Daily Gospel Reflection
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October 6, 2024
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.”
I love teaching Theology at Our Lady’s University. Here, we teach under Mary’s guidance. Gilded in gold and placed atop the Golden Dome, she looks out over our campus community, radiant with God’s love. Daily, she offers the one lesson I hope to instill in all of my students: God’s love for us exceeds any love we could ever imagine on our own.
Jesus is God’s unimaginable love, enfleshed. He is the Gospel! Thus, whenever we seek an encounter with Christ by reading Scripture, we must be prepared to let Scripture stretch us beyond the boundaries of our imaginations.
The first Christians to communicate the Gospel had a difficult task: How does one teach a love beyond all imagining? Often, these writers, like St. Mark, took their cue from Jesus himself, who communicated God’s love in words, images, and experiences familiar to us. Just think of all of Christ’s parables!
Today, Mark recalls Christ’s teaching by reference to marriage. In a similar passage in Ephesians, St. Paul recalls the same thing. Paul writes: “For this reason [to cherish his spouse] a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church.”
A great mystery, indeed! Beyond our imagining! And marriage, as Mark and Paul remind us as they echo Christ’s teaching, images God’s love. From this image, we move toward understanding God’s love for us: God cherishes us so deeply that God became incarnate, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone!
And so we return to Mary, the very one in whom the wedding of flesh and love took place. May she teach us to love the Gospel and to embody it always.
Prayer
Lord, you teach us to hold the covenant of marriage in the highest dignity. Bless all husbands and wives in their promises of love and fidelity to one another. Help all couples experiencing difficulties. Assist all members of your Church to support and encourage one another in our vocations. Amen.
Saint of the Day
When she saw the great lack of education on the North American frontier as a sickly young girl, Blessed Marie Rose Durocher had no way of knowing that the Spirit would use her life as an important response to that need.
She was born in Quebec in 1811 and given the name Eulalie Melanie. Her parents were prosperous farmers; Eulalie was the tenth of 11 children. Three of her brothers became priests and a sister joined a community of sisters.
Eulalie intended to follow her sister into religious life, but her health was poor and she was sent home from the convent with regrets. The community noted her humility, gentleness, and courtesy, and saw that she was attentive to the voice of God.
Her mother died in 1830, and Eulalie assumed the duties of a homemaker for the family. Later, as secretary and housekeeper, she helped one of her brothers who had become a priest. In that role, she learned how few schools and teachers there were in their frontier province, and began organizing young women in the parish to meet the need.
Her interest and work was noted, and was asked by the bishop to found a new religious community of sisters to provide Christian education in the region. In 1844, Eulalie and two others professed their vows as sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary; Eulalie adopted the name Marie Rose.
The need was extraordinary, and so was the response of young women willing to meet it. Over the course of five years, the order added five convents for 30 sisters who taught nearly 450 children in both English and French. Her work was not without challenges, though—Marie Rose faced slander and lack of resources, but persevered with a strong will and courage.
Always in poor health and worn out from her many labors, Marie Rose died at the age of 38. On her deathbed, she told a sister who was watching with her, “Your prayers are keeping me here—let me go.”
She was beatified in 1982 after the healing of a Detroit man. He was crushed against the wall by a truck and pronounced dead. He recovered after people asked Marie Rose for help.
There were other stories of Marie Rose helping in the case of wildfire threatening people and property in the state of Washington. Sisters from her order who lived in a community in Spokane prayed for her help when a fire threatened their convent. They placed images of Marie Rose in trees around the convent, and the fire changed direction after coming within 15 feet of the chapel.
Blessed Marie Rose Durocher is patron of those who are sick. Today, some 1,000 Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary educate children in Canada, the United States, Africa, and South America.
Blessed Marie Rose Durocher, you were the Canadian nun who brought Christian education to the frontier—pray for us!
Image Credit: Our featured image of Bl. Marie Rose Durocher is used with permission from Catholic Online. Last accessed September 27, 2024.