predication.net

When we look carefully around us, but especially in our own lives, we must admit that we talk a lot but do little according to our words. Such behavior is not honorable for a person of faith. We often hear critical voices saying, “Preach water and drink wine!” And elsewhere, “Physician, heal thyself first!” It is hard to hear essential words when it concerns our egoism when our weaknesses are pleasing to us.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus attacked the teachers of the Scriptures and the Pharisees very sharply in the Gospel, “Everything they do, they do only to be seen by men…” (Mt. 23:5).
They are proud and two-faced. They speak beautiful words but do not want to lift a finger to live up to what they say. Christ condemns and threatens them with punishment: ‘He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23:12).

Let us pause and consider these words of the Lord Jesus, “He who exalts himself shall be humbled” (Mt. 23:12).

Proud Lucifer. From the very beginning of the creation of the world, this truth was affirmed that God hates the proud. What a great position Lucifer had! Filled with pride that he was worth something, he said to God, “Nonserviam!” – “I will not serve!” God punished Lucifer’s pride. Archangel Michael will cast him out into eternal damnation.
Remember also Goliath’s battle with David. God opposes the proud. A mighty Philistine stands before the camp of the Israelites. Aware of his power and filled with pride, he blunts the blasphemous words of his adversaries. Here he is confronted by the young, inexperienced David, who puts all his hope in the hands of God and not in arms. He humbly asks God for help and victory. And the proud Goliath fell, and with his fall, the arrogance and pride of the Philistines crumbled.
Thirdly, something from history on the theme: God is opposed to the proud. Napoleon came quickly to Moscow. He was overcome by pride. He ordered coins minted to commemorate the victory. On one side was his image, and on the other was the inscription: Thine is the sky, and mine is the earth – level with God. He sent one of these coins to the Tsar. The latter had an inscription on Napoleon’s head: Mine is the whip, thine is the back. These were prophetic words, for disaster had come upon Napoleon.
God hates the proud. We can find enough examples not only in history but also in today’s world, perhaps even in our own private lives.
The lesson: Pride always turns against the proud man.

“He who humbles himself will be exalted” (Mt. 23:12).

We see a great model in the Virgin Mary. God chose the Immaculate One to be the mother of His Son. We see her humility at the angel’s annunciation when the Archangel Gabriel tells her that God has chosen her: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). She, the handmaid, does not feel worthy that the Highest should honor her with such grace. She knows, however, that she cannot oppose the will of God, and therefore she says: “… be it done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). This humility was highly commended. She became the bride of the Holy Spirit, the mother of the Son of God.

We see another pattern in John the Baptist. God gives His love to the humble. The people of Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside came to John to listen to him and be baptized with the baptism of repentance. But John remains humble. He knows that he must humble himself. He says: “I am not worthy to untie his shoestring” (Lk 3:16). And this John Jesus singles out, “… among those who are born of women, there is no one greater than John” (Lk 7:28).

We see this quality of humility and lowliness in all the saints. Let us remember at least one: John Mary Vianney, parish priest of Ars. One of the most pitiful of priests. He becomes a priest only by a kind of grace because he does not pass the exams. His humility made him famous all over the world. People come from all over Ars to confess to John. John’s humility has defeated more than one proud soul.
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. The great man is humble! Pride displeases God because it is a lie. Nor does pride displease men, for it humbles others and exalts self.

Great men have indeed been characterized by humility. Let us remember the scientist of world renown – Pasteur. When he died, his collaborator Dr. Roux said: “Thousands of mothers are grateful to him for the life of their children.” He’s the one who discovered the rabies serum. Pasteur was a truly learned man but also a humble one. And not just him.

God opposes the proud, but gives His grace to the humble.
Let us pray: O God, give us the spirit of humility, that we may be aware of our human misery, of our sins, that we may exalt ourselves above no one, and, conscious of our unworthiness, glorify your holy name.

John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael (or Bartholomew) – these are the first fortunate ones called to follow Jesus.

And everyone is called. Above all, everyone is called by God to take their appropriate place in the world: as a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, a clerk, a worker – it is all a question of vocation; it is a call from God.
There are as many as thirty-three thousand different vocations. God determines our work through such or other interests, hobbies, and abilities, through such or other health and material conditions. God honors some people with a particularly noble vocation: priestly or religious: He speaks to them as to Nathanael: “You shall see greater things than these… You shall see heaven open.” The Son of God was also called to his work of salvation.

God had our vocation even before we were born; more than that, He gave us birth for that reason – for the sake of the work and the plan to be carried out on earth. We have free will – it is up to God and us whether we open ourselves to the treasures God wants to bestow on us.

There are more or less noble vocations, more or less complicated; one thing is sure: fields are not accessible. God is not satisfied with cheap effects; every work is a path to heights. We often hear: that God asks hard things of me: sacrifice, faithfulness, forgiveness, perseverance in adversity, patience in sickness. But let us realize: The Lord Jesus does not speak to his called ones: “Go!” but says: “Follow me.”

When He calls a man, Christ goes before him, shows and shows the way, strengthens by His presence, and encourages by His example; the called one follows in His footsteps. The call did not end with a one-time call, but every hour the Lord calls us anew, from one task to another, and these tasks no one performs for us.

I am created to do what no one but me was made to do. I have my place in God’s plans, a place that I alone occupy. I have my mission. Therefore, I am needed by God in my area – just as the archangel is required in his (H. Newman).

The world and times change, but something remains. The birth of a new person and the reception of the sacrament of marriage with a proper wedding feast are two beautiful moments in the lives of people who take life seriously. And indeed, each of us has been invited to such occasions or at least had the opportunity to see the small card inserted into the wedding announcement, engraved in golden letters with the inscription: We cordially invite you…

Jesus’ words are also a beautiful invitation to all of us to the daily, or at least weekly, a banquet of love that is the Holy Mass. Every Mass prepares our eternal encounter with God at the last royal wedding in heaven. Indeed the thought of the parable has not escaped your mind: ‘The wedding is prepared, but those invited were not worthy of it. Go therefore to the crossroads, and call all whom you find to the wedding” (Mt. 22:8-9). I emphasized: all of them! Why?

Because God wants every man to attain the salvation of his immortal soul, but, as we see from the Gospel, not everyone has taken the same attitude towards God’s call, and a positive one at that. As the members of the Jewish nation were invited to salvation. Because they rejected Him through their fault, the Gentiles were also invited. God leaves a free will and allows deciding freely. But too much concern for earthly things can so preoccupy a person that he has no time for higher interests and loses his salvation. That is only because of an undirected love for temporal goods. Many times today’s man has no room for prayer and worship in his busy schedule. However, an authentic Christian must and should have time for the things of God. He should have the love and strength to sacrifice even material values, if necessary, for God’s interests. Jesus’ call is urgent: “Go out quickly and … Bring …” (Lk 14:21). Do we priests, you parents and educators, consider it our primary mission to invite him warmly to the banquet, or are we merely relaxed stewards in our vocation? Are we able to tell those who stand on the sidelines that we are also inviting them to joyful fellowship, or are we perhaps presenting Christianity to them as a set of unpleasant laws and obligations?

Attention! The invitation is not a compulsion! Some naive Christians mistakenly believe that perhaps God will send cruel messengers of misfortune, sickness, great trouble, or death to individuals. Or that He will send wars, earthquakes, contagious diseases, and other calamities upon the world to force individuals and the world to repent. God always warns and admonishes by these signs, sometimes punishing, but never forcing! Perhaps the chief error on our part in neglecting salvation is the inverted order of life’s values. It ignores the higher gifts of God by overvaluing the lower things of God’s creation. It is disobedience to the words of the Lord: “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God… And all these things shall be added to you” (Mt. 6:33) is a reprehensible disregard for God and His call. When God calls, everything else must give way, even sound and holy worldly things. How many excuses have I sought so far to be able to refuse God’s call to prayer, to repentance, to the Eucharist, to charity?

Which of these five categories of people would I be likely to fall into? Distinguish well!

Category 1: Indifferent Christians
They are not fundamentally opposed to the Church or religion, but supposedly, they have no time or interest in “such things.” They have other things to worry about and much to do with family, business, health care, rest… This is a vast group these days of constant hustle and bustle.

2nd category: Superficial Christians
In the parable, they are described as men without wedding garments (cf. Mt 22:11-13). These do not care about true inner conviction. They include the so-called Sunday Christians who act like pagans on weekdays. They are dry branches on the vine of Christ.

Category 3: Militant wicked
These are the unfortunate and pronounced enemies of the Church who are portrayed as the murderers of the hosts in the parable (cf. Mt. 22:6-7). The Gospel, according to their beliefs, is the opium of humanity. Christian morality, in turn, is a weakening of national forces. Faith is said to be the obscurantists’ power tool in keeping society subject to the ruling classes. In the fight against religion, every means is suitable to them: deceptive words, a tendentious press, anti-religious laws, and the police. Their primary method is to etch ecclesiastical unity and trust in the Church’s leaders through Christian collaborators and the tactical alternation of corset and condescension. Their goal is the destruction of Christianity.

Category 4: People – Christians longing for salvation
These are people dear to God and to other people who are aware of their unworthiness and gratefully accept God’s invitation. For example, prisoners secretly took communion wrapped in waste paper or acylpyrine packets while working in the concentration camps. They risked the corvée, solitary confinement, hunger, and perhaps even their lives. Why did they not invoke the right to preserve life or health? Why do night-shift workers, musicians, cloakroom attendants, bus and train drivers, servers, police officers, and other night workers go to morning Mass in some cities, even though they could easily excuse themselves for needing necessary rest? Because they have understood the words of Scripture, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” (Lk 14:15).

Category 5: Happy people – Christians
This is the last group of people rich in love and ready for the wedding feast…

Let us unite, then, in a correct view of Jesus’ invitation and take upon ourselves the role of building scaffolding, as Pope Benedict XVI speaks of it. Scaffolding may not be the goal of building, but a great building cannot be made without scaffolding. There is no reason, therefore, for the individual parts of the scaffolding to be proud and ambitious. They must serve and nothing else. Only in this way will we be able to take the right attitude toward God’s invitation to the royal wedding in heaven. And if you ever hold in your hands a card with the words: We cordially invite you…, remember the terms of the Gospel, “The wedding is ready…” (Mt. 22:8) and do not refuse the invitation to the final gathering, for it will effectively be the only and eternal encounter with Almighty God.

In every good deed, our human activity is connected to action, God’s will. Indeed, this is not how two horses with equal strength are harnessed to the same cart. A better picture is the hand that writes with a pen. The writing then corresponds to both the pen and the hand. The cell, however, is a dead instrument. The human will is free. Therefore, it must submit to the direction of God’s hand freely. “Perfection,” as St. Vincent of Pauly writes, ” is that we unite our will with the will of God in such a way that his and our will are one will and will not. St. Anselm says that the joy of the angels in heaven is therefore complete, that they may unreservedly submit to the will of God. We humans on earth can offer God’s will more or less ideally.
The booklet Following Christ speaks of complete surrender, “resignation,” but makes no secret of the fact that there are few who sincerely experience it. Various degrees are therefore mentioned.

At the first stage are those who have decided to submit to God’s will, wherever it is evident from the commandment. They do not want to sin. Already this decision is a great thing and not easily accomplished. And yet it is still far from the perfect surrender expressed in the words of Christ, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. (Lk. 23:46); Father, not my will, but your will be done! (Lk 22,42).
By distinguishing explicit commands from so-called counsels, Catholic moral scholarship has also acknowledged the incompleteness of written moral laws. They are only the primary fundamental directives. A living relationship with God is more profound and more personal. We pray: that Thy will be done! If we say this from the fullness of our hearts, we are reconciled to all God does in the world and how He intervenes in our lives. St. Cassian writes that no one can
pray for the Father from the depths of his soul if he does not believe that they are equally for our good, the things that do not go well with us as those that God cares more for our salvation than we care for ourselves.
It is, therefore, preferable to conceive of God’s will not as law, which only enjoins and forbids, but rather as a good mother who cares for the child’s every step. We are increasingly convinced of what St. Augustine writes: “Do  outwardly nothing that the Almighty does not will; be it permitted, it to happen, or he does it.” The moral conclusion from this truth is the holy detachment that the Gospel commends: Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, neither 0 your flesh, what you will eat. Thy life is no more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them (Mal. 6:25-26).

Not everything that is solemn and grand is pleasing to God, and God wants it that way. In the Gospel, we heard how God quietly chose a simple man for a significant event in salvation history (cf. Luke 1:26-38).

The Gospel takes us from the event with Zechariah in the temple of Jerusalem to an unassuming town in Galilee, which was the northernmost part of Palestine. The people called this area the land of the Gentiles – because of the number of Gentiles who settled there. Isaiah prophesied that the Lord would magnify the seashore, Transjordan, the Galilee of the Gentiles. This is where God’s message is coming – to this region and to the little town of Nazareth, which was historically insignificant. Jesus’ contemporary asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Perhaps this insignificance is why God began his work of salvation `here.’ According to the Gospel, the message to Nazareth is brought by the same messenger as before to Zechariah in Jerusalem – Gabriel. This time, however, the messenger does not come to a priest but comes to a simple woman `the virgin betrothed to a man of the line of David named Joseph. And the virgin’s name was Mary” (Luke 1:27).

In Nazareth, mysterious promises begin to be fulfilled. God sends his message to the Virgin. Of this Virgin, we know that she is betrothed to a man. The betrothed man is Joseph, who comes from the line of David. The Lord God arranged things so that Mary’s son – before the law, the son of Joseph, could be a descendant of David’s royal lineage according to the law. The Messiah was to be a descendant of David.

There is a tendency today for people to seek sensationalism, and they often go to great lengths for it. Many people go to places of pilgrimage to see some revelation. But they are disappointed because they have not seen any disclosure. Although they have seen nothing, or even if they have seen something, which may not yet be a revelation, but a suggestion, they immediately go to tell everyone they meet.
Let us try; though we may have some signs and apparitions, which is not impossible, we can confide them to a person who will understand us and keep them to himself. It may also happen that we confess to someone who will look upon us as foolish and make us look stupid in front of others.

Let us live in retreat and suddenness, as Our Lady did. … God will find us as he found her.

I once traveled with a priest to a small village remote from the civilized world. From this village came two deacons and one divine. As we were riding in the car, I said: “This village has the Lord God’s back.” The priest driving me said: “You see, even though this village is completely cut off from the world, God has found people to serve Him here too.”

Let us not seek incredible sensations around us, for God does not like that, but let us be more concerned with the little things, for out of these grow great things that will please our Lord.

Have property, and be secure. All this is very necessary nowadays. It is specific material security in the life of each one of us, which is essential, but not the most important. We often put all our hope and trust in security. But can it make us truly happy? Are we satisfied with our lives? Do we feel secure?

In our pursuit of possessions, we typically forget about ourselves, our neighbors, and, last but not least, God. We have no time for anything. We do not have time for our possessions.
Has become a god. It has wholly darkened our minds. But the problem is not that we have great possessions. The problem is that we don’t know how to use the valuable goods that God has given us properly. They go wrong whenever man makes them objects of worship and subjects himself to them. But these gifts can also be holy when we turn them into instruments for doing good in the Christian role of justice and love.

Material goods are themselves goods that are meant to benefit not only us but the whole society in which we live. Man can either have God as his goal, which he achieves even through material things if he uses them as a means to earn salvation, or he can set up riches as his goal, with multiple desires for luxury, comfort, and possession of things, and thereby exclude himself from the true joy of possessing God.

There are essential and less essential or secondary things in life. It was important for the passengers of the Titanic to know that the ship was sinking. Many laughed at this at first and blithely played on with their cards. But after a while, it became fatal to them. They forgot they were on a ship.
Our life is also like one big ship where we must not forget that our life has a mission, a goal. Our goal is to be Christ. On Him, we must focus all our hope and love. He is the actual value that determines our whole life because no other value surpasses it, and in no additional value, there is no salvation.

Those who set their hearts on earthly goods will miss the opportunity to meet the Lord. Jesus reminds us, “You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Mt. 6:24). Thus, man’s true goal cannot be merely self-enrichment and the accumulation of goods. This would lead to a great impoverishment of our person. And perhaps even to the loss of salvation. Moderation in the possession and enjoyment of goods gives the Christian both human and supernatural maturity.

Man is also to sanctify himself through the use of these material gifts. Therefore, let us thank God for all He has given us, but also ask for the gift of grace so that we may know how to use these material goods and incorporate them into God’s great plan of salvation.

Introduction.
The Roman writer Aulus Gelasius wrote about his experience on the way from Cassiopeia to Brundusia. On the ship was a philosopher from Athens who promised to teach his students to despise death for money. While the boat was sailing, a storm broke out. The writer observed how the travelers behaved. They all screamed as the ship was tossed back and forth in the great waves. The philosopher did not yell. His face, however, was white as a wall. He was shaking like a leaf. He, too, was afraid of death. Even today, many charlatans come with various techniques and promises; we teach them to eliminate the fear of death. We don’t have to seek help from these frauds. Our faith gives us hope that death is not the downfall of life. We are aware of all this on today’s feast of the Assumption of Mary.
Homily.
The apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives after the Ascension of Jesus. They all prayed with one accord, together with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers./ Apost. 1,14/. The Holy Scripture does not remember Mary then. However, there is much in the Christian tradition. She participated daily in the Holy Mass and visited the places where her Son suffered and died. After the death of Jesus, she lived for 23 years. St. Paul writes that death is the punishment for sin. Since Mary was without sin, neither original nor personal, she should not taste death. But she wanted to be conformed to Jesus Christ, who also died. If we accept it as God’s will, death is the expression of great humility, the opportunity to gain great graces. Our death is often preceded by various illnesses, pains, and memory loss. This was not the case with St. Mary. With her, death came like a silent sleep in which her soul separated from her body. St. Jerome writes that he saw the body of St. Mary buried in the Gethsemane Garden. God called the apostles to Jerusalem when the time of Mary’s departure was approaching. They witnessed her death, and they buried her body. Only the apostle Thomas was absent. When he came on the third day, the apostles opened her tomb to show him Mary’s body for the last time. But in the tomb, the body was not. The apostles were convinced that Jesus had taken the body of St. Mary to heaven. This news also gives us the possibility to see further and deeper. Let us not see death as a ruthless, brutal law. Let us also see its second shore. Death is liberation only when a man is prepared for death, when he dies in peace, when he gives his soul to God. Who thinks that death lives well and dies well? At the world championship in parachuting, a French parachutist’s parachute did not open. He fell to the ground and died. His wife ran to him and called for a priest. Fortunately, among the spectators was a priest who spoke French. He gave the dying man absolution, the last anointing. The spouse was satisfied. She did not call the doctor because it was already in vain. She did not pull out the hair from despair. She did what was most necessary. Both of them were deeply believing people. That is why the dying man received the grace that opened the way to eternal life. We must not flee from death, but accept and prepare for it. Let us ask St. Mary to intercede for us with her Son, and so ask for many graces for us for the hour of our death.

God created the world. However, the Catechism adds: “He preserves it and governs it.” Theologians say that governing and preserving the world is a continuation of creation. But even though this is a human way of speaking, God is not in time. Therefore, it is not at all conceivable that he could first create the world and then walk away and leave it to its fate. On the contrary, he is in it constantly, present by his providence. But even this must not be imagined too humanly.
Primitive man is afraid of evil gods or spirits. He tries to appease them by sacrificing or avoiding them. Science and culture usually rid people of this superstitious terror of the unknown, mysterious beings. But it does inspire fear, a new one. It shows man his helplessness before the inexorable laws of nature. This certainty that governs the world has given rise to physics, technology, to all science. We don’t have to invoke the gods of the river to keep them from destroying our bridge; we need only calculate how much water it can take. The doctor assures us that we can live in peace. These laws make us, but they will convince us that we will die at a certain age, that it is impossible nothing can be done because it is a natural inevitability.

Day by day, we are getting to know better and better the laws of nature. It is advantageous; we can avoid any necessity, as we can prevent water when we know where it flows. Daily,  we are discovering that there are more necessities than we have thought of. There are the laws of heredity, the influence of climate, diet, climate, environment, we compile statistics of mortality, development, and so on. What does an individual mean in these numbers? Where is human freedom? There seems to be no place in this world; it is too disciplined and scientifically rigorous. At the end of antiquity, when the ancients suddenly transformed Greek and Roman gods into natural forces, the world’s inevitability and lawfulness were given a unique name: fate, fatum (hence the word fatalism). It was popularly said that even the gods fought against it in vain. Fate is the law of the world, as immutable as the movement of the stars in the sky. There remains no other but to resign oneself to it (to submit to the direction of the heavenly bodies, as the astrologers thought).
The writings of the Church Fathers often treatises Against Fate (cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa) or On the Divine Providence (Theodore of Cyrus). For there are immutable laws in nature. There is no need to deny this fact. But somewhere behind them, deep in the mystery of God’s life, is the one from which they have their source and which we know to be our Father who is in heaven (Mt 6:9), who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass of the field (Mt 6:26 and 30), and who has even assured us: Ask, and you shall receive! (Mt 7:7). God’s providence is a profound mystery; without revelation, it would hardly be solvable. It is, however, a positive message that transforms the evil fate, the alien and harsh law of the world, into the warm fatherly hand that guides us. Spiritual writers, however, do not engage in speculative explanations of dogma. Full of enthusiasm, they proclaim its practical implication for life: to entrust ourselves to God’s providence and to trust it fully.
Similarly, they speak of perfect “union with God’s will.” “Perfection is in this,” writes St. Vincent of Pauly, “that we unite our will with God’s will in such a way that his will and ours will are nothing but one will and unwillingness.  St. Augustine says it is easy for a rational man: ‘No-‘ For nothing happens in the world that the Almighty does not will; either he admits it, or himself does it.” St. Cassian adds that
we cannot even pray to the Father if we do not believe that everything that meets us is for our good. Faith in Providence, however, must not lead to passivity or inactivity. On the contrary, it should be an expression of inner freedom and trust so that we may cooperate more and more effectively with the God who guides and helps us. Bossuet writes that in devotion to the will of God, two elements. One is ” Believing that God takes care of everything.” But the other says: “Therefore we must act and be vigilant not to tempt God.” Similarly, P. Surin advises, “Let us let God act when he acts! But it is not right to leave everything to God when He wants us to do something ourselves.”

I read about a dog that also died after his master died. They found him at the grave of his landlord. Indeed, reading/listening to this news made many smiles. But this dog can be a role model and example to us in loyalty.

The word “loyalty” has not lost its meaning even today. We see loyalty being paid to those who have worked in one company for a certain period, etc.
But recently, we have seen the unpleasant thing that the word ‘fidelity’ is losing its beauty and meaning, whether in fidelity to marital or parental love. It would seem as if the terms we heard in the Gospel from the mouth of Christ Himself no longer apply or were “reserved only for the elect.”

What did the Lord Jesus mean to say to the Apostles when He said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me” (Mt 19:14)?

It is a severe problem. Even the Pharisees realized this, which is why they raised this question to Jesus, whether a man may put away his wife.
Jesus answered historically, but also theologically. Let’s try to catch the flow of his explanation.
First, let’s dwell on the historical question. The Pharisees appealed to Moses and his permission regarding the bill of divorce. But they interpreted it in their way. They reminded Jesus that there were cases where it was done quickly – the case of adultery. Jesus affirmed this but emphasized that these were the exceptions. Moses, burdened by the unusual circumstances of his life, especially while wandering in the wilderness, allowed the man to release the woman. However, the Lord Jesus immediately pointed out this was not the case initially. It was different from the beginning. When God created man and placed him in paradise, He then instituted a single marriage between a man and a woman, that is, one man and one woman, and this could not be abolished; therefore, He said: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Eph. 6:31), and he adds the explanation, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6).

The historical explanation of the Lord Jesus can be understood along the lines that something else is God’s commandments and human frailty and weakness. The Lord Jesus does not condemn human weakness, but if to say that man is only man but cannot change the eternal law of God. This binds all men for all time. Through this law, He wants to teach us that marriage is one indissoluble union.

The Church looks with great sorrow at broken and unhappy marriages and tries to help them as far as possible. However, it cannot change what God Himself has decided in His love and grace. He asks God for love and mercy for those who most need this reinforcement.

Theological response: The Lord Jesus sees the cure for this problem in the practice of only one virtue, and that is: LOVE.
Love is the perfect form of marriage. Those who seek strength in this virtue strengthen the marriage. Whoever is faithful to this love will be happy. Like everything in the world, love in marriage is subject to an inevitable evolution.
We distinguish four stages in love:

1. Love fiery as a volcano hot
This love wants more than it can and must always be at the beginning of a marriage. It is on it that marriage can be consummated. Such love is not just looking at oneself, but looking into oneself. It means knowing how to give of oneself.
St. Augustine expressed it beautifully with the stanza, “He who loves, gives. He who gives more loves more, and he who loves most gives most because he gives himself.” If spouses give of themselves, that is when they genuinely love each other.

2. Parental love
This love occurs when a baby comes into the family. Then follows a more effortless transfer of love from self to the child. The spouses look less at themselves and more at their love fruit. Then the object of unconditional love is the family. It will be lasting if it is built on this virtue.
Therefore, the question must be asked before marriage: am I in love with my fiancée? Do I genuinely love my family? Do I long for her? Do I want to have a family of my own? If so, then stay happy.

3. Love a man
We must expect that at that time, difficulties will come, and disagreements and inconveniences may reach, but if there is true love, it will overcome everything. At that time, we need to pray more for perseverance in love. God will surely hear such a prayer.

4. Mature love
We can compare this love to the setting sun. The sun is weaker, but it is there and continues. Then love shows great concern for the other partner’s good health and happiness. Such love anticipates thinking ahead and stops at how it would make the other party – the partner’s life easier. This is evidence of most healthful love in the fullest sense of the word.

Imagine a spacious Rex Hall in Turin that is crowded. A public debate on divorce is taking place. Several speakers have already taken their homes on the platform. The audience is divided into two groups: some favor divorce, others against it.
The Catholic speakers refer to the Gospel. One of the speakers speaks sharply against them. He says, what does this Jewish thinker of two thousand years ago think of imposing his outlived ideas on the people of the atomic age?
The assembly’s chairman interrupted the passionate speech: “Please, ten minutes have passed! I beg to speak next.”
Albert Prima, a young university student, has entered the debate. With a firm voice and shining eyes, he declares, “I believe in this Jesus Christ who came two thousand years ago to bring the message of truth! And I also believe in his Gospel because this truth is from God. Without it, our world would have long ago become a huge madhouse or a cage with wild beasts. As for divorce, I ask everyone here, “If you were to get married, would you rather marry a divorced woman or a woman who believes in Jesus Christ?” The roaring applause of the congregation rewarded the young student’s courage.
Would I also have the courage to witness Christ in this way?

Love is the best cure for all the ills and imperfections of married life. Therefore, when there is genuine love between spouses, there is no place for the word divorce. When there is a lack of it, a lack of the glue that binds families together, the cement that binds it together, the warmth that warms it, the twilight of family life sets in. And it is a matter of honor for every member of the family, partners, children, friends, and society to do everything we can to avoid such hopeless situations, prevent them, and fight against them.

The Church gives a proven and effective remedy for this: prayer. For we pray: … forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive our trespasses…
In an address to newlyweds, the Holy Father John Paul II said: “If your love is to come to a happy conclusion, pray daily for one another.”

Let us pray fervently to God today that there may be as few families as possible in our neighborhood where the sun of love will set, where the cloud of self-love and selfishness will overshadow them, so that our nation may always enjoy the happiness and love of our Christian families.