, he brings to the foreground the will of God as manifested in the very beginning of creation. Jesus digs down to the well of our hearts’ desires and gives meaning the vision of the male /female relationship expressed in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24: the man and the woman are created in the differentiation of gender male and female, but called to unity in the complementarity, in the inseparable union that regards all their personal being. They are no longer two but one flesh.
Jesus reminded the Pharisees sternly of why God had made both man and woman, not just the one, not just the other. He wanted them to share intimate relationship like the Trinity. Therefore, “let no man separate what God has joined.” Jesus vison of marriage as a permanent covenant commitment comes not as a new structure but as an affirmation to a relationship built into the original blessing of creation.
Marriage is a mystery and a figure of a great reality. How is this a great mystery? Through marriage, the couple agree to come together and the two become one. They are converted into one body. Here is the mystery of love. If the two did not become one, they would not reproduce many, as long as they remained two, they will never produce any. In fact, the woman and the man are not two beings but only one.
Looking at our situation nowadays, marriage life seems losing its value, its sacredness, his beauty. How many young people are afraid to commit themselves in the holy matrimony? How many couples end their marriage with separation, divorce. More, how then can we still listen and welcome the word of God that speaks of the unity between man and woman and the inseparability of the marriage bond when in our time the fidelity and indissolubility of the couple seem remaining as an ideal and, even more, they are considered a cultural value of the past?
The word of God, in its entirety, is always alive and efficacious, it is a word for this moment, it is for us. The concrete toil that men and women experience in living their union in a stable, constructive, fruitful way, is illuminated and sustained by the word of God.
"THIS ONE, AT LAST, IS BONE OF MY BONES AND FLESH OF MY FLESH"
The story of Creation is a lovely story. God, in the very first place, wanted to create a living being that could share in the Trinity’s inmost characteristic, called deep love. For all eternity the three persons in God had loved each other so intensely that they are one. Unfortunately, in the sequence of the world, God made small mistake. Yes. He created the male first. God however diminished this mistake by drawing a partner for the man. Instead of creating the partner out of the earth, the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep and removed a rib from the him and fashioned it into a woman.
Significantly the two were made out of the same stuff. Thus, there was a great intimacy between the man and the woman, “Yes, this one at last, is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” The intimacy between man and woman became definite union (marriage) when “a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.
Such marriage is the subject of discussion in the Gospel when Jesus is given a test by the Pharisees, "Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?". The Pharisees seems to lead Jesus into a dilemma concerning about eternal love and life. He asks them in return, somehow aware of their stubbornness, about the judgment of Moses, who permitted divorce. Jesus, therefore, does not contradict the law of Moses. Rather, he brings to the foreground the will of God as manifested in the very beginning of creation. Jesus digs down to the well of our hearts’ desires and gives meaning the vision of the male /female relationship expressed in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24: the man and the woman are created in the differentiation of gender male and female, but called to unity in the complementarity, in the inseparable union that regards all their personal being. They are no longer two but one flesh.
Jesus reminded the Pharisees sternly of why God had made both man and woman, not just the one, not just the other. He wanted them to share intimate relationship like the Trinity. Therefore, “let no man separate what God has joined.” Jesus vison of marriage as a permanent covenant commitment comes not as a new structure but as an affirmation to a relationship built into the original blessing of creation.
Marriage is a mystery and a figure of a great reality. How is this a great mystery? Through marriage, the couple agree to come together and the two become one. They are converted into one body. Here is the mystery of love. If the two did not become one, they would not reproduce many, as long as they remained two, they will never produce any. In fact, the woman and the man are not two beings but only one.
Looking at our situation nowadays, marriage life seems losing its value, its sacredness, his beauty. How many young people are afraid to commit themselves in the holy matrimony? How many couples end their marriage with separation, divorce. More, how then can we still listen and welcome the word of God that speaks of the unity between man and woman and the inseparability of the marriage bond when in our time the fidelity and indissolubility of the couple seem remaining as an ideal and, even more, they are considered a cultural value of the past?
The word of God, in its entirety, is always alive and efficacious, it is a word for this moment, it is for us. The concrete toil that men and women experience in living their union in a stable, constructive, fruitful way, is illuminated and sustained by the word of God.