Fr. Michael Williams

Every week we recite at Mass, “We believe in One God the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth”. By this statement we affirm that God created all things, “seen and unseen”. Today’s readings reveal to us that marriage is something which is created by God. In the gospel Jesus says, “From the beginning of creation God made them male and female. This is why a man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body”. In the sacrament of matrimony God gives a man and a woman the grace to faithfully live as husband and wife, “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do they part”.

Of course not all marriages go according to God’s plan, or the plan of the couple. Marriages can break down. This was a problem at the time of Moses. The Pharisees say to Jesus, “Moses allowed us to divorce”. But Jesus, through whom all things were made-including marriage, says “But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female…So then, what God has united, man must not divide”. Jesus came into the world to restore creation to its original beauty and grace, which sin had disfigured. Jesus came to restore creation to its original purposes, which human sin disfigures. Sin can disfigure marriage- for example if one of the spouses commits adultery. But Jesus says ‘I have come to restore creation to its original purposes’.

This restoration of God’s creation to its original purposes, was the reason Jesus came into the world. Jesus’ teaching on marriage is part of this, but the restoration of creation is most clearly manifested in the Resurrection of Our Lord: “Dying He destroyed our death; Rising He restored our life”. In the book of Wisdom it says, “Death was never of God’s fashioning; not for His pleasure does life cease to be; what meant His creation, but that all created things should have being”. We tend to think of death as something natural because it is so familiar to us. But death is not part of God’s original purpose; it came into the world through the sin of our first parents-the original sin. Yet, every Sunday we rejoice at Jesus’ victory over sin and death. Every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection, the victory of life over death, which we hope to experience in Heaven.

The restoration and renewal of God’s creation took place through the suffering of Jesus. The letter to the Hebrews reveals that “through suffering”, Jesus restores creation to its original plan for perfection; “through suffering” Jesus takes us to our salvation; “through suffering” Jesus takes us to the original innocence of paradise. Maybe that is why He says, “anyone who does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”. To return to paradise we must return to our original life of grace.

Let us pray that we will allow God to restore and renew us to His original plan of grace, which we have disfigured through sin. Let us pray for the complete restoration of creation according to God’s original designs.