I AM deeply aware that I am, so to speak, opening the proverbial Pandora’s Box by raising the subject of the readings at Mass on October 5, but now and then we really must accept the challenge and look more deeply into the meaning of what the Gospel teaches and the effect it must have on our own lives.
Most of us are touched by the tragic situation of the break-up of marriage, either by divorce or separation, be it a member of our immediate family, friend, neighbour or, yes, the person sitting next to us at Mass.
The reading on that Sunday concerns Jesus’ words on this very tragic situation. Even he was challenged in his day to come up with a satisfactory answer to this agonising question, albeit by the pharisees, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife …?’
How appropriate the question in our own time. Do we have the solution and the satisfaction of so many today?
Sadly, forgive me if I sound critical, but hoping to hear words of wisdom for our day with regard to this topic and the annulment issue (however brief), I felt disappointed when it wasn’t given the attention it desperately needs for those of us affected.
A member of my own family expressed great disappointment to me after Mass that this Gospel reading actually didn’t get a mention. (I admit I did not attend my local church on this particular weekend.)
We did hear the important words, I admit, ‘Unless we become as little children’ etc, which followed or from the topic which Jesus was confronted by.
These are words that touch the heart indeed, but how can we really deal with the beauty of the words when there are so may Catholics traumatised and confused by the situation confronting us with regard to the heartbreak of broken marriages and the grey area which abounds, which keeps so many caught up in this trauma away from the Church?
At present we are being encouraged to invite back to the Church our loved ones, friends, neighbours, many who have, because of the situation of divorce and separation, felt great confusion and discomfort in continuing to practice their faith even though in certain situations the party may be the seeming victim in the break-up of the marriage in the first place.
So how do we deal with that today? Or can we?
MAUREEN SMILES
Greenbank, Qld
