A Reflection from the Fuel Daily Readings App for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time. Click here to read the reading.

Marriage is a beautiful thing and yet one of the most controversial topics to talk about because of the alarming rate of divorce in our world today. In our readings today, the issue of marriage and divorce takes a central place.

In our Gospel, some Pharisees came to test Jesus with the question of divorce, if it’s lawful for a man to divorce his wife according to how Moses allowed it. Jesus’ response was to invite them to the Divine plan on Marriage, which is the intention of God for a man and a woman to become one and therefore not be separated by anyone because God has joined them together.

Marriage is a vocation, one that calls the couple to a life of holiness with each other. The bible says in Genesis that it’s not good for man to be alone, and rightly so because every person is created in the image and likeness of God. God is not alone. God exists in love, the love between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This love is the flow in the Trinity.

When two people come together in marriage, they are simply mirroring what is happening in the Divine flow, what God is. In marriage, a couple gives themselves to each other in a way they wouldn’t give themselves to any person in the universe. In doing so, they are physically expressing God’s love.

As marriage is an expression of God’s love, it means that God ordains it for his purposes. Two people coming together in marriage is an expression of God bringing them together for his purposes.

Jesus says that what God joined together, let no one separate. Jesus is affirming that if God causes you to say yes to somebody, he cannot cause you to say no because God doesn’t make mistakes.

When people fall in love and then fall out of love, and eventually get divorced, it means that God didn’t bring them together in the first place. This is what the church acknowledges when a marriage is annulled. It is an affirmation that the union did not happen in the first place. This understanding is to set free those who are divorced to embrace positive change in their life. Though what they expected to happen in the marriage didn’t go the way they planned, yet God is using their situation for the good, setting them up for something better, something he has ordained for them.

+ Lord Jesus, help me to live the life you have ordained for me. Give your Grace and Peace to all those who are divorced and those experiencing pain in their relationship. May your love abide in them always, and may they experience healing in their lives, Amen.