27th Sunday B: Marriage Covenant: Liturgical Prayers

  Greeting

All praise be to God our Father for creating people in his likeness and making them capable of faithfulness through the self-giving love of his Son and the unifying power of the Spirit. May the Lord be always with you in his love. R/ And also with you.

27th Sunday B: Marriage Covenant

  An old man was at the hospital to remove some stitching to be removed and the receptionist told him to wait until a nurse would be free.

27th Sunday B: Marital Covenant

 The first reading speaks to us of love – God’s love for his creation, his people, his very own. He does not create and leave them to manage on their own.

27 Sunday B - Marriage

FROM FR. JUDE BOTELHO:

The first reading speaks to us of love – God’s love for his creation, his people, his very own. He does not create and leave them to manage on their own. God is constantly involved in our life! “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.” We have been made to be people who need people. It is part of our nature to be in relationship with one another, to be people who live in love, people who live in community, in a family, in togetherness. We are made for one another, made from one another. The description of woman being created from man’s rib is symbolic. She is not created from his foot to be controlled, she is not created from his head to dominate him but from close to his heart, always needed, always to be cared for.

27 Sunday B - Marriage

FROM THE CONNECTIONS:

 

THE WORD:

The question of divorce was among the most divisive issues in Jewish society.  The Book of Deuteronomy (24: 1) stipulated that a husband could divorce his wife for “some indecency.” Interpretations of exactly what constituted “indecency” varied greatly, ranging from adultery to accidentally burning the evening meal.  Further, the wife was regarded under the Law as the husband’s chattel, with neither legal right to protection nor recourse to seeking a divorce on her own.  In Biblical times, there was little appreciation of love and commitment in marriage -- marriages were always arranged in the husband’s favor, the husband could divorce his wife for just about any reason, the woman was treated little better than property.  Divorce, then, was tragically common among the Jews of Jesus’ time.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus cites the Genesis account of the creation of man and woman (today’s first reading) to emphasize that husband and wife are equal partners in the covenant of marriage (“the two become one body”).  The language of Genesis indicates that the Creator intends for the marriage union to possess the same special covenantal nature as God’s covenant with Israel.  Jesus again appeals to the spiritof the Law rather than arguing legalities:  It is the nature of their marriage covenant that husband and wife owe to one another total and complete love and mutual respect in sharing responsibility for making their marriage succeed.
Today’s Gospel reading also includes Mark’s story of Jesus’ welcoming the little children.  Again, Jesus holds up the model of a child’s simplicity and humility as the model for the servant-disciple.