One of our readers recently asked us to address the emotional and spiritual effects of betrayal within a marriage. This is part one; part two will be posted tomorrow evening.
November 28, 2006
Let’s talk a bit about marriage and divorce. Some friends of mine, Richard and Colleen, were getting married and they proudly showed me their wedding bands. They asked me, “Do you see anything striking about them?” Around each band of gold was a series of triangles. I said, “They’re lovely, but what’s with all the triangles? Is that for the Holy Trinity?” They said, “Well…yes and no. We figure that at the top of the triangle is Jesus, and each of us is at one of the other two points, thus the closer we each draw to Jesus, who is Love itself, the closer we come together. And conversely the farther either of us gets from Him, the farther we get from one another.” Theirs was a lesson on marriage worth the price of admission. It says much, simply.
Jesus taught us that in the beginning man and woman were to become one flesh, and “what God joins together let no man put asunder.” Marriage is meant to be a school of love where the husband and wife are to learn how to die to self through their one flesh union and the grace of the sacrament of marriage. Thus, through the daily self-sacrifice for the other and for their children, should they have any, they become more and more like the author of all love, Jesus. And so, too, they draw ever closer together as they pour themselves out for one another. Sometimes along the way one spouse acts as the other’s cross, through one’s sinfulness. Sometimes one spouse plays Simon of Cyrene, helping the other with any cross he may have. The goal for marriage is first and foremost to help one another to get to heaven.
For all the above reasons, fidelity is part of the very nature of marriage. The prophet Malachi, in chapter 2:14 –16, speaks of God’s reaction to infidelity and divorce. “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord the God of Israel, ‘and covering one’s garments with violence. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless’” to the wife of your youth. When one or the other moves away from Jesus and his or her spouse and betrays the marriage, it is like a bomb going off in the house. Infidelity in marriage is so painful precisely because it goes against the nature of the relationship that ought to be exclusive. A consequent divorce rips asunder the one-flesh union, with all the shared emotional attachments and history. Anyone who has gone through such a dreadful experience, or walked others through it, knows that on a natural level alone it is a horrible thing. God hates it because He hates seeing His children suffer needlessly. It is for these reasons the Church tries its best to teach what marriage is meant to be and what the commitment calls for, so people are prepared well to live marriage out in its fullness and avoid the pain of divorce.
Many marriages that fall apart should have been avoided in the first place. Sometimes by tracing the history of the relationship, the Church even can find instances where the basic elements of a legitimate sacramental marriage were missing from the beginning. In these cases the Church says there never was a marriage, really, there was only a natural relationship between two people that was bound to break up. In other words, Jesus was never at the apex of the of the couple’s bond. That is the nature of an annulment. It says there never was a sacrament between these two people, for whatever reason.
All this being said, what does the Church say about a divorce one doesn’t ask for? It first says what you already know. It is a tragedy. You feel it horribly. The Church wants to be there to help you through it. All the sacraments are there to give you strength. The priests are there to counsel or to help you find a good counselor. “Wait a minute,” you say. “You mean I can receive the sacraments as a divorced person?” Yes, if you are not in a state of grave sin. Look back to what Jesus says. He speaks of divorce calling us first to remember what marriage was meant to be. He recognizes the fact that Moses granted writs of divorce, but says it was because of their hardness of the heart. He tells us that if one divorces, then it is a sin if they remarry. (Mt 5:32-33 and Mt 19:4-6, 9. Mk 10:11-12, Lk 16:18, Rom 7:2-3) All the aforementioned verses speak of the same topic. Jesus does not say it is a sin to divorce or to be separated. Sadly, because of the hardness of heart in one, or the other, or both, divorce is sometimes almost inevitable. And some life circumstances make it even necessary, for example, in cases of abuse. But, it is only a sin if one remarries after a legitimate sacramental marriage when the spouse is still alive.
Fr. John Anthony Boughton, CFR
Convento San Serafin, Comayagua, Honduras
(Note: part two will be posted tomorrow)
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