God’s Designs

Last Updated on October 8, 2021 by GMC

The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” They replied, “Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts 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 flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” In the house the disciples again questioned him about this. 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.”

Mark 10:2-12

God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and God said to them: 
Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.

Genesis 1:27-28

The Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suited to him. So the Lord God formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each living creature was then its name. The man gave names to all the tame animals, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be a helper suited to the man.

So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman. When he brought her to the man, the man said:

“This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
This one shall be called ‘woman,’
for out of man this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.

Genesis 2:18-24

The protological account of the first marriage in Genesis to which Jesus refers is a model and standard by which to measure the law of Moses and accommodations for divorce up to the present day. It acknowledges an ideal placed in the human heart, even if fallen human beings fail to achieve it. Jesus, the Bridegroom of the Church, came to heal fractured humanity and will always remain one with her.

God’s creation is always fruitful and life-giving, from plant and animal life, to married and consecrated life.

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Let the Children Come to Me