Friday of Week 7 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Sirach 6:5-17

Sirach today gives some advice on friendship. He has some wise things to say. According to the Harper-Collins Study Bible:

Friendship was an important concept in social relations during the Hellenistic period and is referred to several times in Sirach (9:10; 11:29-14:2; 22:19-26; 37:1-6). In Greek literature of the time, a friend was one who remained true in times of distress and could therefore be trusted with one’s official or private interests and affairs. Today’s reading brings to an end a section of instructions and admonitions which test one’s resolve, integrity, and capacity for making judgements in keeping with wisdom piety. (edited)

True friends are discerned, not by how much money they have, but by whether they will continue to stand by one in times of difficulty and misfortune. Such friends are rare, and their value is beyond estimation.

The word ‘friend’ is one we tend to use very casually, and we call people friends with whom we have only a relatively superficial acquaintance. Or we term as friends people who are useful in getting things we want. A genuine friend, with whom one can open oneself completely and in whom one can have total trust, is not easy to find.

Some of the points made today are worth considering:

• Friends are won by our speaking kindly and being courteous to people. Why do some people seem to have lots of close friends and others have very few? Perhaps one of the main reasons is here. To find a friend one has first to be a friend.
• People with whom you are friendly can be many, but a close adviser and confidant will be “one in a thousand”. As we said, the word ‘friend’ can be used very loosely. It is genuine friendship that we are speaking of here.
• True friendships, which are based on genuine love, take time to develop. Mutual attraction is not enough. Hence, “…gain them through testing, and do not trust them hastily.”

Sirach gives a few examples of what we would now call ‘fair-weather’ friends:

…there are friends who are such when it suits them,
but they will not stand by you in time of trouble.

…there are friends who turn to enmity
and tell of the quarrel to your disgrace… [one thinks of bitter divorce proceedings]

…there are friends who are companions at the table,
but they will not stand by you in time of trouble.
When you are prosperous, they become your second self
and boldly command your slaves,
but if you are brought low, they turn against you
and hide themselves from you.

Sirach advises us to “Keep away from your enemies”, those who are hostile to us. But in this, we also have to remember the Gospel injunction to pray for them and be ready to forgive and be reconciled with those who have harmed us.

At the same time Sirach tells us to “be on guard with your friends”, that is, those who call themselves friends but who, in time of stress, are likely to ditch you.

Finally, Sirach speaks of the true friend, a treasure more valuable than anything money can buy:

Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter;
whoever finds one has found a treasure.
Faithful friends are beyond price;
no amount can balance their worth.
Faithful friends are life-saving medicine,
and those who fear the Lord will find them.

True friendship is based on love and, where there is love, God is inevitably present, for God is love.

Last of all, Sirach provides an astute piece of advice:

Those who fear the Lord direct their friendship aright,
for as they are, so are their neighbors also.

This last phrase may mean ‘one’s friends are as dear to one as oneself’, but it may also mean ‘one’s friend will inevitably be, like oneself, a God-fearing person’.

When we live in truth and integrity, we live in God, and we are likely to make as friends those whose lives are also based on truth and integrity. There can really be no other kind of true friend.

One of the greatest tragedies in life is never to have had really close and intimate friends. The sign of a true friend is the sense of emptiness that comes on permanent separation because of death or some other irreversible reason.

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Friday of Week 7 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 10:1-12

Jesus is approached by some Pharisees and they ask him if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. We are told they asked him this question in order to put him to the test.  It is another example of their efforts to find Jesus on the wrong side of the Mosaic law.

As frequently happens, Jesus responds to their question with his own to them:

What did Moses command you?

They reply that Moses allowed a man to make out a writ of dismissal and so divorce his wife.  They are quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy which says:

Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife. Then suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies): her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that would be abhorrent to the Lord, and you shall not bring guilt on the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession. (Deut 24:1-4)

Jesus clearly is not happy with this teaching and says Moses allowed divorce to accommodate the moral weakness of the people (that is, primarily the men!).  He challenges this stand with words from the creation story in Genesis (1:27; 2:24):

…God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

After marriage, then, he says that there are not two separate people, but one body.  And from that Jesus concludes:

Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

When they were back in the ‘house’ (that house again, the place where Jesus’ disciples are gathered about him—the Church), Jesus’ disciples expressed their misgivings about what they had just heard.  But Jesus went even further: a man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery and a woman who divorces her husband and marries another is also guilty of adultery.  He does not recognise divorce. One gets the impression that this teaching of Jesus came as something of a shock to them.

In a sound and enduring marriage the words of Jesus are realised. One meets people who have been married for decades and are as deeply in love with each other, in fact more so, than on the day of their wedding. One has only to see bereaved spouses to realise the terrible void that is left when a partner of many years dies.  They feel as if a part of themselves had been torn from them.  It can take years for life to come back to some kind of normalcy.

However, in our own day divorce has become a very common phenomenon.  In some societies, the divorce rate is almost half of all marriages and in most societies all over the world it is increasing.  Marriages between Catholics are also seriously affected.  Obviously it is a very complex question and cannot be dealt with here.

There are two comments to be made about this Gospel passage. First, Jesus is attacking a situation where men, when they got tired of their spouse and found someone more interesting, simply wrote a piece of paper and unilaterally dumped the first wife, leaving her high and dry.  Jesus rightly deplores such a situation.  His final remark indicates something new for his time (and often not yet accepted in our own): equal rights and equal responsibilities for both partners. He is very clear that women are not commodities to be picked up and dropped off at will.

Second, divorce as we experience it in our society today often involves a genuine breakdown in the marriage relationship which neither partner wishes and which is a cause of deep pain and suffering to both sides.  It may be due to some element of immaturity at the time of marriage, or the partners growing apart as they develop as persons.  Whatever the reason, this situation is quite different from the one about which Jesus is speaking.  One feels that Jesus would be most sympathetic to the painful breakdowns of marriage which happen today and, as Christians, we too should try to empathise with people in such a situation.

Most people enter into marriage with good will and with the intention of having an enduring, lifelong relationship.  It is a hope sometimes not realised.  At the same time, we also have in our society today a pluralistic approach to the concept of marriage from merely seeing it as two people living together ‘as long as it feels good’ to those who believe in marriage as a permanent relationship ‘in good times and bad’—and everything else in between.

We need to remember that the Church accepts that marriages can break down and that, for various reasons, the couple may need to have their separation made legal by a divorce settlement in court.  What the Church forbids is remarriage within the Church absent a formal tribunal annulment declaration.  Many Catholics do remarry in a civil ceremony and we need to deal with such people with great sympathy and understanding if they express a sincere desire to remain active members of the Christian community.

The ideal that Jesus proposes remains, but a changing society may need a different approach to marriage where the emphasis is more on the relationship and less on the legal contract.  A truly pastoral Church will help people live the Gospel in such a changing sociological situation.  As always, the solution will lie in answering the question: In this situation, what is the loving thing to do as far as all are concerned?

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