Spiritual Bonds – Reflection on Matthew 19:3-12
Lectio can provide the courage to reveal highly personal thoughts. As a teenager, I wondered if I should join a religious order and be singularly bound to God. The individual choice was apparent because of a woman’s inner beauty, heart-fluttering embraces, and the possibility of children. My call was to commit to a ministry that included a spouse’s physical touch. Being of one flesh with another instead of celibacy did not reduce the influence of God participating in my marriage. God never gave up on my teenage thoughts. I recognized decades later the original perception was not that far off when I received a graduate degree in Pastoral Ministry in my fifties. The role of the physical marriage of a Minister can be appreciated within Christianity and other faiths. Embracing and celebrating the sacredness and spiritual marriage of celibacy should also be appreciated. Worldliness seems to downplay the appreciation of the commitment to these unique spiritual bonds.
The Pharisees Question Jesus by James Tissot (full-resolution painting)
More details are available on the Brooklyn Museum website.
Additional Ordinary Time Reflections
Matthew 19:3-12 – Scripture*
3 Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” 8 He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.”
Additional Thoughts
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Prayer for young families:
Lord, let the young families of our communities experience your joy, peace, comfort, and love despite the world’s distractions.
Attributions
This site has written permission to use the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) Matthew 19 Bible passage.
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Primary Lectio Divina word or phrase: Spiritual Bonds
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