A Perfect Marriage
Oct 29: Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
I found this video just yesterday, and it’s a great companion to today’s first reading.
Reading 1
Eph 5:21-33
Brothers and sisters: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the Church, he himself the savior of the Body. As the Church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his Body. For this reason 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. In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband.
I’ve heard it said that marriage shouldn’t be a 50/50 relationship, but a 100/100 relationship. We should be giving everything of ourselves to our spouses.
Jesus has a perfect relationship with the Church, loving her and even giving His life for the Church, the people of God. That’s the model we should follow in our own marriages.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 128:1-2, 3, 4-5
R. (1a) Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
Blessed are you who fear the LORD,
who walk in his ways!
For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;
blessed shall you be, and favored.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine
in the recesses of your home;
Your children like olive plants
around your table.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
Behold, thus is the man blessed
who fears the LORD.
The LORD bless you from Zion:
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.
This Psalm is obviously from the perspective of an adult male, head of household, but it extends beyond one family to the entire community. Children are a blessing, even if they’re not our own. You know a parish is thriving when you hear babies crying during mass.
We should strive to not just worship God, but love God, as He loves us. That’s how relationships are meant to be.
Alleluia
See Mt 11:25
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Blessed are you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth;
you have revealed to little ones the mysteries of the Kingdom.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
A loving father teaches his children; we have to let ourselves be childlike before God.
Gospel
Lk 13:18-21
Jesus said, "What is the Kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that a man took and planted in the garden. When it was fully grown, it became a large bush and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches."
Again he said, "To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened."
These parables have an obvious point—the Kingdom of God will begin small (Jesus and the apostles), but grow mightily.
But there’s a subtext to that bolded quote; it’s referencing Ezekiel. Ezekiel tells a parable of two eagles, plucking branches from trees and planting them far away. He then asks if either will grow. Of course, not! They have no roots. (These are metaphors for the the Egyptian and Babylonian exiles.) Then God says he’ll plant a cedar on the highest mountain, and protect it as it grows.1 The point being that Israel needs God in order to grow.
So Jesus is subtly telling anyone who remembers Ezekiel that yes, the Church will grow, but not without God.
