19th Sunday after Trinity (27th in Ordinary Time)

Dear friends,
These words of God are spoken in the story of our creation, at the beginning of our existence. It reveals a fundamental truth about what it is to be human. We are social creatures and in printed into our DNA is the need to be in relationship and have communion with others.
The irony of our modern world is that there are more people doing more things at a quicker rate than any other generation before us. Yet despite this busyness and constant noise and chatter the number of people who feel isolated, rejected, ignored and alone is greater than ever.
From the very get go the most intimate human relationship of a husband and wife is marked as a sacrament; ‘the two shall become one flesh’ and ‘what God has joined let no-one put asunder.’ It is in the act of love making that a person encounters another at their most vulnerable intimate self. There is an engagement at a level that should be exclusive and precious to the husband and wife alone and requires a deep level of trust and faith.
Jesus’ fierce defence of marriage in the gospel is because it images the intimate relationship of trust, faith and communion that we are called to in our spiritual discipleship. Our relationship to the body of Christ is one of sacramental intimacy.
Blessings, Fr Neil