Homily: August 12, 2022, Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

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 “But from the beginning it was not so”.

As we grow older and observe the way things are happening currently, we might compare and realize that things were done differently in earlier times, in our younger days, in the beginning. If we know how it all started, we will know how it is different now. 

Jesus is thus telling the people of Israel how it was meant to be at the beginning, the original plan of God for His people. God’s plan is unity. Division was never His will. When God created man and woman, He meant them to be together forever. Divorce was not God’s plan. In the beginning, it was not so.

Moses allowed divorce because the people demanded it, the lifestyle of the people caused it to become a necessity. It became a provision in the law so that the death sentence of adultery could be avoided, ‘because of the hardness of your hearts’, Jesus said.

God’s law is written in each of our hearts, our conscience tells us what is right and wrong. The laws written on paper very often serve to soothe our guilt.

We must listen to the voice of our hearts, and we will hear God’s will, know God’s plan and understand how it was in the beginning. In the beginning, God created the world with love, for love, through love. He wrote the law of love in our hearts. That was, and still is, the purpose of His creation.

Man and woman are created in the image and likeness of God, which is love, which is unity, which is togetherness.

Whenever we walk against this law, we walk against God and his creative purpose. With God’s grace, let us try to live out the purpose of our being, how it was to be from the beginning. Amen.


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