A Humble and Contrite Heart

Juan de Flandes - Christ and the Canaanite Woman c. 1500

 A Humble and Contrite Heart

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, August 14, 2011.
[Is 56:1, 6–7.  Ps 67:2–3, 5, 6, 8.  Rom 11:13–15, 29–32. Mt 15:21–28.]

We hear in today’s Gospel the story of the Canaanite woman, and with it, some of the most difficult and challenging and coldest words attributed to Jesus.  

And yet in these few verses a great story unfolds: It is a story of who is “in” and who is “out.”

It is a story that needs the clarification of Jesus’ divine mission; his need as a real person in history to work within the confines of the culture;
and it is a story of the offer of salvation to all people. 

Today’s first reading from the Prophet Isaiah tells us to expect this:

“The foreigners who join themselves to the Lord…  them I will bring to my holy mountain… for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

The Psalm speaks of this:

“So may your way be known upon earth;
among all nations, your salvation.”

Saint Paul speaks of this:  “I am speaking to you Gentiles” he says; “God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.” 

And yet here in Matthew’s Gospel we hear of an encounter between a woman and Jesus, and we hear that Jesus “did not say a word in answer to her.”   

We hear that he ministers only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Here in Matthew’s Gospel, we encounter a woman who is definitely and outsider:  one of the “outs” - twice removed.  She is a woman in a man’s world. Women in those days in general did not have the social status of men.  And this woman is also “out” in that she is not of the house of  Israel.  She’s a foreigner. 

Indeed, she is not of Israel according to history.

And Matthew’s account of this dialogue (unlike the account in Mark’s Gospel Mk 7:24–29) is almost brutal. 
Matthew identifies this woman as a Canaanite:  and this brings back images of the ancient curse of the tribes descended from Ham, the son of Noah. 

So the woman is not only an outsider, but from a group held to be accursed.  A group particularly contrary and odious to the Jews. 

But I can’t help thinking that when this woman set out from her own place—her own little house;  Jesus was also setting out from Gennesaret to go toward this district. 

Why is Jesus going forward out of Israel to the land of the Gentiles, and why is this outsider woman coming toward Israel?  It is as if opposites are moving toward each other. 

What motivates each of them to move toward the other?    

Is it fate, or “kismet,” or written in the stars? No, we don’t believe that…

It’s God’s divine plan.  It is the will of God. 
Jesus moves to keep a "divine appointment."  In a word, it is “faith” that motivates this encounter.  

Fresh from his encounter with the Pharisees and their challenges, Jesus comes in his way, and the woman comes in her way, to another challenge. 

Jesus had just told the Pharisees moments before leaving for this journey, that they “honor [him] with their lips, but their hearts are far from him.” 

He also told his disciples, “the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart.”  There, he was referring to words that defile a person. 

And yet, what are the very next words the Gospel reports that come out from a mouth and into the ears of Jesus?  

“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David.”  

Words of love, words dripping with the sincere plea for mercy, for healing, for wholeness.  Words from the mouth of an outsider.   

But they are words  from the mouth of a woman who so loves her daughter so much that she has literally identified with her. 

          “Have pity on me," she says.  
If you have pity on me, you will heal my daughter.  This will be the result of your healing pity on me.  
That’s what the woman says. 

She comes motivated by the great good of love:  love seeks the good of the other and love bears with the other. 

You might say that this love has made her “triply” an outsider – because the world tells us to take care of ourselves and let others worry about themselves.

So in the few words of the Gospel we learn a lot about this woman: how despite her outsider status, her “other” and separate status, she has great humility and great trust.  She reaches out over the no-man’s land of racism and sexism for totally pure motives. 

And Jesus response?  Silence.  Deafening silence to our ears. 

In fact, his first words come in reply not to the woman but to the disciples, who want to send her away. 
She is bothersome, she might cause a scandal, she is disruptive, she calls out. 

And Jesus’ statement of his mission is not to her, it is to the disciples:  he is, “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 

Exclusive.  Selective.  What did that say to the heart of that woman…
And they talk about among themselves, as if she weren’t even there!

And then this woman who is still not recognized has the humility and the perseverance to come closer and do him homage.  Jesus’ reply to that might seem to be one of the coldest in the Gospels:

“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.” 

And even this doesn’t deter the woman.  She says:

          “please, Lord, because even the dogs  eat the scraps from the table.”

She is desperate, but not without faith.  She’s a woman who doesn’t give up.  If lack of faith were an issue, she would have been gone at the outset.

 

But she is motivated by love: love that bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things, as Saint Paul teaches us.  The love that makes her humble even to the point of being humiliated for the good of her daughter. 

Sound familiar? Humble to the point of being humiliated? 
Take a look at the cross:  naked, beaten, cursed at, spat upon, and hanged from a tree.  Humiliated for the sake of the love of all people….

So this woman’s love must have been a mirror of Jesus' own love…

In the face of that love, Jesus replies and upholds her faith.  He cures her daughter. 

But it is not the cure that should interest us.  It is the dialogue. 
It is the persistence of this woman, this Gentile…  

     The only other time in Matthew’s Gospel where we really look at a Gentile encounter in any detail is back in chapter 8, where a Centurion comes asking for a healing for his servant.  And the Centurion says:

“Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.  Just say the word.” 

We’ll say that in our own way just before Communion today: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you… only say the word….”

Both the Centurion and the Canaanite woman are Gentiles. 

          Both come to Jesus.  He doesn’t come to them.

          Both ask not for themselves but for another. 

          Both demonstrate great faith. 

          Both cures are effected by Jesus from a distance—and that certainly shows his lordship over time and place. 

These two great stories of healing reach out over time, over the cultural confines that – especially in today’s reading – prevented Jesus in his historical realness on earth… from dealing directly with the woman at first. 

These stories teach us humility, they show us that we have to seek and ask and do homage and persevere.  They are stories about prayer.

But it is not because God likes to see us grovel. 

It is because we have to show ourselves the experience of a true heart, of clear intention, of trust only in God. 

That is the lesson of today’s Gospel, my friends. 

After the priest offers the gifts to God at the altar, he prays almost under his breath, “Lord we ask you to accept and bless these gifts that we offer with humble and contrite hearts.” 

David tells us in Psalm 51: “A humble and contrite heart, Lord, you will not spurn.” 

Whether it is David’s heart, or the Centurion’s heart, or the heart of this Canaanite woman. 

And so because of her great faith and pure heart, this Canaanite woman moves from being an “outsider” to being an “insider”: she becomes a spiritual daughter of the first rank—made so by her faith.   

We, too, are outsiders, and we need to know how to long and yearn and journey from our own safe places to call out for God’s mercy and be heard. 

We need to know, like the Canaanite woman that we have no bargaining power, we have only the force of love which goes beyond the norms – that kind of love calls to Jesus because it reflects and echoes the very love of god. 

Because for Jesus, the lost sheep of the house of Israel has become all of us who hear the call to be gathered together into the peace, and the joy, and the love that will break down all barriers and help us all to enter into the kingdom of God. 

Finding the Center

Giotto: The Kiss of Judas

Finding the Center
Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, November 14, 2010
[Mal 3:19–20a.  Ps 98:5–6, 7–8, 9.  2 Thes 3:7–12.  Lk 21:5–19.]   

The great Bible scholar William Barkley once wrote,

“There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”

That’s a beautiful thought to help us begin to try and understand what Jesus is telling the people we encounter in today’s Gospel: people who are standing before the magnificence of the Second Jerusalem Temple.

It was the center of all worship to God.

And yet the true Temple is there, too – right in their midst – right in the center of things.

That Temple is Jesus.

The Gospel that we hear today is good news wrapped in the prophetic voice of Jesus who tells us about the signs of the times.

Every time I hear this Gospel, I worry for those who hear it with me, and I wonder how many people greet this Gospel with fear and anxiety. How many hear only the doom and gloom of Jesus’ prophetic message and fail to hear the joy and the hope and the call to continuing conversion.

Jesus speaks here in what we call “apocalyptic” terms. We hear that word, and naturally think about the end of the world.

The word apocalypse refers really not to the end, but to the “lifting of the veil” It is a combination of the word apo – “off” and kalyptein – “to cover.”

So Jesus’ words are an unveiling, a revelation of something – and here, it is a great truth.

The Gospel writer Luke is not so much revealing only the events of the end times, but also really telling us all about the time of crisis in which his community finds themselves.

After all, they are also seeing wars, earthquakes, and famines. They who hear the Gospel in the early days are being handed over - some of them by their own family members – and they are being persecuted even to death.

Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple – well, that happened in 70 A.D., when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem.

What is most difficult for us to determine in this Gospel is how the apocalyptic material and the descriptions of real history of the Gospel writer’s time are being interwoven so that the message is for us as well.

We don’t want to be scared into submission to God. That’s not God’s style.

A people who follow God because they are slaves to fear are not a people who are free.

A people who follow God because he is the bright morning sun of justice are the freest people of all.

God doesn’t call us into fear. He draws us with cords of love.  He calls us into a kingdom that is characterized by His justice, love, and peace. Remember that!

Hold that in your hearts today – do not be afraid.

We see or hear all too often that one or another doomsayer is predicting the end of the world – we see it in the proclamations of self-appointed prophets, or we are scared out of our wits by some movie or TV show.
There have been over 220 major predictions that the end of the world was immanent even to the date and time – the world is still here!

Two of those first gloom and doom predictors and messiah pretenders are even named in the Book of Acts (5:36–37).

Jesus tells his followers and us: don’t be deceived – don’t follow them!

I’ll let you in on a secret: No one knows about the end of time!

Jesus tells us, “But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32. Also Matt 24:36).

What Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel is: Don’t let yourselves be duped! Don’t be unprepared….

And we have heard that message time and again over the past year.

There are stories about the servant who begins to misbehave when his master is delayed; About waiting for the bridegroom who comes at an unexpected time; About masters of the house who don’t know when the house is going to be broken into.

But we still don’t know the time.

And we’ve heard about a shepherd who goes in search of his lost sheep and a father who welcomes back his prodigal son.

These stories tell us something about who God is!

And so, even in all the stuff of persecution and suffering that the world was subject to, and is subject to,

and will be subject to, we are not to be afraid.

We need to find our center, and we need to know that the center is God.

Fr. Robert Barron, who is a renown preacher, reminds us in a recent column about the beautiful Rose Windows and the “wheel of fortune” that are focal points in the Gothic cathedrals.

The middle point of these windows and wheels is Christ.

On all of the spokes – at the outer rim – are depictions of saints or scripture stories.

On the “wheel of fortune” at the top, is a king and the inscription “I am reigning.” At the three o’clock position and falling downward is another man with the inscription “I have reigned.” At the bottom is a poor man with the inscription “I am without power.” At the nine o’clock position and rising up is a man who looks toward the king: “I will reign.”

Four points: Man at his finest, man falling, man at his most powerless, and man ascending.

A wheel of fortune and misfortune.

Man at his best… Man at his worst…

But in the center of it all – there is Christ.

You know, there is a theoretical point in the center of any wheel that is static, is still, is unmoved.

And from that center point, everything makes sense, everything has order, everything has beauty.

The center – that’s the point we need to move toward.

Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are not the center.

We need to realize that we are often too far away from God because we have tried to make God in our image instead of trying to make ourselves conform to what God wants for us!

And God tells us again and again that He wants us to have a share in the divine life – in His divine life!

Will we try to be conformed to that?

God wants us to become holy as our father in heaven is holy.

And then, the hour? the day? the signs of the times? They will hold no fear.

We will be ever closer to finding out that second great day that William Barclay spoke about – the day when we discover the why we were born.

In the center, my dear friends, is that vision of hope and glory – a glimpse of the righteousness and life that we hope and yearn for without fear or terror.

Several verses later on in this Gospel, words we do not hear in today's reading, Jesus finishes his discourse, and he tells us this: 
"But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at     hand."

That second great day that William Barclay spoke about is there – the day when we find out why we were born – to be redeemed!

To be brought back, to be healed, to be welcomed in from our exile.

On that day, we will see what the prophet Malachi told us: we will see the glorious rising of the “sun of justice with its healing rays.”

Life-giving Love: Loving First, Loving Well - Redux



Prodigal Son by Pompeo Batoni (1773)



Life-giving Love
Loving First, Loving Well - Redux

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

[Ex 32:7–11, 13–14.  Ps 51:3–4, 12–13, 17, 19.  1 Tm 1:12–17.  Lk 15:1–32.]   

The Gospel today is a long one, but it is necessary to hear it in its entirety if we are to hear the message well.

And one of the first things we have to keep in mind is that all three stories: lost sheep, lost coin, lost son, are preceded by this very important line, said by the Pharisees and scribes who were complaining:

"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." 

In the original Greek of Luke’s Gospel, the word used for “welcome” is a very positive word: prosdechomai (pros DECH om aye), and it means welcome in this sense: to wait for anxiously, to cherish. 

This man welcomes sinners - he actually cherishes them - and he even eats with them! 

Jesus cherishes and waits anxiously for the sinners who come to Him – both then and now! (Imagine that!)  These sinners, these unclean ones, were becoming a part of Jesus’ following. How that must have put off the Pharisees and scribes!

The three “Parables of Lost and Found” that Jesus tells are His response to the grumbling Pharisees. And to understand just how these sounded to the Jews of Jesus' day, we have to understand a bit about the cultural context.

The shepherd that we hear about is so concerned about one lost sheep that he leaves ninety-nine sheep in the desert – unprotected!  The woman who loses one coin – then finds it and throws a party that probably costs ten times the worth of the coin!

Jesus actually puts these as hypothetical questions. He isn't really looking for a response: "What man among you?.... or What woman?....  These questions are metaphorical, to help us consider the abundant love of God.

What we do need to note is the joy of the shepherd and the woman. "Rejoice with me,"  they say. 
And then there is the prodigal son – Jesus changes his tone here to tell us a story. We all know this as a story of wandering away and being welcomed back.

But this story is really much, much more to the people who heard it from Jesus– it was even perhaps outrageous to the people who heard it from Jesus!

It is about possessions and power; anger, shame, and repentance; death, and new life. This is about radical behavior.

Listen carefully to what the son asks of the father:
     “give me the share of your estate that should come to me.”

When are estates divided up? At the death of the father!

The son isn’t saying, “Hey, Dad: I’m headed out for an adventure.”

He is saying, in essence, “Father, I am disowning you, you are as good as dead to me. Give me what is mine under the Law, and I’m out of here.”

Those are tough words! In the culture of the time, no child would dare to say such things to his father. They are words that could literally cost him his neck! He could have been taken to the gate and stoned for such disrespect. That is by Mosaic Law: we read it in Deuteronomy.
But there is no punishment. Instead, there is probably just the father’s heartbreak – and he goes ahead and distributes the wealth.  He must distribute it according to the Law, so the matter becomes public knowledge. The whole village knows that the son has challenged the father; they know about this fracture in the family’s life.

Imagine what that father must have overheard – the buzz of the neighbors, the whispered conversations at the gate. 

And yet, it is not the father who is the dead man, but rather the prodigal son. He goes off on the wide road to dissipation – to the excesses of a different life that are literally going to scatter him.

And we see where the son ends up – in a distant country, and in dire need. He is so badly in need that he ends up hired out to feed pigs!

Here is the Prodigal: he has squandered all his assets, he no longer has any heritage on the land, he is in a foreign land, among the unclean; and while he feeds the swine, he isn’t even permitted to eat what he feeds them!

And yet, he “comes to himself” –he recovers his senses. He begins a process of healing, because he can never be happy unless he comes to really understand who he is and just where he stands.

He decides to go back to his father –he knows that he doesn’t deserve to be called his father’s son; that in these outrageous circumstances there is no way he could even hope to reclaim his sonship.

But he still wants something: to be treated as one of his father’s slaves – that, at least, will give him some kind of security.

He also knows that going back will be a painfully public act. The community will see him and mock him, and maybe even beat him up or kill him!

And the father – his love for his son has never ended, despite being so thoroughly dishonored by his son. He waits, he hopes with anxious anticipation. He cherishes his son, even through all this!

And when the son comes into view, the father runs to him!

This broken-hearted father is filled with joy, he welcomes the son.

And what is scandalous about that?

He does this without any kind of an intermediary: back then, a “reconciler” would have acted as an agent so that the injured party doesn’t lose face.

And if the father had seen the son from a distance, you can bet that others in the village had seen him, too.

But before there can be any kind of confrontation, the father races past the villagers and offers his son protection, compassion, understanding, and affection beyond what the son might ever have imagined.
And the father's love takes all of the son’s bartering power away from the son by loving him well.
The father interrupts his son before the son can even ask, to be a slave.  The father reclaims him as his son - he transforms the son! That is a self-empting love at work here!

Open arms! Robe on his shoulders, ring on his finger, sandals on his feet! Slaughter the fattened calf – have a feast!

And the father says: “This son of mine was dead, and has come to life again.”  He has come to new life as a son!

A feast commences. Certainly it is not a feast to honor the son’s return. It is a feast of the father’s joy!
"Let us celebrate," says the father.


But then there is the older brother out in the field, who learns about all this from a servant. And anger flares. Probably this anger has been simmering since the day that the prodigal son rebelled.

Now his anger boils over: the older son refuses to enter the house, and the father is thrown into another situation of public humiliation.

Now it is the older son who is publically disrespectful of the father. And in his anger, this older brother has disowned his brother: it is no longer his brother, it is “this son of yours…”

Can you imagine what the older brother might have said about his father next? Maybe he turned to the people and said something like,
     “This man, my father, welcomes sinners, and even eats with them!”

And the father’s answer? Put away your anger: "You are with me always. Everything that I have is yours!"

How that must have rung inside the minds and hearts of the people gathered around Jesus for this story! How the Pharisees probably craned their necks and said:
     “What? No Law? No punishment?”
No: mercy instead – radical, life-giving, and all-embracing love!

Imagine a father whose love is greater than death. Imagine a love that actually brings back to life!  Imagine a love that loves first, loves always,  loves best!

And yet, there is the thought that the parable hasn’t resolved. It has just stopped.

We don’t know what the older son did. Did he swallow his anger? Did he allow himself to accept his father’s love? Did he go in to the feast?

Or maybe he is still outside, where the darkness now gathers? Is he still out of touch and still very much a slave of his own pride, his own anger, his own sense of injustice?

Has it dawned on him that his father’s love transcends all brokenness, all emptiness, all anger?

If there is one thing that we might well think about and pray about, it is this: If you were the older brother, would you go in?

These three parables: lost sheep, lost coin, lost son have one thing in common. It is in one phrase for the shepherd, the woman, and the father:

Rejoice with me! I have found what is lost! What was dead has come to life again!

And what does Jesus say at the end of each but just this:

“there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance."

This Jesus – God’s Son – he welcomes sinners, and even eats with them!

So, will we go in to the feast with God our Father? Everything he has, he has offered to us!

Blessed Are the Married

Blessed are the married...

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C (World Marriage Day)
[Jer 17:5-8. Ps 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6. 1 Cor 15:12, 16-20. Lk 6:17, 20-26]

Today we celebrate World Marriage Day. As I read these readings over and over, I was thinking to myself, What do these readings say about marriage?  Where would I get my theme?  Hmmm...

Take the first reading: “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD."  (I'm thinkin, no, not a good marriage theme.)

And the Responsorial Psalm: “Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked." (And let's not go there for marriage, either!) 
Wow!

I heard a story about a deacon who told a very nervous bride at her wedding rehearsal that she needed to keep only three things in mind: He said, "Remember three things tomorrow at your wedding: 
First, remember the aisle, because that is what is going to bring you into the Church and into the sanctuary. Concentrate on that aisle.  

“Second, remenmber the altar, because when the time comes for you to exchange your promises, you will be standing before the altar. So just concentrate on that altar.

"Third, when you make those promises, remember that you are making them to your man only, so lock eyes with your man. Just concentrate on him.  That’s all you have to do.”

Well, on the day of the wedding, the bride was even more nervous. She was five shades of pale - but that was nothing compared to the groom—he saw the bride walking toward him – her eyes were locked fast on him, and as she walked in he could have sworn he heard her singing softly as she took his arm,
“I’ll alter him!”

(Now, I gotta tell you that that joke was really a lot funnier at home, so tell it to yourself at home and you'l really laugh!) 
I’m sure we can all think of some jokes about marriage there! But let’s not laugh too quickly!
In marriage we have to consider not how one will alter another, but in a very real sense how the sacrament of marriage will transform both of them.

Marriage is no laughing matter.
But it is a matter of great joy.

Marriage has been called the “primordial sacrament,” and it goes right back to the first “not good” of creation: God looks around and says “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.”

When the man and woman see each other, they exchange that “look of recognition” and they see that they were literally made for each other!

That’s why a man or a woman can say, “Honey, I haven’t seen every girl (or guy) in the world, but I can stop right here with you, because God has shown me that you—in your unique and unrepeatable self—are for me—out of all the people in the world!”

That look – that intimate exchange—why, that’s part of recognizing that the couple is not alone – it is a recognition of God in the mix:
God entwining their two lives.

They see in each other the one person that are called to serve—the one person that they are called to be Christ to!

And so we know what comes next, we can probably all repeat it from memory:

"That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body."  One flesh.

Marriage is a concrete sign of that divine promise of God’s love and his call to unity, just as Jesus says in John's Gospel, “that they may be one, as we, Father, are one, And “that they may be brought to perfection as one” (Jn 17:23).

This is written in our bodies.

And, hey, if it were that easy, marriage would be a walk in the park, as easy as pie.

But no, it is certainly not so easy.

A sacramental marriage is more than a legal contract.
It is a covenant, and covenant establishes eternal bonds of sacred kinship and unconditional exchange.

When a man and a woman stand together at God's altar, they promise each other:

For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health;
to be each other's all the days of their lives.

These promises say: “I am yours and you are mine. And we are both in God!”

Yes: freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully.

And if you are called to be Christ to each other, you are called to be completely poured out for each other… To die to self so that you will be brought to new and abundant life together!

You are called to a transformation!

And as we honor the good and lasting marriages, we have to at least consider that marriage is being undermined these days:
 According to statistics half of all marriages will end in divorce, and an even higher percentage of second marriages will end in divorce.
Attacks on the sanctity of marriage and the traditional definition of a one-man and one-woman partnership are commonplace.
The traditional notions of family are being undermined.

Society places tremendous burdens on married life and family, and there are pressures that strain at the very foundation of the promises that bind two people together.

And what is the world’s message?
     Get what you can get while you can get it!
     Me first, all others out of the way!

But with love comes responsibility.

People owe it to themselves and to each other to know that love calls us all out of our sense of self and into the good of the other.

Love calls us in an extreme and in a radical sense to lay down our very lives for the good of our partners.

Love has responsibility!

Love – true love – always wills the good of the other. As Paul writes, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And true love: true love? Why, it never fails!

In today’s gospel of the Beatitides, Jesus comes down and stands on level ground. He knows that he has to meet us where we are – on the ground. He bends down to bless us in our poverty.

“Blessed are the poor,” he says.

Jesus knows that we all have the potential within each of us for great good. He also knows that we can make decisions that lead us toward devastating and irreparable consequences.

We are weak and imperfect people.

We have to let God into our lives. We have to let Him walk with us—especially in the bond of marriages. We need Him to show us His example.

That, I think, is the secret to the success of marriage. I have seen it lived out in the beautiful lives of what the world might call “ordinary people” doing the ordinary stuff of everyday lives.

In the Gospel, Jesus’ first words, “blessed are you” also mean “how happy are you.” The Greek word that the gospel writer uses is makarios – it means “divine joy” the highest joy.

It is the happiness that God intends for us.

It is a joy that is rooted in Christ – as marriage is rooted in Christ.

And that is no joke!

And so, dear friends, maybe the Lord wouldn’t mind if we add another beatitude to His just for today:

How blessed are you who are married! For your very lives wear the sign of His love.