1st Sunday, October 2015

Hi! and happy holy and family day to all of us; and, it's just 82 days to go before Christmas, GUYS.  Our first-thing-first this Sunday:

 

THE GOOD NEWS (04 October 2015)

 

                1st Reading  :  Genesis 2:18-24

 

                Psalm           :  Psalm 128:1-6

 

                2nd Reading:  Hebrew 2:9-11

 

                Gospel         :  Mark 10:2-16

"YAHWEH GOD said, 'It is not good for Man to be alone; I will give him a helper who will be like him.'  Then YAHWEH GOD formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air and brought them to Man to see what he would call them; and whatever Man called every living creature, that was its name.

So Man gave names to all the cattle, the birds of the air and to every beast of the field.  But he did not find among them a helper like himself.  Then YAHWEH GOD caused a deep sleep to come over Man and he fell asleep.  HE took one of his ribs and filled its place with flesh.  The rib which YAHWEH GOD had taken from Man HE formed into a woman and brought her to the man.  The man then said, 'Now this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.  She shall be called woman because she was taken from man.'  That is why man leaves his father and mother and is attached to his wife, and with her becomes one flesh." -   Genesis 2:18-24

 

(It is not good for Man to be alone.  GOD, who does not know solitude, created both sexes, not as a necessary means to communicate life, but so that the two might be united in love, the gift of self and shared happiness.

 

He did not find among them a helper like himself.  The parade of animals prepares us to discover the unique value of Woman:  she is his companion and not his servant.

 

Adam fell asleep so that GOD might work out a transmutation in him:  he would become one in two persons, and this will be a new birth for each one of them.

 

She shall be called woman.  In Hebrew the words man and woman begin with the same syllable, a symbol of their profound kinship.

 

That is why man leaves his father and mother.  Jewish custom required a woman to leave her family in order to enter in her husband's clan.  Yet, people recalled that in ancient times, it was the opposite:  the husband was the one who entered into the woman's clan.  In fact, both are running the risk of separating themselves from the family milieu in order to establish a new social unity.

 

They become one flesh:  in Hebrew it means that they form one single being.  This union of the couple is part of their mission.  It is not a provisional agreement  to enjoy each other, but the union of a family in which GOD's work is accomplished.  Therefore the family will be fruitful and the two will give back to the large human family the treasure of humanity which they received from it.

 

We cannot reread this phrase without recalling the way it will be taken up in the Gospel [Matthew 19:15].  JESUS words on marriage are among HIS least understood words.

 

Yet the will of GOD was clear in this ancient text:  the years of common life, the efforts to listen to each other, to understand and make decisions together, the capacity to forgive and persevere in fidelity, the shared risk in giving birth and educating a family:  those are the means which, little by little, transform the man and the woman, enabling them to gain maturity and a sense of their responsibility.  And it is precisely that which GOD wishes to find in them at the end of their life when he will be all for all.)