Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.
Moses allowed for divorce. One school of thought taught that if the wife burnt the potatoes, the husband could divorce her. Another school taught that only adultery committed by the wife was grounds for divorce. What did Jesus have to say about this? What would be his opinion?
Jesus went back to creation to see God’s plan. In the beginning, when God made everything, God made man and woman to form one unity to pass on human life from one generation to the next. God did not mention divorce in this process: the couple would become one flesh. To break that unity would be to engage in killing a life, the one unity that came from the preexisting two.
This could present us with a conundrum. If God does not intend divorce in marriage, how can we justify divorce, if it is against God’s will, and not at the same time allow marriages between same-sex couples? This is not to pass judgment on same-sex marriage, but it does question the use of divorce in our civilization and culture. This question of same-sex relationships would not have come up in Jesus’ time, but it has come up in ours.
In Jewish law, only men could divorce. In Roman law, the woman could divorce her husband. This is evidenced in 1 Corinthians 7:11-13, where Paul notes that neither the man nor the woman should be divorcing.
When it comes to questions about human life and death issues, we would do well base our decisions on the purpose God had in creating human beings. We make mistakes when we base our judgments on what seems good for us or on what we have the ability to do. We can do many things which we should not do.