Genesis 2:18-24, Hebrews 2:9-11, Psalm 128:1-6, Mark 10:2-16

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS:

Genesis 2:18-24, Hebrews 2:9-11, Psalm 128:1-6, Mark 10:2-16

Genesis 2:18-24

Loving God, when You created man, love alone prompted You to do so.  You created the entire universe before You created man so that all was in readiness for him. You created him with an intellect, with a capacity to love, to feel, to look at all You created with wonder and awe, because it was beautiful and You entrusted it to him to enjoy and feast on.  Yet he was incomplete he needed someone with whom he could share all that beauty and abundance.  You created the human heart for love and to love.  So recognizing his need for another, You put him into a deep sleep and taking a rib from his side You created another like and yet so unlike him.  Together they would complement and complete each other  making one perfect whole.  In this union there would be a continual cycle of love pouring out from one to the other.

When men and women recognize the purpose for which they were created, when one finds a soul mate in the other, when one takes the other as his and her own, when they make covenant promises to each other with their Creator standing by as a witness, then God, the all good marvelous awesome God permits His creatures to become co-creator’s with Him in bringing another like them into the world.  The fruit of love, the fruit of life which serves to draw from them, as well as cultivate in them virtues which will serve to help them make their home a heaven, where each lives to love God and love and serve each other. 

Marriage between one man and one woman for life is not undertaken lightly and for flimsy and selfish reasons.  It is a lifelong commitment to love, honor and cherish all the days of our lives, to be fruitful and accept children as God’s most beautiful gift.  Children are a sacred trust and we will be called to give an account of our stewardship.

 

Hebrews 2:9-11

“for a little while” God the Son who was eternally with the Father, in perfect obedience became little less than the angels for our sake.  That God loves us so much that He did this for us renders us speechless.  Of course men and women have tried through the course of time, to express this stupendous act of love, but words will always fail to grasp the breadth, the height, the length and the depth of His love.

God entered into the human experience in order that He could fully identify with us and that we might know that we are never alone no matter what we have to endure in life whether it be joy, sorrow, the loss of a loved one, suffering, enduring the treachery of men.  He knows it all, He understands it all and just the knowledge that He is no stranger to all that being human involves brings us consolation and comfort.  He has become the means through which we are saved.  Through His merits, through the infinite grace He won for us our journey on earth becomes an exciting one as we live, move and have our being in Him since we are grafted into His Body.  He feeds us, forgives us, saves us, refreshes us, loves us, carries us, shelters us, enfolds us, wipes away our tears.  He gives us His own Holy Spirit and has taught us to call God Father.  He gave us His mother, He shares His inheritance with us and He makes us His brothers and sisters for we become sons and daughters of God Himself when we are baptized into His death and we rise again with Him in the glory of His Resurrection.

 

Psalm 128:1-6

Verses 1-4

1 Blessed are you who fear the Lord

and walk in his ways.

2 You will eat the fruit of your toil;

you will be blessed and favored.

3 Your wife, like a vine,

will bear fruits in your home;

your children, like olive shoots

will stand around your table.

4 Such are the blessings bestowed

upon the man who fears the Lord.

God’s purpose for creating us is to live in union and communion with Him and with one another. He invites us into a relationship of love with Him and with each other and He blesses our love and makes it fruitful.

Mark 10:2-16

My Beloved, God created man and woman equal but different.  We are meant to celebrate our differences for they complement, complete and and make whole, so we are no longer two but one.

Because of original sin we are unable to grasp the full extent of what it means to be bound one to the other in a covenant relationship.  If we are not sacramentally united in matrimony, we will be unable to keep the nuptial union alive through the years, in sickness and health, through all the vicissitudes of live as our union is devoid of grace.  In time we become restless, unsatisfied, we nit pick, we become egoistic, selfish, we bully, we nag, we are cruel and unforgiving and we prey on the other’s weaknesses looking for flaws and excuses to dissolve the marriage. Instead of building up we tear down we allow the culture and the media to shape our values and thus we arrive at the sorry mess we see prevalent in the world today.

Verses 6 - 8 

 . 6 But in the beginning of creation God made them male and female, 7 and because of this, man has to leave father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one body. So they are no longer two but one body. 9 Therefore let no one separate what God has joined.”

These verses remind us of God’s intent when He created us.  His purpose, His plan, may we rediscover it again before it is too late.