Sunday Reflection: Rules about love

This reflection is brought to you
by Mark 10: 2-16.

O God,
we are all
your beloved children,
but sometimes
we forget that.

When we doubt your love for us,
things soon spin out of control.

When we doubt your love for others,
doubly so.

When we say
that you have made rules about love
that aren't loving,
we are putting the wrong words into your mouth.

We need to understand
that sometimes
we can be mistaken
when it comes to love
as you see it.

And so we learn hard lessons --
about acceptance,
about forgiving others,
about forgiving ourselves.

We want to become like the little children
you took into your arms and blessed,
that we may recognize
all true forms of love
and allow them to flourish
as you do.

Thank you for loving us.

Help us to be your love
in every corner of our lives.

+Amen.


As I write this today, I am thinking of my neighbours, L&M, two really lovely gentlemen neighbours who were recently married. Their marriage provides them with a blessing for their 17-year committed relationship, and essential spousal rights and benefits. I fail to see how the acceptance of their marriage denigrates my own in any way, as I know that many marriages are simply about loving companionship, and we have no lack of human population on our planet. In my humble opinion, the Church's treatment of our gay sisters and brothers and its black and white rules about disallowing gay marriage need to be challenged in the way Jesus challenges the pharisees about their hardness of heart when it came to the Mosaic divorce laws in today's readings.

Love is love.