Genesis 2:18-24 / Hebrews 2:9-11 / Mark 10:2-16
One of the basic and fundamental needs in life is the need for survival.
From the moment we came into the world, we instinctively made it known that we want to live and survive.
So, even though when we were helpless little babies, we would cry out for attention in our need for food.
And as we started to crawl around, we would put into our mouths anything we can lay our hands on, and our parents would go into alarm or panic mode.
When our need for food is met, and we have a stable supply of food, we will turn our attention to something else.
Not being satisfied with just having food to survive, we now want to have our place in this world.
So, we begin the quest for recognition and status, for academic qualifications, for job promotions and for material possessions.
Instinctively, we will look for what benefits us and we will avoid what are burdens to us.
So, it is like when we have to go out on a rainy day, we will look for an umbrella, for the benefit of keeping dry.
But, when the rain has stopped, or when we have no more need for the umbrella, then it becomes a burden, because we have to carry it around.
So, in life, our human survival instinct tells us to get what benefits us, and to avoid and reject what are burdens to us.
In the gospel, Jesus gave a teaching about marriage, and He stated that from the beginning, marriage was instituted by God.
That beginning is what we heard in the 1st reading, when God said: It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmate.
The Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep, and then took to a rib from the man and created the woman.
So, something was taken from the man and given to the woman.
So, it can be said that a man and a woman commit themselves to marriage because they want to give themselves to the other.
Marriage is not for self-benefit, neither is it to think of the other as a burden.
When marriage is understood as a self-sacrifice for the other, then there will be love in the marriage.
Needless to say, that in marriage, one spouse cannot think of the other as an umbrella for rainy days, and a burden when the rain has stopped.
Rather, one becomes the umbrella and a shelter for the other in rainy days.
This self-sacrifice of love is what parents will teach and show to their children.
I once watched a movie clip about a father who went to fetch his twin children from kindergarten on a rainy day.
When the father reached the kindergarten and saw his two children happily waiting for him, he realized that he had only one umbrella, and it was not a big umbrella.
For a moment, the father looked at his children and looked at the umbrella.
The next scene showed him holding the umbrella over his two children, and he was wet in the rain.
What he did for his children, he would also do for his wife, and his wife would also do likewise.
And that is how we see the meaning of our life.
More than just food and other things for survival, we live because of love.
To survive is just to exist. But to live is to love.
God created us in love, with love and for love.
Let us go forth and share God's love with our world.