Pre-feast of Theophany; Our Holy Father Sylvester, Pope of Rome (335)
Read
Hebrews 12:25-26; 13:22-25; Mark 10:2-12
Christ is Born!
Have you ever read one of those “chose your own adventure” books? Those are the ones which give you different alternatives and you can flip to a certain page to figure out what you want to do and choose how the story ends. They are really fun, but ironically, they are only fun because you don’t actually choose your own adventure. You never get to a page that is blank with a little caption at the top that says “write your own ending.” It’s only fun because the story has already been written and we want to see how we do in regard to that story.
It’s the same thing with marriage. We don’t invent it. In the beginning God made men and women and marriage and the whole created order and our happiness comes from living within that created and ordained order. We come to know who we are not by looking at ourselves, but at the other. Adam did not know who he was (even though he had named all the animals!) until he saw his wife Eve. A priest makes no sense without the Church. We need to choose the adventure which God has already written into the world and into our very bodies. By choosing the story we inherited “in the beginning” we will truly come to know God and fill the emptiness in our hearts with His love and mission.