Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
As we read this genealogy in today’s Gospel, God Himself tells us that He wills the incarnation to happen. God wills to become man, not immediately at the beginning of history, but only after many generations. So mankind approaches the fullness of time, generation after generation after generation.
Love, marriage, procreation are a fundamental part of God’s economy of salvation. That’s why there is a moral law about love, marriage, procreation. It’s a fundamental part of God’s economy of salvation. And by the faithful living out of marriage, the world is prepared for God dwelling among men.
Now, some of the generations in Christ’s genealogy occurred in a sinful manner. Think of Judah, Tamar. But Christ’s own, in the fullness of time, occurs in a sinless manner, in fact, a virginal manner. Christ is unique because He, in His own generation, also embodies and foretells that vocation to already anticipate on earth the eternal reality of heaven, where people neither marry nor are given in marriage. A beautiful vocation to already live that in celibate continence on earth.
But for most people, their participation in the economy of salvation is through marriage, married love. And so Christ’s own mother is conceived in a sinless manner, but her parents, Joachim and Anne, are married. Again, their love, their marriage, their procreation, part of God’s plan, part of God’s economy of salvation.
In the fullness of time, therefore, marriage is finally freed from sin. Marriage reaches its full meaning. It’s elevated to the dignity of a sacrament. Therefore human generation is not irrelevant, not merely biological, but actually supernatural, salvific. It’s a means of grace, a precondition for God dwelling among men. And therefore how human generation happens is not irrelevant either. And that’s why, again, there are rules of morality and the Church has laws, moral laws, about how transmission of life is to occur, because it is sacred.
And precisely for this reason, because it’s sacred, to undermine that sacredness and that dignity is gravely immoral. So we think of conception, how beautiful it is, but how it undermines its dignity if it happens in the context of fornication, for example, or adultery, or in vitro, like literally in a test tube, or through surrogate motherhood or something like that, and how it undermines the dignity of spouses and children and the economy of salvation, if this capacity of human beings to procreate is abused, again, by contraception or divorce or homosexuality, all contrary to human dignity itself.
So there’s a sacredness, again, in human love, marriage, procreation, because it ushers in the fullness of time, the precondition for God dwelling among men. And that’s, I think, that brief takeaway from today’s Gospel that I wanted to share with you today.
When spouses live fidelity, chastity, openness to life, they’re not living a merely biological reality. They’re not at the margins of salvation history, but at its very heart. And in the faithfulness of sacramental marriage, human love, human generation is liberated, sanctified, elevated, and the world is once more, once again, and all the more prepared to be God’s dwelling among men.
The importance of love, marriage, family, it prepares God, rather, it prepares the world to be God’s dwelling among men. Now, in a fullness of time, a fullness of time of love and marriage, family life is lived in a holy manner that allows God to truly be felt with His presence among men.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.