“Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
There was a time when the majority of people believed in objective standards. That is not to say they agreed on everything, they didn’t. Bu they did agree that somethings were simply right or wrong. Several polls in recent years have consistently shown that more than 75% of Americans no longer believe in objective truth. That is, they do not believe that anything can be known with absolute certainty.
Jelly Beans
There is a pastor who always begins his confirmation classes by showing his students a jar full of jellybeans. He then asks them to guess the number of beans in the jar and write it down on a piece of paper. Then he asks them to think of their favorite song and write it down next to the number.
The number of jellybeans in the jar is revealed and the student who correctly guessed the number is duly recognized as being “right.” The pastor then asks who had the “right” song.
The students protest that there is no right answer, it is up to individual preference.
So the pastor then asks, when it comes to choosing your faith, is it more like determining the number of jellybeans in a jar or choosing a favorite song? The students invariably say that choosing your faith is like choosing your favorite song, it is different for everybody.
When asked if he still confirmed the students, he said, “yes, but I try to talk them out of their position.”
Truth, Beauty, and Goodness are transcendentals, that is they are properties of being that are common to all things, And they are not as subjective as people tend to think. They are also closely intertwined, where one exists the other two are also present.
Another way to think of them is that they are properties of the divine, God is all Truth, all Beauty, and all Goodness. Relativism, and the lack of belief that anything is objective or absolute, is a rejection of God.
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, philosopher, historian, short story writer, and a political prisoner. He was imprisoned for being critical of the Soviet regime in private letters and talks with a friend. After eight years in prison he was exiled for life to a small village in Kazakhstan.
Solzhenitsyn saw the de-Christianization of Russia under the Soviets. A movement that had its roots as far back as the 17th century. The Soviet Union engaged in a government sponsored program aimed at converting the populace to atheism. Without a belief in God, the government becomes the final authority and Truth, Beauty, and Goodness become whatever the state says it is.
Solzhenitsyn once declared, “Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened. Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God;’ that’s why all this has happened.”
Marriage
Our society is becoming increasingly relativistic. Everything it seems is perceived in shades of gray. Take marriage for example. When it comes to defining marriage, is it more like counting jellybeans or choosing a favorite song?
In the Gospel reading today the question of marriage is settled.
“But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 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.” (Mark 10:6-9)
Jesus goes beyond Moses to God’s original intent at the beginning of all things. Marriage, and for that matter, gender, is not a man-made institution that can be changed, dissolved or redefined at man’s whim. It is part of our very existence, it is written into our nature. Marriage as ordained by God between a man and a woman is an objective Truth.
Human nature is inseparably both spiritual and physical. Physically husband and wife become one flesh. Spiritually they become one when a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his wife. In this way, marriage is a sacrament, traceable back to the order of creation. We cannot change it any more than we can change the course of the earth as it circles the sun.
And the wisdom of God’s intent may be seen in couples that take this to heart, they marry realizing that it is a lifelong commitment. To perceive true beauty, observe a couple that has grown old together. They become one flesh and one spirit to such a degree that they seem incomplete without each other. Those who work with the elderly point out that with such a couple, when one falls asleep in the arms of Christ, the other soon follows, so complete is their union.
Some would argue that man is just another animal. But this is not the case. Men and women are created differently from all other creatures. Discovering this difference and becoming “one flesh” is one way to fulfill of our deepest and most unique nature.
Pax Vobiscum
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time