Friday, May 20, 2016 7th Week in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Jas 5: 9-12 Gospel: Mk 10:1–12
Jesus went to the province of Judea, beyond the Jordan River. Once more crowds gathered around him and once more he taught them, as he always did. Some (Pharisees came and) put him to the test with this question, “Is it right for a husband to divorce his wife?” He replied, “What law did Moses give you?” They answered, “Moses allowed us to write a certificate of dismissal in order to divorce.”Then Jesus said to them, “Moses wrote this law for you, because you are stubborn. But in the beginning of creation God made them male and female, and because of this, man has to leave father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one body. So they are no longer two but one body. Therefore let no one separate what God has joined.”
When they were indoors at home, the disciples again asked him about this and he told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against his wife, and the woman who divorces her husband and marries another also commits adultery.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
The Pharisees tried to impeach Jesus’ stand against divorce by citing a provision from the Mosaic Law that appeared to allow it. But Jesus said, “In the beginning of creation God made them male and female, and because of this, man has to leave father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one body. So they are no longer two but one body. Therefore let no one separate what God has joined” (see Genesis 1:27; 2:24). Was Jesus saying that Moses was wrong in allowing divorce?
Moses did not allow divorce at all. The Mosaic Law that the Pharisees cited is procedural. It provides that “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him (…), and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled” (Deut. 24:1-4). Moses merely provided the procedure in case people should pursue divorce. The procedure prohibited the first husband from remarrying the wife he had earlier divorced.
The procedure must have created confusions as to the morality of divorce. Jesus settled the confusion by reiterating the inviolability of marriage. In effect Jesus revoked what Moses might have, in effect, conceded to.– (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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