Eph 5: 21-33
Brothers and sisters: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Revere Christ in One Another
Like much of Scripture, it can be easy to get caught up in words and ideas that I don’t like. Like the instruction in this passage that wives are to be subordinate to their husbands “in everything.” There’s a deeper richness to this, though, and a good lesson to not dismiss Scripture just because there is an uncomfortable sentence or section.
The first sentence states that we, each of us, are to “be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This means simply that we ought to recognize Christ present and alive in one another, and thus to revere and love each person as we do Jesus Christ. The more one grows in love with Christ and the more that one loves and reveres Christ in themselves, the more readily he or she will do likewise with one another, whether spouse or friend or neighbor or stranger.
—Fr. Glen Chun, SJ, a priest of the Midwest Province, is community minister of Bellarmine House of Studies in St. Louis.
Prayer
My Lord God,
Help me to see You in the lives of those closest to me.
Help me to rejoice in Your presence
and to grow in love of other
and in love of You
as I see You at work in their lives.
Jesus, I trust in You.
—Fr. Glen Chun, SJ
Pray with the Pope
The Holy Father’s Monthly Prayer Intentions Brought to you by Apostleship of Prayer the first Friday of each month.