The Lord by Romano Guardini & Joseph Ratzinger

Author:Romano Guardini & Joseph Ratzinger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Catholicism, Christianity, Jesus, Spirituality, Classics
ISBN: 0895267144
Publisher: Gateway Editions
Published: 2012-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

IX

CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE AND VIRGINITY

And there came to him some Pharisees, testing him, and saying, ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any cause?’ But he answered and said to them, ‘Have you not read that the Creator, from the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? Therefore now they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.’ They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command to give a written notice of dismissal, and to put her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because Moses, by reason of the hardness of your heart, permitted you to put away your wives; but it was not so from the beginning. And I say to you, that whoever puts away his wife, except for immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a woman who has been put away commits adultery.’

“His disciples said to him, ‘If the case of a man with his wife is so, it is not expedient to marry.’ And he said, ‘Not all can accept this teaching; but those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made so by men; and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let him accept it who can’ ” (Matt. 19:1–12).

These words of the Lord have regulated the most vital forces of human existence for almost two thousand years and they continue to do so. But before we go into them more closely, let us glance at the Speaker. In all reverence, let us ask what these life forces meant to him, Jesus, and what part women played in his own life. The question is important; not only for our understanding of Jesus’ character, but also for that of his mission as the bringer of salvation.

The religious personalities we encounter in history differ widely from one another on this point. Some have held the interrelation of the sexes to be simply evil and have done all they could to suppress if not to eliminate it. Others have incorporated it into their religion, have even made it the peak of religious experience. For some the whole problem of sex does not seem to exist; it has been completely stifled or consumed. And again there are those who wage an unceasing war against it to the end of their lives. When we consider Jesus in the light of these possibilities, we see at once that none of them applies to him. His personal desires and behavior are untouched by any such relationship; an unheard of freedom pervades everything he is and does; freedom so complete that the question does not even arise save when for some particular reason it is artificially posed.

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