GIVING OURSELVES AWAY

In the Gospel of St John, the first words Jesus speaks are a question.  "What are you looking for?"  For St John, and therefore for us, these words are very important.  What might our answer be?   The question invites us to go to the deepest recesses of our hearts where The Beloved Son of God is waiting for us.  Perhaps they will always be His first words to us when we meet Him in prayer.

But in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus first word is 'Metanoia'.  This is usually translated very badly into the word, 'Repent'.  The word 'repent' sends us on a useless journey, agonising over our sins and failures, where we might miss His invitation completely.  Because .........

Metanoia is about putting on a new mind.  Metanoia is about finding our higher selves.  We understand that this is something that we cannot do without support.  The new mind that is powered by Love, needs to be filled with Love in order to see and act clearly.

I have been a priest for thirty-something years and I really enjoy weddings. Perhaps because it is here that we see the human person at their best.  Love has touched them in an astonishingly new way.  All the love which has been poured into them so far has been preparing them for this. The moment(s) when their awareness of their loneliness dissolves, and they emerge into a new consciousness.  Through the eyes of their beloved they begin to sense their connection to everything.

In the Catholic Service, this 'Rite of Passage' is framed in a form of words, and enclosed in circles of Gold.  The person glimpses that Love comes from the expected, and the most unexpected, places, and reaches for the words, 'for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health ......  To love and to cherish till death do us part'. They break open their hearts for each other, and for heaven, while promising not to break each other's hearts.

This is why Jesus doesn't really engage with questions of divorce.  When is it ok? What are good reasons for it? What about financial arrangements?  For Jesus, the language of divorce is a language of lost communion.  The One who has come to restore Communion wants it otherwise.