It was shocking to me when a good friend of mine, who we will call Brittany, told me that she 'met somebody', not because such a notion in and of itself was surprising, but because we came to learn that this person our friend met is divorced.
As soon as she told me and our other friend, who we will call Dave, I already knew my feelings and position on the situation; it was just a matter of muscling up enough to verbalize it. With both of them being Protestant, I knew that we would differ on the idea of divorce and remarriage. But it never occurred to me that it would get more personal than a general theological discussion between us.
Brittany told us a bit more information, giving us a well-rounded view of the entire situation before Dave and I weighed in with our thoughts. I could sense that Dave had some reservations about this, and I'm sure Brittany could sense it from him, as well as myself.
After Brittany gave us the whole scoop Dave talked first. He was happy for Brittany but showed some concern in relation to the children that this man has, and how difficult it will be to raise those children right from the start.
Dave also brought up other issues for Brittany to reflect upon, but I cannot for the life of me remember them: I was too nervous of how I would say what I knew I had to say to Brittany.
Approaching someone in this way is something that I was not used to up until this point. I am perfectly fine getting into theological disagreements (as me, Dave, and Brittany sometimes do), but rarely for me has such a disagreement gone past a simple discussion and into the personal. Of course it is all personal to a certain degree, for such conversations directly affect and are caused by what we believe and why we believe it. But settings such as this bring the discussion away from the notion of an interesting squabble over concepts and into the realm of living out those concepts with which one may vehemently disapprove of. And now that such a setting presented itself I needed to be a true friend and confront it.
I felt a number of temptations during that couple of minutes, thinking that I did not really need to voice how I felt, or that I could at least downplay the importance of it.
But I knew that they were just that: temptations. I knew that if I was a true friend to Brittany then I have a duty to speak the truth to her, regardless of how hard it may be. I also knew that the only reason it was difficult for me to do so was because I did not want to hurt Brittany; nobody desires to hurt those that are close to them, after all. But I knew that God does not call us to be without pain, He calls us to be holy and saintly. Thus, if I truly want Brittany to grow in her holiness than I must be honest with her as well as loving, regardless of what pain it may bring.
So this is what I started off with when I spoke to Brittany:
"What I say I say only because I love you as a sister and because you are such a close friend. It is because you are such a close friend and I want what is best for you that I cannot in good conscience support a relationship between you and this other person."
I explained that marriage, as a union that is instituted by God, cannot be separated under any circumstances other than death for that is how God designed it, quoting Mark 10:9 "Therefore what God has joined together let no man separate".
I then stated my disagreement with Dave, who earlier said that divorce can be acceptable if sexual immorality was at play, quoting from Matthew 19:9 and Matthew 5: 31-32 ("whoever divorces his wife and marries another except for unchastity causes her to commit adultery..."), I mentioned in response that the greek word used for the word unchastity is porneia, which does not necessarily translate into unchastity in the sense of an adulterous affair, as is commonly portrayed in various Bible translations.
We continued this subject for an hour, some of it very informative and some of it a bit heated. But in the end we all know that it was a conversation that needed to be had.
I knew this as I headed home that night, but the experience was still bittersweet to me, despite knowing that such bittersweet feelings were due to nothing else but my own weakness. I pondered what Brittany must be going through, and prayed for her and the man she is attracted to, that they may come to see the truth in this matter and seek God above all other things, no matter what doing so might lead to.
I felt immediately compelled to research this topic of divorce and remarriage a bit more (I haven't studied this topic in some time, so my memory of it was a bit hazy), and digging deeper into it has only strengthened my belief in the indissolubility of marriage.
Briefly, the Catholic Church's actual stance on divorce and remarriage is as follows:
Only death is able to end a marriage, nothing that man can do can accomplish that, for the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony must be in its very nature binding in order to reverberate the very nature of Creation and humanity as God originally intended it. Thus divorce, as it is defined as a spiritual separation between two people who were truly united by God in 'one flesh', is something that should be avoided at all costs, since the act of divorce itself is an attempt to separate what cannot be separated by human hands and is thus an affront to God and His designs for Matrimony.
That being said, sometimes it is necessary to get a civil divorce for serious reasons, such as adultery, abuse in the relationship, etc. In such circumstances, a civil divorce is perfectly acceptable provided that they understand that a government-issued divorce does not change the fact that they are still united spiritually by God and, thus, are not free to remarry. Even in the case of a person who is under constant abuse by her spouse, a civil divorce is acceptable in order to protect herself from her abuser, but such actions do not change the fact that a truly valid marriage has occurred and thus continues to exist between the two spouses. This makes remarriage for either of them to be impossible because even in this situation, by the very words of Jesus himself, it would be considered adultery.
This is the Church's stance on divorce and remarriage in a nutshell (a very watered-down nutshell, to be precise) But all of it is clearly articulated in Sacred Scripture.
Jesus, for instance, was quite clear on numerous occasions that a true marriage is a binding of two people by God himself and, as such, nobody is able to truly break such a bind. When the Pharisees tested Jesus on the issue of divorce Jesus said to them, "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate." (Matt. 19: 4-6) (emphasis mine) This is stated again in Mark 10: 2-12, with Jesus also saying that "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.'" (Mark 10: 11-12) (emphasis mine) This is similarly reiterated in Luke 16: 18.
St. Paul completely agrees with Jesus' upholding of the permanence of marriage when he says, "To the married, however, I give this instruction (not I, but the Lord): A wife should not separate from her husband--and if she does separate she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband--and a husband should not divorce his wife." (1 Cor. 7: 10-11) (emphasis mine)
All of these passages and others point to the Church's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage and, thus, on the nature of divorce and remarriage. For as Jesus said, from the beginning the two were made one flesh, there are no two people anymore once God has joined them together in Matrimony. Therefore, no person can break apart the two people, who are now one, for it was God who made them one flesh to begin with.
As the Gospel of Matthew states, Moses merely allowed divorce because of the hardness of their hearts, but Jesus reestablishes the original intention of all marriage. And he continues to affirm this by saying that if somebody divorces their spouse and marries another then they are in fact committing adultery. Why would they be committing adultery if they married someone else? Because their marriage with their original spouse had never truly ended; they are still married to that person, bound together as one flesh, thus making their remarriage to be not a true marriage at all but an adulterous affair.
St. Paul also stresses the importance of not divorcing one's spouse, but also recognizes that divorce sometimes does happen. To this, he says not that it is okay to marry another if a divorce happens due to abuse, adultery, etc. In fact, St. Paul says that if a wife is to separate from her husband then she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband? Why would those be her only two options? The only logical answer here is because she is still bound to her husband as a result of the unification they underwent when they became married and bound together by God.
All of this points back to the original intent of the indissoluble unity, This is not done to be cruel, or to make it hard for those who have had difficult relationships with their spouses. It is meant to be a calling to the original intent of Matrimony, going back all the way to the beginning when God bound the first people into the first marriage as husband and wife in eternal Love-filled sacrifice and servitude to each other (Genesis 2); it is meant to be a symbol of Christ's union with his Church (Ephesians 5: 21-30), for He is the head and the Church is the body (1 Colossians 1: 18), one flesh (1 Corinthians 12: 12-26). It is hard to imagine that Marriage can be a proper symbol of such things when it is acceptable for the ties of marriage to be split. Can a head be removed from its body and still live? Can Jesus truly be separated from His Church?
From all of this we can see that Sacred Scripture views Matrimony as a life-long covenant that cannot be broken by man. The only possibly confusing aspect, then, are the two passages from the Gospel of Matthew addressed above.
As stated, the Greek word used in both of these passages does not necessarily translate to an extra marital affair. It is more likely referring to illicit sexual immorality that would make any marriage attempt to fail from actualizing; situations of incest would be one such example of that, for it was known, by Jews at the time, to prevent an actual marriage from occurring in the first place. This means that even if they attempted to get married the fact that they are close blood relatives would prevent them from ever being truly married to each other at all, making any and all marriage attempts between them to not actually be a marriage. (It should be noted that this, also, fits the Church's teaching on Marriage, for if two people who thought they were married ended up not actually having a valid marriage then they would be free to remarry because no spiritual union between the two ever truly existed.)
It is also important to add that the normal word for adultery, moicheia, would have been a more proper word to use if the writer originally intended to say that adultery was an acceptable reason for divorce; but porneia was used instead. And we know that both are differentiated because in other passages, such as 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11 we see both words being used ("fornicators...adulterers...will not inherit the Kingdom of God"), suggesting that the two have different meanings.
All of this: the true meaning of porneia, the statements of Jesus and St. Paul, the connection of marriage to the beginning of humanity as well as to the relationship between Christ and His Church, all of it points us in the direction of the Sacrament of Matrimony being unbreakable by human hands. All of it moves us to a union between Man and Wife that can be formed only by God and can be broken apart only by God.
I wish I had all of this information that night for Brittany and Dave. I could have done a much better service for them both, especially Brittany, if I had remembered and recognized that these situations are not hypothetical discussion topics but involve and affect real people, whether they be strangers or people you know and care for.
After all, for some people to accept ideas like the indissolubility of Marriage may mean for them to alter their beliefs and behaviors. That is why it is so important to always be prepared and always be willing to tell the Truth, for when you tell them the Truth, you tell them about God.
