Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflection on Scripture

The Church, through the centuries, has used today’s Gospel as an outward sign of the sacrament of matrimony. During the same period of time, the Church has always looked upon the sacrament of matrimony as a lesser sacrament to the extent that aside from Mary and Joseph, a couple has never been cantonized as saints. The Church also considered celibacy and virginity as the ideal models of Christian vocations.

However, John Paul II, in his book “God made them, man and women he made them”, he expanded the theology of the sacrament of marriage, and his writings are now considered the theology of the body.

In the beginning, the sacrament of matrimony was the first sacrament. God joined Adam and Eve together, so they became one and He blessed them as He sent them to go forth to multiply and to bear fruit. In the sacrament of matrimony, God willed that the couple create community borne in their love of God and one another, a community that would mirror the community of the most Holy Trinity. Matrimony is the sacrament by which married couples proclaim by the sacramental life God’s vision of love and community.

I believe that when a couple has relations with one another, that they fulfill all that God intended them to be and their coming together as one is the couple’s joint and united prayer that the Holy Spirit sanctifies and makes holy.

The building of community by the married couple forms the domestic church or as John Paul calls it, the “little church”. The little churches come together on Sundays to form the greater Body of Christ as they celebrate the presence of God in their lives and the Word and Sacrament.

From matrimony, all vocations are nourished and developed, and matrimony becomes the vineyard in which God can multiply and increase His presence in the world. Married couple are the true evangelist, proclaiming the wonders of God in their mutual togetherness and in their actions within the family and their extended community in which they live.

Married couples, if they are vigilant in their prayer life and sacramental life of the Church, grow to become soul mates, encouraging each other and their extended family to run the good race and prepare for the day they will meet God face to face.

In marriage, there is mutual respect for each other, unbiased acceptance of the other as they are, and the harmony of living God’s will through their sacramental life with each other and in the Body of Christ.

When the couple with their family and friends gather for a meal, they mirror the community that is created in the celebration of the Eucharist. As Jesus gave of Himself freely for our salvation, married couples give of themselves freely. So, in sharing a meal, the couple can truly say that the offering of the meal is an offering of their body and blood.

We must pray for married couples because the family is under attack by the evil one. Destroying families leads to chaos in our society and division between parents and children. Likewise, without good marriages, vocations to the priesthood, deaconic, and religious life will not be nurtured and brought to fruition.

Married couples should pray together and for each other. May the Holy Spirit bless their union and sanctify their life so that married couple may be living proof of the great love God has for us and may their love draw others to see the love God has instilled in them and lead others to come to love Him more.

Deacon Phil