Happy Sunday! I won't be in church today.

[happyslug]

117. Actually the Catholic rule on Divorce was aimed at MEN not WOMEN.

It starts with Jesus's statement on Divorce:

1 And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again; and again, as his custom was, he taught them. 2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away." 5 But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, `God made them male and female.' 7 `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." 10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

http://www.rc.net/wcc/readings/mark10v1.htm

Notice the wording, it does NOT forbid divorce, it prohibits remarriage after a divorce on the grounds the innocent spouse (Generally the woman) will still have sexual needs and the only way those can be satisfied is if she has sex. Thus if a man divorced a wife to marry another, he is causing the first wife to seek sex outside her marriage. Being FORCED to have sex outside of marriage, any such sex is adultery but the blame is on the Husband NOT the wife who did the act.

Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Under Jewish and Samaritan law no one could get married more then four times. Thus if you had four husbands die on you, you could NOT marry. This woman was on the outs with her fellow townspeople. In the Middle East you do NOT go to the well at noon, it is to hot. You go in the morning or the evening when it is cooler UNLESS you want to avoid the other people in the village. Thus this woman went to the Well at noon to avoid her fellow Samaritans for she was living with a man outside of marriage for she had been married four time before.

Thus Jesus was NOT hung up over the status of Women and Marriage. He wants to PROTECT women, for they were the ones being divorced by men in search of younger woman. This problem, created by Moses "For your hardness of heart Moses wrote you this commandment" clearly shows the problem was men divorcing women not women divorcing men or women living apart from their husband.

There are Catholics who get hung up on the issue of Divorce, but in many circumstances separating the parties is best for all. Jesus NEVERS say you can NOT divorce, but if you divorce it can NOT be to get a new spouse. It is clear what Jesus was attacking and that was NOT a divorce by a spouse to get away from a bad spouse.

Another cite on Jesus and Divorce:

http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20090825_1.htm

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19

You see this over and over again in the New Testament, Jesus want men and women to marry and stay married but he NEVER tells a wife to stay with a husband who beats her. Thus Jesus tells such woman it is perfectly OK with him to leave her husband and live alone (Thus the add on about Eunuchs). The only reason for that add on, is to show that wives can separate from their husbands and as long as they do not take up with another man, that is acceptable to Jesus. On the other hand if a Woman is divorced by her husband (or other wise separated by him do to the actions of the Husband including abuse) any sexual misconduct on her part is the fault of her husband and he bares the sin of Adultery not her.

Just a comment on Divorce within the Catholic Church and how many Catholics get it wrong,