27 January 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” Ephesians 5:25
The verse just before today's reading gives a principle for every Christian household: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Mutual self-giving, not domination, is the law of Christian marriage. He then speaks to wives and husbands in the language of his time, but turns everything toward Christ: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The measure of a husband's love is the cross. Quoting Genesis, “the two will become one flesh”, Paul adds: “This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.”
In the Gospel Jesus restores marriage to God's original plan. Moses had allowed a certificate of divorce, but Jesus teaches that the bond is not to be broken. The Church calls marriage a sacrament, a living icon of Christ's faithful love for his Bride; in our tradition the Crowning shows husband and wife as king and queen of a small kingdom, the domestic church. Today let us pray for married couples, for families under strain, and for those whose marriages have been wounded, that they may find in the Church the mercy and truth of Christ.
Theme: “Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
Christian marriage: mutual reverence, self-giving love, an unbroken bond.
“And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.” Hosea 2:19
“Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Ephesians 5:21
Apply: Serve your spouse or family humbly today.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.” Song of Solomon 8:6
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” Ephesians 5:25
Apply: Do something costly out of love for your family.
“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24
“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”” Matthew 19:6
Apply: Pray for a couple who are struggling.
Marriage is an icon of Christ's love for the Church.
Let our homes be domestic churches.
Take-home resolution: Pray together as a family every evening this week.
Dear friends, just before today's reading Paul writes: be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21). Christian marriage is mutual self-giving, not domination.
Then he says: husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5:25). The measure of love is the cross.
Quoting Genesis, the two will become one flesh, he adds: this is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32). In the Gospel Jesus teaches that this bond is not to be broken.
In our tradition the Crowning shows husband and wife as king and queen of a domestic church. Let us pray for all couples and for wounded families, that they may find Christ's mercy and truth. Amen.
Children, Jesus loves his Church like a good husband loves his wife. Let us pray for our mummy and daddy, and help them at home today!
Lord Jesus, you love the Church as a faithful Bridegroom and gave yourself up for her. Bless all married couples with mutual reverence, faithful love and the grace to forgive. Heal wounded families, and make every home a domestic church. Amen.
Both readings today are about marriage, and both refuse to treat it as a merely private arrangement. Ephesians measures the love of husband and wife by the love of Christ for the Church. In Matthew, Jesus takes a permission in the Law and leads his hearers back to what God wanted from the beginning. Together they say that marriage is a promise on which God himself has staked something.
Setting.
This passage belongs to a “household code”, a common form of moral teaching in the Greek and Roman world that set out the duties of wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters. Other examples in the New Testament are Colossians 3:18–4:1 and 1 Peter 2:18–3:7. The letter names Paul as its author, though many scholars think a disciple wrote it in his name; the Church receives it as inspired Scripture either way.
The verse just before the reading governs everything: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (5:21). In Greek, verse 22 has no verb of its own and borrows it from verse 21, so the instruction to wives is one case of a duty laid on all. What is new is not the form but what fills it. The code of that time told husbands to rule; this one tells them to love, and to give themselves up.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” (5:25)
The authority a husband may claim is the authority of the one who died for the other. St John Chrysostom, preaching on this verse, tells a husband that he should be ready to give his life for his wife, as Christ did for the Church (in substance).
“In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies.” (5:28)
The argument turns on Genesis: the two are one flesh. Care for the other is not an extra virtue; it is care for one's own life.
“This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.” (5:32)
The writer reads Genesis 2:24 on two levels. Human marriage is real and good in itself, and it is also a sign of something larger: God's marriage with his people.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism quotes this passage when it teaches that the whole Christian life bears the mark of the spousal love of Christ and the Church, and it calls Baptism a kind of nuptial bath that comes before the wedding feast, the Eucharist (CCC 1616–1617). Christ is the source of the grace by which couples can live this love (CCC 1642). St John Paul II, in Mulieris Dignitatem 24, says that the newness of the Gospel lies in this mutual subjection, even though the wording of the time remains in the text.
Setting.
These two verses are one of the six sayings in the Sermon on the Mount that run “You have heard... but I say to you” (5:21–48). Jesus has just said that he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfil it (5:17). Each saying goes to the root of a commandment, and this one follows the saying on adultery in the heart (5:27–30).
The certificate comes from Deuteronomy 24:1–4. It gave a dismissed wife some protection, because it showed that she was able to marry again. Later Jewish writings record a debate between teachers over what grounds were sufficient for divorce. Matthew 19:3–9 gives the fuller version of Jesus' answer, going back to Genesis: “from the beginning it was not so” (19:8).
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” (5:31)
Jesus does not deny that Moses said this. In 19:8 he explains that it was allowed because of hardness of heart, and was never the plan.
“But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery;” (5:32)
A dismissed woman of that time would usually have had to remarry to live. Jesus says the man who dismisses her bears responsibility for what follows. He puts the weight on the one who holds the power.
How the Church reads it.
The Church holds that Jesus taught plainly the original meaning of marriage, and that the permission given by Moses was a concession to the hardness of hearts (CCC 1614). A valid marriage between the baptized, once consummated, cannot be dissolved by any human power (CCC 1640). The Catechism also says that those who follow this teaching are not left on their own: by coming to Christ they receive the strength to live marriage in the new way of the Kingdom (CCC 1615).
What does “except on the ground of unchastity” mean? Does Jesus allow divorce after all?
Catholic scholars give two main explanations. One is that porneia here means a union that was unlawful from the start, such as a marriage within the degrees of kinship forbidden in Leviticus 18; such a union is not a true marriage to begin with. The other, found in St Jerome and many later writers, is that a spouse may separate in such a case but not marry another. The Church's teaching does not depend on settling this. She holds that a valid, consummated sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved (CCC 1640). She allows separation when living together has become practically impossible (CCC 1649), and a tribunal may declare after examination that a marriage was never valid (CCC 1629). Those who have divorced and remarried civilly remain part of the Church, and she asks that they be cared for with attentive concern (CCC 1650–1651).
In the Syriac marriage service the couple are crowned, and the Catechism notes that in the Eastern traditions the priest's blessing is itself necessary for the sacrament (CCC 1623). The crown of a Christian marriage is not an award for a happy home. It belongs to the one who has learned to give his or her life for another, and so it stands close to the crown of the martyrs.