"Do not apply casuistry to their situation" because casuistry always hides "a trap". "Christ wed the Church! And you can not understand Christ without the Church, and you can not understand the Church without Christ."

Vatican City ( AsiaNews) - When we see that a marriage fails , "we have to feel the pain of this failure, accompanying those people who have experienced this failure in their love. Not condemn them! Instead, we must walk with them! And not apply casuistry to their situation", because such casuistry always hides "a trap". Pope Francis dedicated his homily at Mass this morning at Casa Santa Marta to marriage and the relationship between Jesus and the Church.

Vatican Radio reports that the Pope was inspired by the Gospel of the day in which the Pharisees present Jesus with the problem of divorce. The Pope noted how their style is always the same: "casuistry", the question of whether "it is lawful or not". "Always the petty case. And this is the trap behind casuistic thought [this rule based reasoning] there is always a trap. Always! Against people, against us and against God, always! 'But is it lawful to do this? Repudiate ones' wife?'. Jesus answers by asking them what the law states and by explaining why Moses made such a law. But he does not stop there: from casuistry, he goes to the heart of the problem and he goes right to the days of Creation. The Lord's reference here is so beautiful: 'from the beginning of Creation, God made ​​them male and female, for this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. 'So they are no longer two, but one flesh'".

The Lord, the Pope continued, "refers to the masterpiece of Creation" which is precisely man and woman. And God said, "He did not want the man to be alone, He wanted him" to have "a companion on his journey". It is a poetic moment when Adam meets Eve: "It is the beginning of love: go together as one flesh". The Lord "always takes casuistic thought and brings it to the very beginning of the revelation". On the other hand, "this masterpiece of the Lord did not finish there, in the days of Creation, because the Lord has chosen this icon to explain the love that He has for His people". To the point that "when the people are not faithful" He "speaks to him with words of love".

"The Lord takes this love of the masterpiece of Creation to explain the love He has for His people. And one more step: when Paul needs to explain the mystery of Christ, he does so in the relation to, in reference to his Bride: because Christ is married, Christ was married, he married the Church, his people. As the Father had married the People of Israel, Christ married his people. This is the story of love, this is the story of a masterpiece of Creation! Faced with this path of love, this icon, casuistry falls and becomes pain. But when this leaving ones' father and mother to be joined to a woman, to become one flesh and go forward [together] and this love fails, because often it fails, we have to feel the pain of this failure, accompanying those people who have experienced this failure in their love. Not condemn them! Instead, we must walk with them! And not apply casuistry to their situation".

When one reads this, "thinks about this design of love, this journey of love in Christian marriage, that God has blessed the masterpiece of his Creation". A "blessing that has ever been removed. Not even original sin destroyed it". When one thinks of this, then, "we see how beautiful love is, how beautiful marriage is, how beautiful the family is, how beautiful this journey is and how we love , how close we must be to our brothers and sisters who in life have had the misfortune of a failure in love". Referring finally to St. Paul, Francis pointed out the beauty of "the love that Christ has for His Bride, the Church". "Even here we must be careful that this love does not fail! By speaking about a bachelor Christ: Christ married the Church! And you can not understand Christ without the Church, and you can not understand the Church without Christ. This is the great mystery of the masterpiece of Creation. May the Lord give us, all of us, the grace to understand it and also the grace to never fall into these casuistic attitudes of the Pharisees, the teachers of the law".

The Pope had invited people "not to give in to casuistry" about marriage, on February 20 at the Extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals gathered for the family. An invitation that Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Press Office of the Holy See - presenting the discourse - had termed a "clear indication".

 

 

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