Daily Gospel Reflection

Society’s Greatest Wound

Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly, and welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where we are exploring the genius of the gospel and looking for a word or a phrase or an idea each day from today's gospel to implement into our lives. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark 10: 1-12. And Jesus left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to hear him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to put her away." But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart, He wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. So they are no longer two, but one. What therefore God has joined together that no man put asunder." And in the house, the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

What is it that jumps out at you today? We could get lost in the details or the legalese of it. But what jumps out at me today is that there is an awful lot of divorce in our society. And as a result of that, an awful lot of sadness, an awful lot of woundedness. And I really don't believe that anybody walks to the altar with the intention of getting divorced. And so behind every divorce, there are broken hearts and broken dreams and broken hopes and broken people, wounded people, and wounded husband and wife and often wounded children. And I wonder if just call today isn't just to pray for these people who are suffering this sadness, because it is a sadness, the sadness of the heart, it's a sadness of the mind, it's a sadness of the soul. And so today, let's pray for these people. Let's pray for all people of all times negatively affected by divorce. Have a great day and remember, be bold, be Catholic.