27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B – October 4, 2009

Scripture Readings
First : Genesis 2:18-24
Second: Hebrews 2:9-11
Gospel : Mark 10:2-16

Prepared by: Fr. Stephen Dominic Hayes, OP

1. Subject Matter
• The first and third readings focus on the shape of the institution of marriage both as a natural
reality and as a sacrament in Jesus Christ. In an age and a nation, which is doing his best to
forget the fundamental and divine order given to this most basic cell of human society, the
readings invite is to look at the shape of marriage and God dregs own interest in keeping its
structure and vitality intact.

2. Exegetical Notes
• The first reading, from the "Book of Beginnings” (i.e., Genesis) recounts the creation of man
and woman as God tells the story. This symbolic narrative emphasizes the unity of the spirit
shared by the man and the woman, and their fitness for each other as helpmates and
companions. Chapter 3 of this book will show how this plan of marriage ordained by the
hand of God was damaged by the envy of the devil and the sin of the first parents.
Nevertheless, as God is love, and is fruitful in his creation, so the first parents are made for
love for each other and for the founding of a family, and by extension, point to the essential
social meaning of marriage as the fundamental unit of healthy human society. The Man
(Hebrew “ish” (as Genesis refers to Adam before his sin) in joy recognizes his partner as
"bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh”, and names his spouse by his relationship with her
(Woman) ( Hebrew “ishah”).
• For the second reading, the author of the letter to the Hebrews first goes our attention to the
fact of Christ's descent from the heavens to take our flesh and drink our deathly way of living
to its dregs. This perfection is precisely through Christ's suffering - there is no fruitfulness
without the cross- and simultaneously joins him who sanctifies with those whom he
sanctifies. What follows from this fits in well with the other readings, toward his precise you
because we are one flesh with Christ - the bride who is the Church united with her
bridegroom - that we can share the bridegroom's destiny and life.
• Mark's presentation of Jesus discussion of divorce seems less concerned with rabbinical
argument than does the parallel citation in Matthew 19, and lacks that pericope’s exception
 clause for ‘porneia” ( GK :“immorality.”) Since the law of Moses provides a method for
divorce without suggesting an explicit reason for divorce, the rabbis on teaching on this is
severely divided. Thus this question is in fact, an important one for understanding which he
stands with regard to the teaching current among his contemporaries.
• Jesus’ teaching on marriage is in fact, will be found to be radically at odds not only with
Jewish teaching, but with the normal treatment of marriage in most societies, which permit
both divorce and remarriage. A number of scholars have suggested that Jesus approached
a marriage takes much from the purity laws applicable to Levites, as well as an
eschatological understanding of the renewal all things in the direction of Genesis’
presentation of God's original perfect creation in the time of Eden (“from the beginning it was
not this way”.) Among a number of the Fathers of the Church who live in the Roman Empire,
in which divorce proceedings could be initiated by either husband or wife, adultery by a
spouse, presumably unrepentant, seems to have been understood as a reason for obtaining
a civil divorce; this does not change the Lord's explicit prohibition of divorce and remarriage.
In the text at present Jesus presents Moses' permission of certificate of divorce as a
bandage over the worst of sin, since in the "hardness of their hearts" men could not be
persuaded from divorcing their wives, and putting in the moral and social difficulties of the
unconnected to a family in a fundamentally tribal society. To marry again without the
certificate is simple adultery, punishable by death; the certificate in fact protects the woman
who has been wronged by her divorce. Since the Messiah has come, the eschatological
restoration of all things which He has come to work include marriage and family life. This
makes sense, since marriage is the root and fundamental cell of the rest of society.
• Jesus presents the vocation of marriage in all its Edenic beauty and purity: this is shocking to
the disciples, who only know a world with divorce and remarriage as possibilities; they inquire
about this matter privately, thinking that they have misunderstood Christ; on the contrary, he
explicitly identifies divorce and remarriage as adultery in the sight of God.
3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• CIC 1625: The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to
contract marriage, who freely express their consent…
• CIC 1626: The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the
indispensable element that "makes the marriage." If consent is lacking there is no marriage.
• CIC 1627: The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give
themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." This
consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one
flesh."
• CIC 1639: The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give
themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." This
consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one
flesh." ..,The consent by which the spouses mutually give and receive one another is sealed
by God himself. From their covenant arises "an institution, confirmed by the divine law, . . .
even in the eyes of society." The covenant between the spouses is integrated into God's
covenant with man: "Authentic married love is caught up into divine love."
• CIC 1640: Thus the marriage bond has been established by God himself in such a way that
a marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved.
 This bond, which results from the free human act of the spouses and their consummation of
the marriage, is a reality, henceforth irrevocable, and gives rise to a covenant guaranteed by
God's fidelity. the Church does not have the power to contravene this disposition of divine
wisdom.

4. Patristic Commentary
• St. Augustine Of Hippo (City of God. 22.17) even in the beginning, when women was made
from a rib in the side of the sleeping man, that had no less a purpose than to symbolize
prophetically the union of Christ and his Church. Adam's sleep was a mystical
foreshadowing of Christ's death, and when his dead body hanging from the cross was
pierced by the lance, it was from his side that there issued forth that blood and water that, as
we know, signifies the sacraments by which the Church is built up. "Built" is the very word
the Scripture uses in connection with the Eve: "He built the rib into a woman"... So to St. Paul
speaks of "building up the body of Christ," which is his Church. Therefore woman is as much
the creation of God as man is. And she was made from the man, this was to show her
oneness with him; and if she was made in the way she was, this was to prefigure the
oneness of Christ and the Church.
• Tertullian (To His Wife 2.8): Where we to find language adequately to express the
happiness of the marriage, which the Church cements, the oblation confirms, the benediction
signs and seals, the angels celebrate, and the father holds as approved? What kind of yoke
is that of two believers who share one hope, one desire, one discipline, one service? they
enjoy kinship in spirit and in flesh. They are mutual servants with no discrepancy of
interests... together they pray, together bow down, together perform their fasts, eventually
teaching, mutually treating, it actually upholding. They stand equally at the banquet of God,
equaling crises, equally facing persecutions, and equally and refreshments. Neither hides
anything from the other. Neither neglect the other. Neither is troublesome to the other.
• Jacob of Sarug (Homilies):In His mysterious plans the Father had destined a bride for his
only Son and presented her to him under the guise of prophetic images. Moses appeared
and with deft hand sketched a picture of bridegroom and bride, but immediately drew a veil
over it. In his book he wrote that a man should be father and mother. So as to be joined to
his wife, but the two might in very truth become one. The prophet Moses spoke of man and
woman in this way in order to foretell Christ and his Church. … Wives are not united to their
husbands as closely as the Church is to the Son of God. What husband but our Lord ever
died for his wife, and what bride ever chose a crucified man as her husband? Whoever gave
his blood as gift to his wife, except the one who died on the cross and sealed the marriage
bond with his wounds? Who was ever seen lying dead at his own wedding banquet, with his
wife at his side seeking to console herself by embracing him? At what other celebration, at
what other feast is the bridegroom's body distributed to the guests in the form of bread?
Death separates wives from their husbands, but in this case it is death that unites the bride to
her beloved.
• Athenagorus (A Plea Regarding Christians 33): we all that a man should either remain as
he is born, or else marry only once. For a second marriage is a veiled adultery.

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

• St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermo 85:4-6): Of all the movements, sensations and feelings
of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make
some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires
is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that
those who love him are made happy by their love of him. … The Bridegroom’s love, or
rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the
beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be
that Love not be loved?... What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate
love, her confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match stride for
stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for
gentleness, show herself as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in love with
him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she
loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently
then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it
is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists. Or are we to
doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a greater love?

• St. Agnes always saw her relationship with Christ as that of spouse to the divine
bridegroom. It was for this that she refused marriage to many eligible Roman suitors, and in
a day without religious orders, kept herself a Virgin that she might be free to serve Christ. It
was in this way that she was eventually accused of being a Christian and brought to
martyrdom. Yet, Agnes was as happy as a bride on her wedding day. She did not pay
attention to those who begged her to save herself. "I would offend my Spouse," she said, "if I
were to try to please you. He chose me first and He shall have me!" Then she prayed and
bowed her head for the death-stroke of the sword.
• St. Rose of Lima, in a similar fashion, found herself in a state of mystical betrothal with
Christ, our relationship with went so far as to Christ in a vision actually giving her a ring to
wear as a sign of his espousal to her.
• St. Rita of Cascia was born near Spoleto. She wanted to be a nun but her family married her
young to a man of most violent temper who abused her and their two children. Rita struggled
to remain faithful to her husband and to God. After twenty years of hell her husband was
stabbed by an enemy, but before dying he repented because of Rita's prayers for him. Soon
afterwards, her two sons, brutalized by their father, also died. She sought to realize her
childhood vocation but monastic orders do not lightly accept women who are of the married
state. Finally she was admitted by Augustinian nuns at Cascia in Umbria. Her great devotion
was to the Passion of Christ, suffering herself the wound of the thorn. She fasted, prayed,
was greatly obedient and practised charity.
6. Quotes

• Pope Benedict XVI (God Is Near Us, The Eucharist, the Heart of Life, Stephan otto horn,
ed., Vinzenz Pfnuer, ed., Henry Taylor,Tr., California: Ignatius Press, 2003, pp. 79-80.), :
Body, in the language of the Bible, denotes rather the whole person, in whom body and spirit
are indivisibly one. "This is my Body." Therefore means: this is my whole person, existing in
bodily form. What the nature of this person is, however, we learn from what is said next:
"which is given up for you." That means: This person is: existing -for -others. It is in its most
 intimate being a sharing with others. … the body is a boundary that makes us opaque … but
there is a second thing: The body is also a bridge. For we meet each other through the body;
through it we communicate in the common material creation; through it we can see
ourselves, feel ourselves, come close to one another. … It is both boundary and means of
communication in one.
•
• Pope Benedict XVI (God and the World, a conversation with Peter Seewald, Henry Taylor
tr., San Francisco, California: Ignatius Press, 2002, pp. 425-427): The basic way in which
any society is built depends upon marriage. We must pay attention to this: where ever two
people givet themselves to each other, and between them, give life to children, this touches
the holiness, the mystery of human existence, which goes beyond the realm of what I can
control and dispose of. I simply do not belong to myself alone. There is a divine mystery
within each and every person. That is why the association of husband and wife is regarded
within the religious realm, within the sphere of the sacred, of being answerable before God.
Being answerable before God is a necessity-and in the sacrament is given its proper
foundation..., this is not a commercial contract, but a surrender of myself to another person.
Only in the form of a love that is entire and unreserved is self-giving of one person to another
commensurate with the essence of man.

7. Other Considerations
• Another text which might be employed in the explication of this Sunday's readings is
Ephesians chapter 5, 21-33, in which St. Paul describes marriage as a relationship of mutual
service, in imitation of the Lord's own service of his bride, the holy Catholic Church. It is this
text, which in the Greek refers to marriage as a “mysterion: this word is used in the Eastern
Church explicitly to refer to those sacred realities which are referred to as sacraments in the
Latin-speaking West.
Recommended Resources
Benedict XVI, Pope. Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI. Yonkers, Copyright
Ignatius Press/ Magnificat 2006. New York: Magnificat: SAS, 2006.

Brown, Raymond E., S.S., Fitzmeyer, Joseph, S.J., and Murphy, Roland E., O. Carm. The
Jerome Biblical Commentary. Two Vols. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1968.

Harrington, Daniel J, S.J. The Gospel of Mark Sacra Pagina Series, Vol. 2: John R. Donaghue,
S.J. and Daniel J Harrington, eds. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002.

Jurgens, William A. The Faith of the Early Fathers. 3 Vols. Collegeville, Minnesota: The
Liturgical Press, 1979.

Oden, Thomas C., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament, Vol. 2, Mark.
Thomas C. Oden, and Christopher A. Hall, eds. Downers Grove, IL : Intervarsity Press,
(Institute of Classical Christian Studies), 1998.
Thomas Aquinas, St. Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels Collected out of the
Works of the Fathers. Volume II: St. Mark. Albany, N.Y.: Preserving Christian Publications, Inc.,
1999.

Tugwell, Simon, OP., ed. Early Dominicans; Selected Writings. Classics of Western
Spirituality. New York; Ramsey; Toronto : Paulist Press, 1982.
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