Memorial of Our Lady of Sheshan, sanctuary nearby Shanghai in China. Prayer for Chinese Christians.

Reading of the Word of God

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

This is the Gospel of the poor,
liberation for the imprisoned,
sight for the blind,
freedom for the oppressed.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Mark 10,1-12

After leaving there, he came into the territory of Judaea and Transjordan. And again crowds gathered round him, and again he taught them, as his custom was. Some Pharisees approached him and asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?' They were putting him to the test. He answered them, 'What did Moses command you?' They replied, 'Moses allowed us to draw up a writ of dismissal in cases of divorce.' Then Jesus said to them, 'It was because you were so hard hearted that he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation he made them male and female. This is why a man leaves his father and mother, and the two become one flesh. They are no longer two, therefore, but one flesh. So then, what God has united, human beings must not divide.' Back in the house the disciples questioned him again about this, and he said to them, 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another she is guilty of adultery too.'

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

The Son of Man came to serve,
whoever wants to be great
should become servant of all.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia

Here a new section of the Gospel of Mark starts. The journey to Jerusalem continues and that the evangelist has the group reaching the region of Judaea and the territory east of the Jordan River. Jesus, always surrounded by a large crowd, talks about some important issues in life. The first concerned marriage and the command for the spouses to maintain life-long fidelity. Jesus clarified the indissolubility of marriage referring to the original plan of god. The Law of Moses had allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal even if the man "found in her something shameful." According to Jesus, this rule is only a concession by Moses to the insensitivity of men. It is not about simply repeat an abstract principle, rather to make people understand the urgency of love, faithfulness, mutual understanding and also of forgiveness and the capacity to accompany each other in life. These words also help understand that love between man and woman cannot be just the fruit of a feeling, they must be founded on a project of love that means faithfulness and construction. We often hear that a stable marriage and a family cannot adapt to the times in which we are living. To the younger ones, a life-long, definitive, and exclusive love seems to be hard. In the Gospel Jesus reminds us that fidelity is the deep desire God inscribed in all hearts, calling us to learn how to love and to work a bit so that the unity of a family may be stable and strong, in the image of the love that Lord has for the entire humanity and for the Church.