GOSPEL POWER l OCTOBER 3, 2021 l SUNDAY

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gospel: Mk 10:2-16 

2 Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for  a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses  command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a  certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5 But Jesus said to them,  “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for  you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and  female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and  be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they  are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined  together, let no one separate.” 10Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this  matter. 11He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries  another commits adultery against her; 12and if she divorces her  husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” 13People were bringing little children to him in order that he  might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14But  when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the  little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these  that the kingdom of God belongs. 15Truly I tell you, whoever does  not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”  16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and  blessed them. 

God is the God of unity. Our being created in the image  and likeness of God, who is One in three distinct  persons, implies that we are meant to reflect the divine  oneness in three by living united in diversity. Marriage, the union of  two different individuals, is the oldest God-ordained institution for  living and growing in unity-in-diversity. Jesus tells us that divorce is  a compromise resulting from the hardness of the human heart. But  it is a defiance of the Creator’s original intention from the beginning.  The price that has been paid, in terms of broken relationships and  wounded lives, is too great to estimate, yet the human race has not  learned until now. Jesus remains unrelenting in saying that, “what  God has joined together, no human being must separate.” The last word  will still be “unity,” and with his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus gives us  the assurance that it shall be so.

 Lord Jesus, forgive the stubbornness of the human heart and guide us  toward the unity that we so yearn for. Amen.