“And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these words, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea, beyond Jordan. And great multitudes followed him: and he healed them there. And there came to him the Pharisees tempting him, saying: ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?’ Who answering, said to them: ‘Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female?’ And he said: ‘For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.’”
Jesus, His passion drawing near, then reenters Judea, staying in the borders until the proper time. Many ran in His footsteps, clinging to the Beloved: “I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go” (Canticle 3:4), and He answers their love with His own acts of love. He has a beautiful balance between teaching and action, backing up His words of love with acts of love, that He may do as He teaches and show the great benefit of His words: “Thy testimonies are wonderful: therefore my soul hath sought them” (Psalm 118:129). He did this beyond the Jordan to show that spiritual healing takes place after baptism, for baptism is the birth into new life, that one may love in freedom and truth: “Purifying your souls in the obedience of love, with a brotherly love, from a sincere heart love one another earnestly: being born again not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God who liveth and remaineth for ever” (1 Peter 1:22-23). This healing then brings others to the same fountain, as a man restored to health exuberantly recommends a good doctor to those that are seeking improved health: “The skill of the physician shall lift up his head, and in the sight of great men he shall be praised” (Ecclesiasticus 38:3), and so for the one seeking love and affection, the Christian can point to Christ: “If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink” (John 7:37). However, this was lost on the Pharisees, whose hearts were hardened by His love and miracles, and come to Him with an attempted snare: “Sinners have laid a snare for me: but I have not erred from thy precepts” (Psalm 118:110). While the Pharisees were attempting to wield the Law as a weapon rather than as a treasure, they do it without understanding the commandments of love, but Jesus meets them on their level and uses it properly: “And from his mouth came out a sharp two edged sword” (Apocalypse 1:16), in turn looking at the magnificence of the bond of love, the greatest example of what God wants with His people. Eros is not a sexual inclination, but an infatuation with the other, who lives in the mind of the lover and roams in their heart freely, and the joining of two that feel this way to each other and the children that proceed is both a representation of the Trinity and the ideal relationship of God with your soul, where you become a sort of prisoner of love: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love” (Canticle 5:8). The joining of the two by bodily union is a physical expression of a spiritual reality that is already present, that in their hearts they are already interwoven: “So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself” (Ephesians 5:28), and so in your relationship with Jesus are you called to let Him reside in your mind and heart with beautiful freedom: “Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth” (Colossians 3:2), for He always thinks about you: “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of affliction, to give you an end and patience” (Jeremias 29:11). In leaving the closest affections, those of one’s family, for the sake of eros, there is a magnificent symbol of the love you should have for Jesus, that, rather than suppressing other loves, it is like the sun, so bright and fiery that all the others simply cannot stand out in its light: “He hath set his tabernacle in the sun: and he, as a bridegroom coming out of his bride chamber, hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way” (Psalm 18:6). While volumes have been written on this by much greater authors, still one note is that when the love between a man and a woman is held as something flimsy and dispensable, it gives the impression that the love of God is something similar, when in reality the unbreakable bond of love between a couple is supposed to be a glimpse into the unbreakable bond of love between God and His beloved: “I to my beloved, and my beloved to me, who feedeth among the lilies” (Canticle 6:2), and just as the two become one flesh, inseparable, by marital union, so too does the Trinity live in your heart, that you are one with God by nature of your state of grace, the two becoming one in you. Consider, Theophila, that Jesus descended from heaven and His Father to become one with you; He left the joys of heaven for the struggles of life and the horrors of the Cross, because to endure these things with you is greater than happiness without you; this is the nature of eros. Finally, because it is wretched to harm one’s flesh: “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead, neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19:28), to remove the bond between a couple woven together in love, soul, body, and sacrament is gravely contrary to love. Thus, what God has drawn together, both in marriage and in His intimacy with you, hold onto this with the utmost affection and vigilance: “Happy is the husband of a good wife: for the number of his years is double” (Ecclesiasticus 26:1).