Catholic Men’s Daily Devotional – Seventh Week of Ordinary Time – Friday – Mark 10:1-12

In Mark 10:1-12, Jesus enters Judea for the first time since His baptism, now moving towards the Passion.  Christ’s reputation precedes Him, attracting large crowds.

The Pharisees, alarmed at Christ’s growing popularity, publicly confront Him, asking  “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  This is clearly meant to be a trap: for over a thousand years since the time of Moses, Jews were allowed to divorce (Deut 24:1-4).  The Pharisees likely knew that Jesus opposed divorce from His earlier teaching (Matt 5:31-32).

Jesus, the Son of God, now questions the Pharisees and they point to Moses as allowing divorce.  Jesus boldly asserts that Moses only allowed divorce because of the hardness of the heart.  Further, Jesus turns to Genesis and getting back to the foundations of God’s plan: God created male and female (Gen 1:27) for an insolvable union in marriage (Gen 2:24).

Later, to His disciples, Jesus unequivocally denounces divorce, teaching that whoever divorces and remarries commits adultery.

Awed by Jesus Christ – Jesus, the Divine Teacher, has an indisputable charisma, drawing crowds wherever He goes and is seen as a powerful threat to the Pharisees’ vision of Judaism. With Omniscience that transcends time, Jesus reveals the motivations of Moses; with Divine Authority, Jesus corrects both the Pharisees and Moses’ actions by reasserting marriages cannot be dissolved and those who divorce are in adultery.

Being a Heroic Catholic Man

1) From the beginning, Christ reminds humans that God created two sexes; male and female.  Today’s gender ideology fantasizes that one’s sexuality is based on choice, not biology, and that men can be women and women can be men.  Pray that Christ leads the world to return to His truth.

2) Christ teaches that God’s plan for marriage between one man and one woman.  The same gender ideology has succeeded in imposing laws about homosexual “marriage.”  Again, pray for Christ to lead the world to return to His truth about marriage.

3) There are some, even in the Church, who deny Christ’s clear teaching about divorce and adultery, proposing that divorced and remarried Catholics who are in a permanent state of unrepentant adultery can receive the Eucharist.  Pray for Christ to return the Church to His truth.

Spiritual Practices – Include in Today’s Prayers

Sacred Mystery of Rosary – The Sorrowful Mysteries

Daily Devotion – The Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ

Virtue of the Day – Faith

Read the Bible in a Year – (insert reading)

Read the Catechism in a Year – (insert reading)