October 28^th 2018. Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 10:46-52

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL Mark 10:46-52

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus,
sat by the roadside begging.
On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say,
"Jesus, son of David, have pity on me."
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he kept calling out all the more,
"Son of David, have pity on me."
Jesus stopped and said, "Call him."
So they called the blind man, saying to him,
"Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you."
He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?"
The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see."
Jesus told him, "Go your way; your faith has saved you."
Immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . In Sunday’s Gospel the blind man, Bartimaeus, calls out insistently, “Jesus son of David, have mercy on me!” Prayer demands perseverance and resolve on our parts. But what is it that makes us persevere? When we are aware of our poverty and our desperation, then we call out most strongly to the Lord! Our weakness and our neediness is the powerhouse of our prayer! The people tell Bartimaeus to shut up. In my life too there are many forces that tell me to shut up, who insist that I desist from praying. The three classic enemies of prayer are the world, the flesh and the devil. The world tells me to solve my own problems with direct action, not with submission to the Lord. The flesh with its passions and impulses is not disposed to prayer. It makes me lazy and wilful, distracts me with other things. The devil tells me that God does not listen to my prayer so why bother? He tells me that I am of no importance before the Lord. All of these forces dissuade me from praying, but they demonstrate how important prayer truly is! In response to these negative voices I must become like Bartimaeus and cry to the Lord all the louder. Bartimaeus casts away his cloak and turns with insistence to Jesus. We too must cast away our “cloaks”, the things that conceal who we really are, the roles and expectations that we have. We must place ourselves before the Lord so that our prayer becomes a meeting of two desires, the desire of my heart and the desire of the Lord for my good. But how can I be sure that my prayer will be an expression of what is true and essential in my heart? If I persevere in prayer, then the combat of perseverance will purify my prayer so that it becomes a sincere expression of who I am before God and of my deepest needs. Then we can expect Jesus to reply, as he did to Bartimaeus, “Go, your faith has saved you!”

Prayer demands perseverance and resolution. It is our very poverty that impels us to pray with fervour and with persistence!

On this thirtieth Sunday of the year, we read a passage of the Gospel which is a very important inspiration for the prayer and liturgy of the Orthodox church. A blind man calls out repeatedly, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Through reflection on this passage, we can celebrate the gift of our dialogue with God in the liturgy, the spinal column of our Christian lives. The story of Bartimaeus highlights that prayer involves a struggle of perseverance, an entering into combat. Just like this blind man, there is a sense in which we are all stopped at a point along the street, unable to go any further and in great need. The power of prayer derives from our very poverty! Our emptiness, our anguish, makes us turn towards God with sincerity. We should not conceal our desperation but make it the powerhouse of our pleading before God.

Just as the people told Bartimaeus to shut up, so too there are many forces that try to quieten our prayers

Many people tell Bartimaeus to be quiet. Similarly, there are many forces that dissuade us from turning towards the Lord. The three historic enemies are the world, the flesh and the devil. The attitude of the world is to say, “Why bother praying? Resolve your problems yourself! Get to work and do something concrete!” The flesh with its passions and impulses causes confusion and distracts us from prayer. “I don’t feel like praying just now. I think I’ll have something to eat first. That phone call needs to be made without delay. No, my mood is not right at this moment.” And then there is the devil who speaks critically of God. He either tells us that God does not bother to listen to someone as unworthy as me, or he tells me to go ahead and resolve my problems myself. All of these voices together seek to dissuade us from prayer. But we must persevere. The quality of our prayer is not always up to us, but the quantity is under our control. We must persist, we must enter into this good fight. At the moment when we have the most doubts rising in our hearts, that is the very time to pray most serenely. It is the moment we can be sure that something is trying to oppose us, and therefore we must cry out all the louder by the power of our very poverty.

In prayer, we must cast away all our masks and expectations. We must welcome the grace that is at our doorstep, and then we must speak plainly to the Lord, telling him our hearts’ desires

Jesus stops when he hears the cries of Bartimaeus. The blind man casts away his cloak. The cloak was an inalienable right in the jurisprudence of ancient Israel, and it was also a symbol of the role a person had in society. Bartimaeus throws all of this away, his way of existing, his explanations, his scheme of operating. In prayer, we must abandon everything we think of ourselves, our expectations, our fixations, the way we construct the realities of life. Instead, we must become aware that grace is at our doorstep, casting away the veils that we place over things, the schemes that we seek to fit life into. Then, when we place ourselves close to Jesus, we will hear him say, as he said to the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” The catechism of the Church tells us that prayer is the encounter between two desires, what we desire and what God desires. We must have the courage to ask whatever it is that we need to ask.

How can we be sure that in prayer we will express to the Lord what is important in our hearts? Because, if we have persevered, then our prayer will have been purified by the struggle, by the renunciation of our masks and cloaks. The prayer that emerges will be a true meeting of hearts with the Lord. And he will reply, “Go, your faith has saved you!”

We can be confident that our prayer will have been purified by our perseverance, our persistence, our struggle and by the renunciation of our “cloaks”. And the prayer that emerges will be that which we truly desire. In response Jesus says, “Go, your faith has saved you.” In the combat of prayer, we arrive at the moment of grace. In this moment of grace we see our small but absolutely essential role - the act of abandoning ourselves in faith to God. Bartimaeus in his prayer refers to Jesus as the son of David. This is an expression of his Hebrew faith in the coming of the Messiah. His persistent prayer is a demonstration of this faith. He knows that Jesus is capable of giving him the great gift of the light. And he immediately has his sight restored and follows Jesus along the road. The former blind man uses his newly restored vision to keep the Lord in sight, to see where he goes, and to follow him.

October 21^st 2018. Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 10:35-45

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL Mark 10:35-45

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to him,
"Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."
He replied, "What do you wish me to do for you?"
They answered him, "Grant that in your glory
we may sit one at your right and the other at your left."
Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the cup that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"
They said to him, "We can."
Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink, you will drink,
and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;
but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared."
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.
Jesus summoned them and said to them,
"You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . James and John ask Jesus to give them the most important positions of glory in the future kingdom. It might surprise us to read that Jesus does not chide or scold them. Instead he seeks to purify their desires and looks for what is good underneath their egoistic demands. Yes, they can indeed have the glory that they seek, but they must first be close to him in his sacrificial love. This is how it is for all of us. We all have disordered desires for self-advancement. Underneath these is the authentic desire for true life. If we wish to be close to Jesus in his glory, then we must be close to him in the way we love and serve others. This is true glory! The worst aspect of the demand made by James and John is that they sought to choose their own positions in the future kingdom. But it is God who chooses that. We must receive what he gives us and follow him. It is communion to which we are called, not individual self-aggrandisement. The other apostles become indignant when they hear that James and John have made such a request, but their indignation is really a form of competitiveness. Jesus then addresses himself to all of them. “Do all of you wish to be great? Do you all wish to have glory? That is good! It is not a bad desire in itself. But if you wish to have real glory, then put yourselves at the service of others. If you wish to be great, then become the slave of others. It is love and service that gives glory. It is self-transcendence that makes us great. It is the overcoming of our egos that makes us wonderful.” This authentic glory is buried within our disordered search for human glory. Let us allow ourselves to be annihilated by this authentic glory revealed in the Gospel for Sunday.

The life that Jesus offers us is a life of love and service to others

On this twenty-ninth Sunday of the year, we hear the announcement of Christ’s way, his very mode of being: “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life in ransom for many”. These words are so important. They reveal the meaning of the life of Christ and the meaning of all of our lives. We are all born to love and serve others. If there is no-one who is not happy on our account, then our life has no meaning. We feel contented when we are of use to others, and we suffer when we feel irrelevant.

James and John ask for greatness. Jesus does not dismiss their request but instead seeks to focus on the good that is buried underneath the egoistic exterior

These words of Jesus are illuminating, but they come in response to something which, on the face of it, betrays a very different attitude. James and John come to Jesus and tell him they have a request. Jesus asks them what it is that they desire. They ask if they can sit on his left and on his right when he enters into his glory. It is important to note that Jesus does not respond with indignation to this request for importance and greatness. He does not say, “What a terrible thing you are asking me for!” Rather he seeks in this distorted desire a core that is good. Within every desire of the human heart, even those desires that are wayward and destructive, there is the good desire for life. This internal core of every desire may well be tiny but it is always there and it is something healthy. This is the part that must be conserved.

Jesus leads James and John to a purer desire for greatness. This greatness does not involve having a prominent position above others, but having the correct relationship with Jesus. In other words, true glory involves union with Jesus in his self-sacrificial love

In fact, Jesus says, “You do not know what you are asking for”. He tries to lead them to a correct awareness of what is good in their desire. “Can you drink the chalice that I drink?” In other words, if you wish to be associated with me in my glory then you must be immersed in me in the fullest sense. You must be baptised in the baptism that I undertake; you must live the kind of self-giving that I live. The two brothers reply, “Yes, we can do that!” This presumption on their part that they would be able to follow Christ is not mistaken! Rather, it is sound. We can indeed follow Christ, but maybe not in the way that we expect or would like to. In this exchange, we see how Jesus saves what is good from the question put to him by James and John. He purifies their request and transforms it into a form of relationship with him. If they wish their request to be granted, then they must drink what he drinks, immerse themselves in the kind of life that he is immersed in.

The worst aspect of the demand made by James and John is that they seek to choose something which only God can choose

Jesus then affirms that they will indeed drink his cup and be immersed in his baptism. This is the call of every Christian. For each of us, there are moments in life when we must face this baptism of self-renunciation. Let us hope that we will all be ready for such moments. James and John will indeed be ready when this future moment comes. We are all on the journey into the future when we will have the opportunity to drink this chalice. Jesus, however, cannot promise James and John that they will sit on his right and on his left. There is to be no favouritism of that sort. The Lord is calling us into communion, where everyone takes his proper place, the place where each one of us will attain greatest happiness. And we will be happy when we go where the Lord is leading us. This is what is missing in the question of James and John! This is the element of their question that is most distorted. They wish to choose something that can be chosen only by God. There are many such things in life that we cannot choose but must instead receive and welcome from the Lord.

The search for human glory is disordered, but within it there is the genuine desire for life. True life and real glory come, not from promoting oneself, but annihilating oneself with Christ for others

The other apostles are indignant that James and John have made such a request, but their indignation is really a form of competitiveness. They are annoyed that the brothers have tried to usurp something that they themselves may have wished for. Jesus then addresses himself to all of the apostles. “Do all of you wish to be great? Do you all wish to have glory? That is good! It is not a bad desire in itself. But if you wish to have real glory, then put yourselves at the service of others. If you wish to be great, then become the slave of others. It is love and service that gives glory. It is self-transcendence that makes us great. It is the overcoming of our egos that makes us wonderful.” This is what brings us to the fullness of communion with Christ. What remains, what endures, is not the capacity to impose oneself upon others, but the capacity to love, to be close to others, to be of service. This is authentic glory. It is a glory that is buried within our disordered search for human glory. Let us allow ourselves to be annihilated by this authentic glory revealed in the Gospel for Sunday.

October 14^th 2018. 28^th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

GOSPEL: Mark 10:17-30

(Translation of a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio)

_________________________________________________________________________

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel.

GOSPEL                                    Mark 10:17-30

Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, ‘Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must not bring false witness; You must not defraud; Honour your father and mother.’ And he said to him, ‘Master, I have kept all these from my earliest days.’ Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, ‘There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!’ The disciples were astounded by these words, but Jesus insisted, ‘My children,’ he said to them, ‘how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were more astonished than ever. ‘In that case’ they said to one another ‘who can be saved?’ Jesus gazed at them. ‘For men’ he said ‘it is impossible, but not for God: because everything is possible for God.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Jesus tells the rich young man that he can have life in the fullest sense if he keeps the commandments. The young man replies that he already keeps the commandments, thus implying that simple observance of rules does not give him life. This brings us to the crux of this Gospel: what kind of relationship must we have with God if that relationship is to bestow life in the fullest sense? Clearly, keeping commandments (as the young man has done) is not enough. The answer is provided by Jesus. Jesus looks at the young man with love and tells him to renounce his possessions and follow him. This is what Jesus wants from us: a relationship of love. If we love someone, then we do not say to them, “I love you to this extent only. There are certain things that I have that you cannot share. There are certain things to which I am attached, and I am not willing to give up these attachments for you”. The relationship with Jesus must be total if it is to be authentic. This is what Jesus is saying to the young man. The young man simply keeps the rules but is not attached to God. He is too attached to his possessions. If we do not serve God then we will serve something else. If we do not draw life from God then we will try to draw it from somewhere else. We are all attached to our physical well-being, our physical possessions, our esteem in the eyes of others. We try to draw life from these things and they are obstacles to our drawing life from God. Jesus looks at us with love and asks us to renounce all these lesser things, entering instead into a radical relationship of attachment to him.

“Inheritance” for the people of Israel referred to a positive condition of life here and now

This Sunday’s Gospel recounts the important story of the rich young man who is invited to follow the Lord in a radical way. The first reading is from the Book of Wisdom where we are told that riches are nothing compared to the gift of wisdom. The life of God cannot be compared to any of the goods of this world. The young man in the Gospel asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. In the Old Testament, the word “inheritance” referred to the possession of the land that was distributed among the twelve tribes of Israel by Joshua. To have an inheritance in this sense referred to participation in the possession of a gift that had been bestowed upon the people of Israel. The term “inheritance” thus always referred to a state of life that someone enjoyed here and now and not simply in the next life, a state that was not threatened by trivial things in this life.

The crux of the Gospel is this: How do we go beyond mere obedience to the commandments towards living a true state of authentic relationship with God?

The young man addresses Jesus as “good”. Jesus replies that no one is good except God alone. Then he tells the young man that he must keep the commandments and he lists them explicitly. In other words, Jesus is saying that the relationship that is due to God is one of obedience, trust and abandonment of oneself to God through participation in this covenant with Moses in which the commandments were given. This is life, Jesus is saying, and life involves a relationship of love with God and neighbour. The young man replies that he is already doing these things, but it is clear that they are not giving him life! They are simply things that he does and they do not take him beyond the mere actions themselves. Here we are at the crux of the issue of what it is that transports us from our own life here below to the life of God. Jesus looks at him, loves him and says “Give everything you have to the poor and come follow me”. The fact that Jesus looks at him indicates that here Jesus is calling the young man to a direct personal relationship with him. In the psalms we implore the Lord to show us his face. A look can be more or less personal but the Gospel tells us that Jesus looks on the young man with love. Love is the key which explains the meaning of what Jesus says.

If we truly love God then we will not hold part of ourselves back. If we are truly attached to God then we will not be attached to possessions. If we truly serve God then we will not serve another.

The young man is to sell what he owns, give the money to the poor and follow him. Then he will have treasure in heaven. If a person truly loves another then the relationship has a global dimension. If a young man said to his girlfriend, “I love you, but you can’t have access to any of the things that I possess”, then the girl would hardly be too impressed. When we love another, then we place our entire lives at the other’s disposal. A father cannot be a true father if he does not place his entire being at the disposal of his children. Brothers and sisters cannot have a true fraternal relationship if they do not do likewise. Jesus asks that I place myself entirely at his disposal because he knows that if I do not give my life to him then I will give it to something else. Nowadays our workplaces often ask for this kind of total dedication to our careers. Other things in life – physical well-being, the esteem of others – also demand this kind of total involvement. If we do not give ourselves totally to Jesus then we will give ourselves to something else. If we do not serve him, then we will serve something else. This Gospel is calling for an extraordinary leap of a Paschal kind. The leap might seem difficult, but it is difficult only from a human perspective. It is indeed impossible for humans to give themselves in a total sense, but nothing is impossible for God. God can transform nothingness into being. He can teach us to love and to transform this nothingness into life.

We are asked to choose between life and death, between total attachment to God, or attachment to ourselves. It is the fear of losing what we possess that prompts us not to opt for God. Thus the possessions of the  rich young man are an obstacle to his relationship with Jesus. Similarly, our possessions, our attachment to our well-being, our public image, our possession, are obstacles to our entering into a relationship of life with Jesus

The story of the rich young man is not only for saintly individuals nor for people living the consecrated life. It is relevant for anyone who wants to have an authentic relationship with God and an authentic relationship with other people. Only the Holy Spirit can free us from our terror of losing ourselves. The rich young man finds himself in this dizzying splendid situation of being able to choose the path of authentic life. We too have this scandalously sublime freedom of being able to say no to God, but he gives us the grace to say yes. We can accept or decline. Often it is fear that causes us to decline. We have a fear of losing something, and we are only afraid of losing it because we are convinced that we possess it. Thus, our possessions become our tyrant. To become radically attached to Christ we need to attain the liberty to give up these possessions.

October 7^th 2018. Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

GOSPEL Mark 10:2-16

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .

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GOSPEL Mark 10:2-16

The Pharisees approached Jesus 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 a husband 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 Jesus 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."

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them,
but the disciples rebuked them.
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,
"Let the children come to me;
do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these.
Amen, I say to you,
whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it."
Then he embraced them and blessed them,
placing his hands on them.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . Would you try to climb the Himalayas with tennis shoes? No, but how often people in our world try to embark on the journey of marriage without being remotely equipped in the right way! In the Gospel this Sunday, the Scribes want to talk about how to escape from marriage once it has gone wrong. Jesus, instead, wants to return to the ultimate foundation of marriage, a matter of the heart. He takes a child, embraces it and places it in the centre of the discussion. We must first of all embrace Christ in a childlike way before we can embrace each other. The relationship with Jesus is the basis of the indissolubility of marriage and the eternity of all our other relationships. The problem is that we seek to undertake marriage on the basis of hormones or passions, but these come to an end all too quickly. If we try to found our relationships on the capabilities of our own flesh, then we will find that it is a very fragile foundation indeed. And if our marriage is in difficulty, then trying to straighten out some of its superficial features can only have very limited success. The solution to marriage problems is to return to the origin of marriage: God’s love for us, his forgiveness, and his call to us to love and forgive each other. This is the true source of the indissolubility of marriage.

The first reading recounts the creation of man and woman, with Eve being created from the side of Adam. The piercing of Jesus’ side on the cross recalls this event. Jesus gives birth to his body the Church by his self-giving on the cross.

The first reading recounts the marvellous creation of humanity. The Lord gives man and woman the gift of being bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and of being united. Here we have the image of the flesh of man being opened in the place where the heart is located, the rib being taken from the side. This image will eventually become Christological with Jesus on the cross who makes us into the Church when his side is pierced. He gives us himself in this moment and we become one heart with him, one flesh, drinking his blood and becoming his body.

The Scribes merely want to know the rules for legitimately breaking up a marriage, but Jesus wants to talk about our hearts

This reading prepares us for the Gospel. The Scribes pose a question to Jesus on matrimony in order to put him in difficulty. The issue is not whether the man or woman love each other or not. Rather they want to know if divorce is admissible. This issue concerns an area in which man and woman are at their most vulnerable, when there is a rupture between them at their most intimate level. But the Scribes speak of the issue in a purely abstract form, referring to bills of divorce and dismissal. Jesus responds in a surprising way by speaking of the hardness of our hearts. These norms, he says, only came about because Moses had to deal with hearts of stone, hearts that were not moved by love. When love is absent then we must confine ourselves to taking about rules and regulations. What is left is something dry and without life.

The foundation of marriage is God’s love for us. A marriage that is built on human foundations is built on a very fragile basis indeed

Jesus asks us to return to the beginning, to the origin of things, and see with a different perspective. He can do this because he is taking humanity back to its original beauty, to the fulfilment of the original promise. Humanity falters, both in matrimony and in other endeavours, because it seeks to depend on its own strengths, its own abilities. When we look at the tragic state of matrimony in our world, we can justly ask, “How connected are our marriages with the original plan of God for man and woman?” Marriages that fail often begin from the wrong starting point. The original vision of God is not even remotely taken into consideration by the spouses before they embark on their life together. People present themselves for marriage without being properly equipped, like someone starting to climb the Himalayas with tennis shoes. Couples marry on the basis of hormonal impulses, on the basis of passions that come to an end so quickly! We are not talking here about trying to straighten out or fix marital problems but rather to return to the very origins of what marriage is about. It is not right to admit couples to the sacrament of marriage if they are disconnected from this fundamental reality. Marriage is a call from God and a work of God. When a couple marries, it must be because God is calling them to marry each other. If they are not confident of this, then on what basis can the marriage be built? How many opportunities they will have to fail! If the relationship is founded on their flesh alone, then it will not be sufficient because human flesh is weak.

If a marriage is in difficulty, then it must return to its ultimate foundation: the personal love of God for each of us

The Gospel continues with the story of the child who is welcomed and embraced by Jesus. A married couple must be embraced by Jesus from the very start. I must be embraced by Jesus if I am going to be able to embrace a spouse, embrace my mission. For what is true of marriage is also true of our mission as Christians in general. We need to take our point of departure from our personal relationship with Jesus and cultivate this intimate bond with him. When a married couple finds itself in crisis, then it must seek to begin again from this embrace with Christ, instead of seeking, solely, to adjust more superficial aspects of their relationship. It is only when a couple has been regenerated by the unconditional love of Christ, then the spouses can begin to love each other unconditionally. No one of us can bring to fruition that which the cross of Christ alone has achieved. Never let us forget that the indissolubility of marriage is a gift of the cross of Christ. It did not exist in Jewish culture, nor in the cultures of Greece or Rome. It is a gift of Christianity, but a gift that comes from his cross and resurrection, not some pretence regarding the innate capabilities of human nature. Man, by himself, is not capable of this indissolubility. We can try as hard as we can, but we will never succeed in a complete sense. This Sunday let us listen to the Gospel and become this child embraced by Christ. This is the origin and the foundation, that which was from the beginning, the source of our hope for building marriages and all other relationships. Indissolubility refers to the eternity of our relationships, the capacity to remain united because we have been forgiven, and to forgive each other in turn.