COMMITS ADULTERY AGAINST HER

Jam 5,9-12; Ps 102; Mk 10,1-12
25 MAY
What the Pharisees tell Jesus about the Law of repudiation is totally false: “Moses allowed to write an act of repudiation and to repudiate her”. The law was well circumstantiated.

“If a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, comes to dislike her, and makes monstrous charges against her and defames her by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I first had relations with her I did not find her a virgin,’ the father and mother of the girl shall take the evidence of her virginity and bring it to the elders at the city gate. There the father of the girl shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man in marriage, but he has come to dislike her, and now brings monstrous charges against her, saying: I did not find your daughter a virgin. But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!’ And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the city. Then these city elders shall take the man and chastise him, besides fining him one hundred silver shekels, which they shall give to the girl’s father, because the man defamed a virgin in Israel. Moreover, she shall remain his wife, and he may not divorce her as long as he lives. “But if this charge is true, and evidence of the girl’s virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsmen shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. “If a man comes upon a maiden that is not betrothed, takes her and has relations with her, and their deed is discovered, the man who had relations with her shall pay the girl’s father fifty silver shekels and take her as his wife, because he has deflowered her. Moreover, he may not divorce her as long as he lives (Dt 22,13-21.28-29).

“When a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, is later displeased with her because he finds in her something indecent, and therefore he writes out a bill of divorce and hands it to her, thus dismissing her from his house: if on leaving his house she goes and becomes the wife of another man, and the second husband, too, comes to dislike her and dismisses her from his house by handing her a written bill of divorce; or if this second man who has married her, dies; then her former husband, who dismissed her, may not again take her as his wife after she has become defiled. That would be an abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring such guilt upon the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you as a heritage (Dt 24,1-4).

With Jesus we enter the Law of the new heart and of the new spirit. If man, regenerated in the Holy Spirit, becomes a new creature, even as regards marriage, he must live as a new creature. New body, new law and new life. Divorcing for a Christian is declaring useless and vain grace, the new birth from water and the Holy Spirit, together with all the fruits of redemption. What Jesus says in his Gospel would simply be a vain word. None of them is accomplished for man.

He set out from there and went into the district of Judea (and) across the Jordan. Again crowds gathered around him and, as was his custom, he again taught them. 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.”

Divorce among Christians is a true declaration of the uselessness of the Cross of Christ, of his Body and Blood, of the Holy Spirit and of every sacrament. The divorce between the disciples of Jesus becomes the greatest attestation of the falsity of the whole message of the New Testament. It becomes the great scandal against the Father. He said that he would have changed the heart of stone into the heart of flesh, while the disciple of Jesus lives only with the heart of stone. Divorce is a condemnation of man not to live like a real man.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us of a humble and meek heart.