Martyrs for Marriage

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - June 24, 2005

"Among those born of women, no one is greater than John the Baptist" (Lk 7:28).

Truth incarnate once paid that supreme compliment, which is why the Church founded by Him celebrates that singular birth throughout the world today.

To mark Saint John the Baptist's nativity is to celebrate the purpose for which he was born. God had destined him from all eternity to be the precursor of the Messiah-Lord, who in the "spirit of Elijah" would "go before the Lord to prepare his ways, giving his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins" (Lk 1:17; Mt 11:14).

That's what, of course, he did at the Jordan, when he fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy and cried out in the wilderness the need to prepare the Lord's way and make straight his paths (Mt 3:3). In the ancient world, before a king would arrive, heralds would precede him announcing his advent, so that the people could make appropriate roads for the regal caravan. John's mission, as the forerunner of the Lord, was to help the people repair their various moral potholes and bore new roads through the mountains of their pride so that the humble king of kings might come to rescue them.

The nature of that rescue mission was spousal: the king was going to save his people through a marriage covenant that would be the fulfillment of Old Testaments prophecies and hopes.

Through Isaiah, God had once promised: "As a young man marries a young woman, so shall your Maker marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you" (Is 62:5) God was even more explicit through Hosea. Even though his bride was previously unfaithful and prostituted herself with false gods, God would forgive her and take her to himself forever: "On that day, you will call me, 'My husband.' ... I will take you for my wife forever... in righteousness, justice, steadfast love, mercy and faithfulness" (Hos 2:16-21).

John the Baptist's mission, essentially, was to get Christ's bride ready for the consummation of that marriage. Christ called himself on several occasions the "bridegroom" (Mt 25:1; Mk 2:19; Lk 5:34; Jn 2:9) and John referred to himself as the "friend of the bridegroom" (Jn 3:29), the ancient Jewish periphrasis for "best man." In Jewish society, his role was to watch over the bride, attend to her needs, and keep her faithful during the interval between the wedding ceremony and conjugal cohabitation and marital consummation one-to-two-years later.

Since salvation would be spousal, it's no surprise that Jesus and his best man took the analogy of human marriage so seriously. It would be hard for people to perceive what their redemption would mean if their understanding and practice of human marriage were messed up.

That's why Jesus himself taught so clearly about the nature of the indissolubility of marriage against the "hardened hearts" that sought the ability to divorce and remarry. Jesus, who would never divorce his bride to take up another, called us to the same covenantal commitment and told us clearly what its violation would constitute: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery" (Mk 10:11-12).

The precursor was likewise as explicit in saying that we do not have the sanction to make of marriage whatever we please. He was thrown into prison and eventually decapitated because he had the courage repeatedly to tell King Herod - who had taken his brother Philip's wife Herodias to be his own - "It is not lawful for you to have her" (Mt 14:4). He was a martyr for the truth about marriage, which makes him a particular patron for modern times.

Our own age is getting increasingly messed up about the real meaning of matrimony. We see it in the rampant practice of cohabitation before marriage, where the inextricable, God-given connection between love, marriage, sex and children (in that order) is ignored. We see it in the high rates of divorce-and-remarriage, even among those who call themselves disciples of Jesus. We see it especially in what Pope Benedict XVI has called "pseudo-matrimony" between people of the same sex, which is based on the premise that someone should be able to take as a spouse anyone he or she pleases.

To all of these situations, there is the need for new precursors to step up and be the echo of the "voice crying out in the wilderness." It is a time for new martyrs for marriage, who will say lovingly and repeatedly, on behalf of God, "It is not lawful for you to have her!" "It is not right for you to have him!"

Last Saturday in Spain, a country where devotion to St. John the Baptist is strong and this feast is still a national holiday, 1.5 million people marched on Madrid with that message against a government seeking to do in Spain what four Supreme Judicial Court justices did here in Massachusetts. Here in our Commonwealth, there is a new referendum initiative for the 2008 ballot to overturn the SJC's redefinition of marriage, which will give each of us the chance to be friends or enemies of the Bridegroom.

Like John the Baptist, we were born with a mission. Maybe this is it.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.