Mastery of our souls

Today’s gospel (5: 27-32) is a reminder for us that we must always read the Sacred Scriptures with a wise eye and an ear firmly on Tradition. On the one hand, today’s gospel challenges us with teachings that are especially unpopular today, the literal sense of which some would like to deny; on the other hand, Jesus’ language is savage and apparently impossible to fulfil. How can we make sense of such tensions?

Jesus is not just any teacher; He is the Teacher, and He comes to share with us the revelation of the Father’s love. The moral laws which He teaches in this gospel - on purity of heart and mind, and on marriage as a life-long bond – are an expression of His wisdom. As He explains elsewhere, ‘in the beginning’, He made them male and female to be joined together for life.  

Yet, why does He give us these teachings on marriage and purity of heart? Simply because God wants us to be transformed by His life entirely, from our grandest actions to our most secret thoughts. Custody of the mind and heart, as Jesus teaches here, is not a nicety. It is an alignment of our inner appetites with the good things of God, a turning away from self-satisfaction to the fulfilment of free hearts, buoyed up by the Father’s love. The same holds true for life-long marriage. Jesus came to rescue all the ruins of life through His grace. Every sinner has a future, and every saint has a past; so says the ancient wisdom. Every Christian is bound by the law of dying-to-self so as to live to God. Even every happy marriage includes such dying-to-self as well, because true fulfilment emerges from self-gift rather than from self-pursuit. Who knows how many rocky marriages could have been saved had both partners known and listened to such a teaching? If we only stop seeking ourselves for a moment, what possibilities might we discover that come within our reach? The statistics bear this out; second marriages are more likely to fail than first marriages, and things get even worse for third and fourth marriages. People don’t become better judges of these things by throwing their spouses away; generally, they become worse. Some situations cannot be saved of course, but then the marriage bond live on, held in the merciful palm of Jesus to whom the promises were said in the first instance. For what is a vow but words we say to God?

Then comes the second part of this gospel: Jesus’ command to avoid sin at all costs. Here, as I said above, is where we need Tradition to help us: sometimes Jesus speaks in hyperbole. We may not sever our hands nor pluck out our eyes, even to avoid sin, so why does Jesus say this? Because He is using the rhetoric of a communicator who knows His words will not be taken literally: He is simply underlining His point! He does not mean we should harm ourselves; merely that we should do all we can to save ourselves from sin. What this means for each individual will differ. For some, it might mean never setting foot in a pub again; for another, it could mean getting rid of the TV. Translating it into one of today’s scenarios, if thy screen offends thee, put it in the bin! Better to enter eternity without a social media presence than to risk one’s soul for a little cheap digital dopamine shot.

Jesus, be master of our souls, for we cannot be heroes, nor yet be wise, without your all-healing grace.