This morning’s Gospel reading is Matthew 5:17–37:

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.

“You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.

“It was also said, Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce. But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife—unless the marriage is unlawful— causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow. But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one.”

This week, we will celebrate Valentine’s Day, and the luckiest of us will have found our valentine already. My wife and I will also celebrate our wedding anniversary next weekend, and just for good measure, we celebrated her birthday last weekend.

Yes indeed, all of my non-Christmas marriage gift-buying takes place within a 15-day stretch. I now have ten months off. Don’t ever accuse me of not understanding logistics.

The Valentine’s Day celebration has me focused on one particular aspect of Jesus’ Gospel today — marriage. It’s not the main part of His teaching today, but it may be the most critical. Jesus speaks about marriage in other parts of the Gospel too, and He launched His ministry at a wedding feast, providing the miracle at Cana to help keep the family of a newlywed couple from humiliation. In one of the most important and sometimes challenging passages, Jesus rebukes Pharisees and scribes for using marriage to trip Him up, teaching that marriage is only for this world and not the kingdom of God. And yet, Jesus makes clear here and elsewhere that marriage in this world is not just important but permanent, once a man and woman lawfully enter into it.

So what is marriage, and why does it matter in this world?

It’s clearly not hearts and flowers all the time. We know that now, despite an entire entertainment industry selling us that fantasy 24/7, literally. Marriage takes work, it takes commitment, and most of all it takes a bonding of wills to make it work best. And very often, it doesn’t work best, and sometimes not at all. Jesus speaks of divorce in His time, a practice that arose — as Jesus explains in another passage — because Moses needed to regulate what people were already doing.

That, however, is not what the Lord wants or expects. In fact, as Jesus explains, divorce and remarriage is a violation of a lawful vow before the Lord, and a contradiction of His plan for our salvation. This violation is significant enough that Jesus includes it in this teaching, putting it alongside issues such as murder and false oaths.

But why? Why is marriage so important in God’s plan?

Marriage is the model for us to comprehend and form ourselves to Trinitarian life. In the most obvious context, gives us the proper context for our use of the image of God in our ability to procreate and bring forth new souls. The nuclear family and its cohesion models the way in which we will all need to conform and adhere to the Lord in the next life.

But perhaps most importantly of all, marriage requires us to put our own selfishness aside and replace it with real partnership to form an entity of its own. Marriages that exist of two separate lives fail. Marriages that consist of two people living a shared life — even with two careers and different interests — have a much greater chance of succeeding. That requires the deepest levels of communication, compromise, and understanding, with a basis of self-sacrificial love in which each puts the other before themselves. And both have to participate in that sharing, communication, and compromise; when only one has that commitment, the marriage is doomed.

It is this model that teaches us the meaning of caritas love — the love the Father has for us, and the love into which He invites us to live in eternity with Him.

Unfortunately, we too often fail to live up to that standard. We become unfaithful to each other, and we become unfaithful to the Lord. The path of salvation in scripture is littered with examples of the latter. The Lord made His feelings known about this through the prophet Hosea shortly before the fall of the Northern Kingdom, ordering Hosea to marry a prostitute as a model of how Israel had treated God. They had abandoned Him for idol worship, including the Canaanite deities Baal and Asherah, to further their own worldly ambitions.

They had divorced themselves from the Lord to figuratively lay with prostitutes, perhaps most specifically with Asherah, which was a fertility deity. Hosea’s marriage to a prostitute was a warning of destruction, which followed shortly when the Israelites ignored Hosea’s prophecies.

Still, when reading Hosea, one can hear the voice of the Lord yearning for His family to choose to return to Him. Even after their figurative adultery, He stood ready to forgive and heal them. His commitment never ends, even when we prove unfaithful and downright rebellious. This is repeated over and over again by the prophets, as well as Jesus Himself.

Jesus’ teachings today show how difficult it is for us to remain faithful. All of the ways He warns will lead to destruction are all our natural inclinations, built into our material concupiscence, to focus entirely on ourselves. The model of marriage for the Trinitarian life shows us that we have to set that aside in order to make that marriage work. We must embrace Him and conform our will to His, just as a husband and wife embrace each other and put their selfishness aside to form a marital will, a common purpose, and a bond that unlocks both love and creation.  Once we do that, it becomes easier to set aside the selfishness that Jesus proscribes in today’s Gospel, and to put His will into our hearts in place of our own.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

The front page image is a detail from “Jesus orders six jars to be filled with water during the wedding meal at Cana (John 2)” by Gerard David, 16th century. On display at the Louvre. Via Wikimedia Commons.

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.