SOURCE: The Jesuit Post
2021 HOMILY – Understanding Jesus’ teachings on marriage and the kingdom of God requires a childlike faith and openness, especially when navigating difficult topics like divorce.
SOURCE: Archdiocese of Brisbane Homilies
2024 HOMILY – The Kingdom of God, as revealed by Jesus, is a divine gift of love that enriches marriage and family life, encouraging us to embrace it with childlike faith and seek God’s strength in overcoming challenges.
SOURCE: Fr. Peter Hahn Archive of Homilies
2015 HOMILY – The sanctity of marriage and the blessing of children are essential foundations for love and family, which must be upheld amidst cultural challenges and societal pressures that undermine human life and divine law.
SOURCE: Fr. Kevin’s Homilies
2021 HOMILY – Uลพupis, a whimsical self-declared republic in Vilnius, embodies a celebration of individuality, freedom, and creativity through its unique constitution and vibrant artistic community, contrasting with traditional norms and historical repression.
Bishop Robert Barron
SOURCE: Word on Fire
VIEWING GUIDE w/ Questions
2021 SERMON – Friends, our readings this weekend have to do with biblical anthropologyโor who we are in the presence of Godโand the Christian understanding of marriage. A basic intuition of the Bible is that we begin not with the individual, but with community. And marriage is the most beautiful and intense form of this friendship God desires for us.
SOURCE: Word on Fire
VIEWING GUIDE w/ Questions
2024 SERMON – Friends, the first reading from Genesis and the Gospel from Mark this week are of great importance. They have to do with what we call Christian anthropologyโthe biblical understanding of who we areโand most specifically, in relation to marriage and family. This question of how we define ourselves is of course on the minds of many people today, and the readings, in a beautifully compact way, bring out the Christian answer.
Deacon Peter McCulloch
On the Language of Love
Gen.2:18-24; Heb.2:9-11; Mk.10:2-16
2021 EXCERPT: Over the years Iโve sometimes been surprised to see couples who love each other break up, and Iโve wondered why. In his book The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman provides one good answer. He says there are five main ways to express our love for someone, and he calls these โlove languagesโ. Everyone enjoys them all to some degree, but each of us has a primary love language, a preferred way in which we tend to give and receive love.
From Ordinary to Extraordinary
Gen.2:18-24; Heb.2:9-11; Mk.10:2-16
2024 EXCERPT: โItโs not good for a person to be alone,โ the Bible tells us, and the reason is clear: we were all made for love.
We know this is true because weโve all been made in Godโs image and likeness (Gen.1:26-27), and God is love itself (1Jn.4:16). Indeed, God in his Trinity is never alone.
Love and relationships, therefore, are at the very heart of our human identity, and our deepest purpose is to love and to be loved in return.
The story doesnโt end there, however, because in todayโs Gospel Mark reminds us that God also created us male and female, and He established marriage as the sacred bond within which a man and a woman are to express their deepest love.
Fr. Andrew Ricci
Faith and Family
2021 PODCAST: The readings this week point out different aspects of the blessings and burdens in family life. The good news? God is in the midst of our families! May we draw strength from our faith to cherish and support the people in our family today
Fr. Austin Fleming
The Irony of a Celibate Preaching About Marriage and Divorce
2018 EXCERPT: I assure you that the irony of a celibate individual preaching about marriage and divorce is not lost on me. Also not lost on me is the humbling reality that I stand here, preaching about marriage and how it binds those who enter it on behalf of an institution (the Church) that has used texts like this (and ecclesiastical laws derived from these texts) to hold married people accountable to incredibly high and demanding standards — while many leaders of that same institution excused themselves from faithfulness and accountability to the high and demanding standards of their own calling in life. Still, the Word of God needs to be heard and needs to be preached and needs to be lived.
Dominican Blackfriars
2021 EXCERPT: The account of the sixth day of creation ends with the words โGod saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very goodโ (Genesis, 1:31). So itโs puzzling to hear early on in the creation account in Genesis 2 that there is something โnot goodโ about this created order. But this should not make us think that there is some kind of lack, problem, or defect to the creation. In the first instance this โnot goodโ speaks of Adamโs loneliness, what St John Paul II called manโs original solitude, which finds its answer in the creation of the woman Eve. It is only with the creation of Eve that man can at last sigh in recognition of the one with whom he shares flesh and bone.
Fr. Charles E. Irvin
โIโ needs a โYouโ
EXCERPT: โIโ need a โyouโ for me to love. We all need an other for the purposes of sharing our selves. We need an other whom we can know and who can know us. We need to speak and understand, to communicate. But we need more โ we need an other to whom we can give our selves in love. No animal, no other living creature can fulfill that need, a need that is so deeply a part of our inner nature.
We need to note that man did not cause God to create woman. No, it was the God of love who made woman so that the man and the woman would be awakened to what kind of a god God truly is โ the God of Love. God created the woman not from the clay of the earth but from the manโs very own nature. Adam was awakened and cried out: โThis at last is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh.โ And the two together made a world. Thatโs still true. Two together, man and woman, still make a world today.
Fr. Leon Ngandu, SVD
Fr. Leon Ngandu, SVD
Oneness and Indissolubility in the Sacrament of Marriage
EXCERPT: Todayโs Scripture readings deal with Oneness and Indissolubility in the sacrament of Marriage. The Gospel and first readings say that God created a man and a woman not to be two but one flesh, and no human being must separate what God has joined together. Love, like that of Jesus described in our second reading, makes this indissolubility and oneness possible.
The context of our Gospel comes from a serious debate among the Pharisees concerning the reasons that justified divorce. Some schools (like the school of Shammai) were very restrictive and allowed divorce only for some grave reasons. While other schools (like the school of Hillel) permitted divorce for any reason whatsoever. In our Gospel text, the Pharisees approached Jesus with this topic, testing him to see which point of view he would support. This Gospel story comes immediately after Jesus’ strong teachings about the Temptation to Sin and the Simile of Salt. (9:42-50). It is followed by the story of the Rich Man who questioned Jesus to find out what he could do to inherit eternal life (10:17-31).
Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS
2021 EXCERPT: Youโre gonna love this. After two powerful scripture readings about the importance of marriage, the Church asks a single guy with two cats to unfold and unwrap the power and significance of the one of the Churchโs sacred sacrament. (The Catholic Church is the only church that holds marriage to a sacramental level assuring that it can never be dissolved.) But thatโs the sacramental position. Practically, itโs all about relationships, investments, forgiveness โ both to yourself and another; complete with compromise, bipartisanship, always looking and seeking for a greater good beyond yourselves.
Fr. George Smiga
The Witness of Marriage
2012 EXCERPT: A wedding is different than a marriage. A wedding is an intense celebration that takes months to plan. A marriage is a commitment of faithfulness that takes years to fulfill. A wedding is about the music, the dress, the gifts, the parties. A marriage is about compromise, forgiveness, listening, and remembering your anniversary. A wedding is a challenge but one that most people can pull off. A marriage is the difficult work of a lifetime.
This is why Jesusโ words are so important. He tells his disciples that from the beginning of creation God had a plan and a purpose for marriage. That purpose was not simply for the mutual love of a man and woman. It was not simply to create a home where children could thrive. Marriage was meant to be a witness, a witness to others.
Fr. Anthony Ekpunobi, C.M.
One Plus One is One
2021 EXCERPT: Todayโs gospel is emphasising the reality of Christian marriage. Christian marriage is between a man and a woman. Jesus said; โThis is why a man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body. They are no longer two, therefore, but one bodyโ. By becoming one they become inseparable. Basic arithmetic shows that one plus one is two. But in this case Jesus insists that one plus one is one. What is the meaning of no longer two but one body?
Msgr. Joseph Pellegrino
For You, the Married
2024 EXCERPT: Those of you who are in a Catholic marriage, ask yourselves, โWhy did we make this decision?โ Most probably you were married in the Church because you realized that marriage was the most important decision of your lives. And you wanted Jesus to be present in the way of a sacrament not just at your wedding, but as you celebrate your marriage throughout your lives. The sacrament of marriage is not just a prayer during the wedding, it is not just a blessing of a union, it is far more than this. The
sacrament of matrimony is the union of God with people establishing a new unit of his Church. The sacrament of matrimony establishes the Christian home with Christ at the center. That is why you were married in the Church.
Msgr. Charles Pope
Marriage Is a Miracle!
2021 EXCERPT: Both todayโs first reading and the Gospel speak to us of the miracle of marriage. If your marriage is working even reasonably well, it is a miracle! We live in an age that is poisonous to marriage. Many people look for marriage to be ideal, and if there is any ordeal, they want a new deal. Our culture says, if it doesnโt work out, bail out. Marriages are also a miracle because they are, ultimately, a work of God.
Todayโs readings bring before us some fundamental teachings on marriage. Letโs look at todayโs Gospel in five stages.
I. Rejection
II. Restoration
III. Reality
IV. Reemphasis
V. Reassurance
Bishop John Louis
2021 EXCERPT: Todayโs first and gospel readings are usually heard at weddings. Though we are not at a wedding today, the message of the Lord may be for some of you a pre-marital counseling and for others, a post-wedding counseling. For this homily, I wish to reflect on the following statement of our Lord Jesus Christ: โWhat God has joined together, no one must separate.โ
Fr. Michael Chua
2018 EXCERPT: the Church is not just being preachy and unreasonable when she tells you how serious she is about marriage. So serious that so many within the Church were willing and are willing to stake their lives on it. We do not only have the testimony of words but also the testimony of martyrs. They were willing to die not just for an idea or to defend an institution. They were willing to go to their deaths precisely because they were dying for the gospel, for Christ Himself.
There is no better place to witness this than in England. What caused the Church in England to break away from the Catholic Church to form the Church of England was this very issue of divorce and remarriage. All the countryโs bishops, with the exception of Bishop John Fisher of Rochester, supported Henry VIIIโs attempt to undo his first โ and legitimate โ marriage. Like Fisher, St Thomas More a layman and the kingโs chancellor, also withheld his support. Both were martyred for defending the institution of marriage.
In a world that thrives on impermanence, where relationships are often abandoned and exchanged for new substitutes, just like the way we deal with our electronic gadgets and devices, we need to ask this question: Did Thomas More and John Fisher sacrifice their lives in vain? Were they mistaken? Could they be accused of being overly rigid in their interpretation of the law and sadly un-pastoral?
2021 EXCERPT: odayโs gospel proclaims three eternal truths which do not sit well with modern sensibilities. In fact, they may even seem archaic, regressive and inhumane. But the fact that it is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself who speaks it, assures us of their revelatory and eternally relevant character. So rather than suppress or sanitise these truths for fear that they may offend someone or another, it is good to remember this saying which has been commonly but falsely, attributed to St Augustine: โtruth is like a lion. You donโt have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.โ
These three simple truths are as follows:
- God made humanity male and female.
- God intended marriage to be a permanent commitment for life.
- God is the author of life and He is unapologetically pro-life.
Fr. Vincent Hawkswell
2024 EXCERPT: Everyone knows that the Roman Catholic Church forbids divorce. Actually, the Church does not say divorce is forbidden, but that it is impossible.
Quoting Genesis, Jesus says that from the beginning, marriage makes a man and a woman one flesh, no more separable than the parts of a body. By his presence at the wedding in Cana, Jesus gave marriage the dignity of a sacrament and confirmed its goodness and proclaimed it would henceforth be a sign of his presence.
Matrimony is the sacrament by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life which is directed by its nature toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Fr. Denis J. Hanly
Fr. Tommy Lane
What God Has Joined Together Man Must Not Divide
EXCERPT: Notice that he said marriage is a path towards sanctification. Marriage is a way to achieve holiness. When we consider some of the advice the Bible gives us about living the Christian life, we can understand how marriage can indeed be a path to sanctification. Jesus said that to follow him we must be servants, and marriage is a life of service to oneโs spouse and children. St. Paul said there are three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. Marriage is a commitment to love oneโs spouse until death. No wonder that Pope Paul VI said marriage is a long path towards sanctification.
Fr. John Kavanaugh, S.J.
The Two Shall Become as One
EXCERPT: An annulment process is an attempt to determine whether two people were, as a matter of fact, free and able to choose irrevocably in God to become โone flesh.โ
A divorce may mean many other things: that two who actually made an eternal covenant slowly grew apart, that they had irreconcilable differences, that one person could no longer abide another, or that they somehow never adequately and wholly chose to become irrevocably one. An annulment says only the last.
Bishop Frank Schuster
Jesus and His Definition of Marriage
2021 EXCERPT: This is a dreaded weekend for a lot of preachers in our culture because the definition of
marriage is loaded with a lot of emotion in our day and age. However, every so often, it is good to underscore how important the institution of marriage is for Jesus. Consider that his first miraculous sign in the Gospel of John was at a wedding, in Cana, at the request of his mother no less. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus frequently refers to himself as the bridegroom and the new Israel, the Church, as his bride. Jesus refers to heaven as a marriage banquet on a number of occasions. In todayโs Gospel, Jesus reverses the Law of Moses, elevating the institution of marriage to a higher solemnity than was ever present before in a very counter cultural way. My perspective is, if we worship the Son of God, if we call ourselves disciples of Jesus, we should
then listen to what he has to say about the nature of marriage, even if what Jesus has to say is counter cultural, even if this means we must struggle with what he says sometimes. As we see in the Gospel reading, both the Pharisees and the disciples themselves struggle with what Jesus has to say about marriage.
Marriage is a Partnership between Two People, not between a Master and Servant
2021 EXCERPT: On a serious subject like marriage, and a tragic one like divorce, you cannot be simplistic or judgmental. Divorce is everywhere, claiming almost half the marriages in our time. There are people who look back on their divorce and rejoice in their freedom and release from unbearable situations, but ask anyone who has gone through a divorce and invariably they will describe trauma, heartache and pain.
The Jewish law at the time of Jesus was taken from Deuteronomy. There, it is laid down that a man can divorce his wife if he finds in her some indecency. There were two schools of thought regarding what that meant: one held this meant adultery and nothing else; the other school stretched indecency to include such things as a womanโs voice, bad cooking, or practically anything that the man did not like. This was the more accepted view. A man could divorce a woman almost at whim by just saying three times, I divorce you. However, it was almost impossible for a woman to divorce a man.
Jesus is saying that women can no longer be treated in this way. He is making the affirmation that women are not property, but persons. Jesusโ teaching on divorce was revolutionary in its attitude towards women. According to the law, not only could a man divorce his wife, but his infidelity was never a sin against her, adultery was always a sin of injustice against a man by his wife.
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