Magis Catholic

Reflecting on the blessing of Jacob and Jesus’ teaching on divorce and children

Part 1. Grace

Gio and I were listening to Bible In A Year and we get to around Day 14 on the story of how Jacob deceives his father Jacob for his blessing that was originally meant for Esau. This episode sparks a lot of conflicting emotions in my pregnant self. I got so riled up from this story. Let me explain why.

Before this particular episode, it boggled my mind how God seems to have a wildly optimistic, too naive, too forgiving view of his broken, chosen ones: Abram keeps passing off his wife Sarai as his sister, bringing in plague with him when the Egytian king receives her as his wife. Sarai, who makes her servant Hagar sleep with her husband, then proceeds to treat Hagar harshly and gets Hagar and her son Ishmael exiled. Lot and his daughters, freshly saved by angels from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, hides in a cave and gets raped by his own daughters who get him drunk in wine.

Alongside these stories of human folly, we were also learning about Job, the righteous man who is actually faithful to God, who then becomes tormented, tortured by the devil. His family destroyed. His wealth evaporated. His health made non-existent.

The story of Abram, Jacob, and Job makes me question why a God who seems to favor the broken is also allowing evil to the upright. It doesn’t make any sense: Where is justice here? We live in a world where if we do things right, God allows suffering. And if we do things wrong, God grants blessing.

So what do I take from this? First, I expressed my initial dismay to my husband. This is unfair, I told him. Gio explained to me that his take on it is that we are seeing people from the Old Testament who have not received the Ten Commandments yet. Their idea of justice would not adhere to our modern moral code. He said that the story of how trust in God is essential to progress in the faith is being carefully laid out by the Bible brick-by-brick through the stories of these people. They are not supposed to be perfect nor does the Bible present them to be holier-than-thou. The stories do show that when a character like Abram trusts in God, God is faithful and delivers to His promises. Abram’s righteousness is not hinged on his own moral code, but trusting in what God tells him to do, even if it looks like sacrificing his only son Isaac. In return, God blesses and rewards his faith. He becomes the father of the faith.

Going back to Bible In A Year Day 14, Fr. Mike talked about how the story of Jacob being mistakenly blessed by his father Isaac represents the sacraments as irreversible graces, that once received, the blessing cannot be returned or rejected or taken back to God. It didn’t matter that it was secured through unjust means, it just matters that it was freely given.

To this point, I’m thinking: Okay, the point is that it’s not what we are doing or what we are worthy of as human beings. As we are, we are all broken and capable of doing wrong. All have fallen short in the eyes of God, regardless of how big or how small.

God wants the focus to be on His character. His faithfulness. His unconditional positive regard. He sees more of us and defines us more than our worst sins. This may be the greatest delight of Christians. It’s not because of anything we currently are or anything we did. It is because of the Giver Himself, and His character. He is constant, unwavering, and gracious.

Yes, He allowed Job’s suffering but it was not in vain. Job was in absolute pain, but he was faithful until the end. He cursed the day of his birth, but he refused to speak ill of God: God gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. When I was born, I was naked. And when I die, I take nothing with me.

What a demonstration of humility and surrender! Because of this, God remembered Job. And as my husband says: Job’s got his own book in the Bible! Talk about victory of a saint!

Part 2. Divorce and Children

In the Sunday Mass, we listened to Jesus’ teaching on divorce and how it was through hardness of heart that it exists, and how that was not God’s plan: What God has put together, let no man put asunder. I am reminded of the Catholic Marriage Prep class where Gio and I were told that in marriage, we become one flesh. In my vivid imagination, tearing one human flesh apart results to decapitation, suffering, more so, death of the torn pieces that cannot live / stand on its own.

After emphasizing that marriage and oneness of flesh is God’s will, Jesus then redirects His attention to his little ones, the children, whom He welcomes in His arms. The disciples are told not to keep them from Him, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. More so, we are told to accept the kingdom like a child.

I don’t think that this is an accident on the part of Christ. Children are precious in His eyes, and their protection must be at the forefront of His mind. It makes me realize that divorce enacts such enormous pain and suffering that its decapitating effects do not just affect the married couple but extend to their children as well.

In a culture of divorce, children are harmed and they are kept from God. In what way? We know for a fact that adult children of divorce suffer from a wide range of issues, especially when it comes to building trust and forming secure relationships. Who can blame them if the prime example of love and bonding they have witnessed is a broken, conditional, and temporary one?

The Catholic Church teaches that the vocation of marriage is an irreversible, lifelong commitment. Marriage is designed by God for the good of the spouses and the procreation of life, which means the rearing and protection of children. More than that, it’s designed to reflect the core of God’s identity which is love and relationship. A marriage without God at its center is a dead one, and its children are its first victims.

Again, we circle back to the unchanging character of God and how we are called to reflect Him in our marriages and our families. He is faithful. He is patient. He is loving. He is generous. He is merciful. For human beings, what He asks of us is impossible. Yet with Him, nothing is impossible. We only need to lean on His grace and wisdom, like Abram did.