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November 22 is the 326th day of the year. We have 39 days to the end of the year. November 22 is Family Volunteer Day; National Adoption Day. The theme of 2025 National Adoption Day is “Honoring Youth: Strengthening Pathways for Lasting Bonds.” November 22nd is also “Go for a ride day” and Humane Society Anniversary Day.
Above all, November 22nd is the feast of St. Cecilia. Saint Cecilia is a revered Roman Christian virgin and martyr who lived in the 3rd century AD. She is widely known as the patron saint of music and musicians. She was a noblewoman who had taken a vow of virginity but whose parents forced her to marry a pagan nobleman named Valerian. That brings us to the gospel of today where our Lord Jesus Christ addressed the issue of divorce and other marital matters.
In the gospel of Luke 20:27- 40, some of the Sadducees, who deny that there is a resurrection, came to Jesus and asked Him, saying: “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife, and he dies without children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. And the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her as wife, and he died childless. Then the third took her, and in like manner the seven also; and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife does she become? For all seven had her as wife.”
Jesus answered and said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.”
The catechism of the catholic church paragraph 2382 “The Lord Jesus insisted on the original intention of the Creator who willed that marriage be indissoluble. He abrogates the accommodations that had slipped into the old Law Between the baptized, “a ratified and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human power or for any reason other than death.” CCC no 2383 presents another solution to marital crisis, instead of divorce the church calls for separation. “The separation of spouses while maintaining the marriage bond can be legitimate in certain cases provided for by canon law. If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense.”
Apart from separation the CCC, 2384 insisted that “Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery.” May God protect all married couples in Jesus name!
