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I may be
wrong but most people, I think, believe the “high point” of a wedding
ceremony is the exchange of vows. I believe this is the case not
because that’s when I am nearly blinded by the number of flashes
emanating from numerous cameras, but because that’s when I see so many
couple’s parents sobbing. And, trust me, it’s not just the Moms who are
dabbing their eyes and daubing their noses with a handkerchief. I also
see lots of Dads sniffling and raising their index fingers to their eyes
to wipe away a tear or two before anyone might notice.
For me, the real
“high point” is when I introduce the husband and wife to the
congregation for the first time and send them on their way out the
door! It’s not the high point because I’m glad to get the ceremony
over with, to get everyone out of the church, to tidy things up and lock
the church doors, and then to get on with the rest of my day. No, in
light of today’s gospel—where Jesus summoned the Twelve, sent them out
two by two, gave them authority over unclean spirits, and instructed
them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—introducing the
newlyweds and sending them forth is a personal high point for me
because, through their married life, the couple will now be witnessing
to the entire world what Pope Benedict XVI recently called the “Gospel
of the Family.” During the (hopefully) many years of (blissful)
marriage the couple will have, it is my sincere hope that, cooperating
with the grace of God and hearts filled with selfless love, the
newlyweds will transform their marriage into a sacrament, one capable of
transforming all that is wrong with our culture and world into all that
can be right with our culture and world.
Yes, I’ve always
been a starry-eyed optimist and am full of hope that upon being sent
forth, just like the Twelve, the couple will: teach the
gospel—especially through their love for each other; preach
repentance—especially as they forgive each other; drive out many
demons—especially as they together confront evil as it rears its ugly
head; and, allow their love to be a holy oil that anoints and heals the
sick—especially the spiritual and morally sick whom they will encounter
through their years of marriage. The hope these newlyweds engender in
me—that they will build the God’s Kingdom through their witness to their
vocation in the Sacrament of Marriage—makes the introduction of the
couple and sending them forth the real “high point” of the wedding
ceremony. Well, at least for me.
In recent years,
most of us have heard members of the media proclaiming that marriage and
the family are in “crisis.” But, this is nothing new. For decades,
these same members of the media have promoted as “rights” the very legal
mechanisms that would cast marriage and family as Catholics understand
both into even greater crisis. Three decades the legal mechanism was
“abortion on demand.” Two decades ago, “no fault divorce” was the legal
mechanism that would solve all the problems of marriage and family
life. So, now, it’s “civil unions.” For people of faith, the
agenda and trajectory are unmistakable.
The truth be
told, those members of the media are correct because marriage and the
family are both in crisis. The grim statistics provide absolutely no
comfort in this regard and, I might add, very little hope. The
newlyweds I am sending forth into this world, it is quite likely, will
not succeed in transforming their marriage and family life into a
sacrament, as I hope. Why? Because on their wedding day I am sending
the newlyweds forth into a culture and ideology of secular
individualism. From all sides, they will be told: “I” is more important
than “Us”; “what I want to do for myself” is more important than “what
we need to do for each other”; and, “how I feel today” is more important
that “the commitment we made yesterday.” This culture and ideology of
secular individualism poses a mortal threat to the development of strong
marriages and families.
For many people
in our culture, it is as if the affirmation of the priority of
individual rights is believed to be more productive in building strong
marriages and families than a counter-cultural insistence upon the
scriptural values like commitment and fidelity. As Catholics, we know
this is patently absurd and yet we do very little to put an end to it.
It’s almost as if we’d rather close our eyes, click our heels, and
pretend that we’ll be returning to Kansas along with Toto where
everything will be back to the way it was before everything went awry.
“Confront these
problems head on by witnessing to the gospel?” Not me.
“Take head on
those who promote everything that will undo what builds strong marriages
and families?” Not me.
“Leave all of
that teaching, preaching, and witnessing to the gospel to the bishops
and priests!”
Despite the grim
statistics, I am brimming with hope when I introduce the newlyweds and
send them forth into our culture and world. I firmly believe their
marriage will witness to scriptural values. I also firmly believe their
marriage will reaffirm the strength, identity, and happiness of a family
that is rooted in God and open to God’s generous gift of new life.
Furthermore, when the newlyweds “do this”—remember Jesus taught, “do
this in memory of me”—I believe their positive witness will breed a
counter-culture to the prevailing majority culture and ideology of
secular individualism that seeks to eliminate scriptural values from our
culture and world. While secular individualism does pose a mortal
threat to the development of a strong marriage and family, I believe the
richness and spirituality of marriage and family which these newlyweds
will experience will become their gift to our culture and world.
It will start with them. It will shape their family. And,
their marriage and family life will change our culture and world!
There’s a long
distance, however, between what I believe and hope and what the
newlyweds will achieve. To close that gap, the community of
faith—that’s our little parish—needs to consider how we might provide
married couples the assistance they will need to keep their marriages
and families rooted in God. It’s one thing to provide Pre-Cana and
Engaged Encounter programs before couples get married.
But, what do we as a community of faith provide newlyweds and young
marrieds after they are sent forth into the world and as
they have to deal with the many challenges they will confront as the
seek to build a strong marriage and family life? How, as a community of
faith, do we prayerfully celebrate important milestones, like fifth,
tenth, fifteenth, and twentieth anniversaries as well as the birth of
children? What catechesis do we offer new parents, especially parents
of a first child, so that they will be the first and best teachers of
the faith and raise their children successfully with moral and spiritual
sensitivity? As a community of faith, what do we do to provide
comfort, support, and love to widows and widowers after the funeral is
over?
I ask these
questions not in any accusatorial way but to sensitize ourselves, in
light of today’s gospel, to the fact that Jesus sent the Twelve out two
by two so that they would bring their vocation to fulfillment. When I
send the newlyweds out of this church two by two to bring their
vocations to fulfillment, an immense challenge lies just beyond the
church’s front doors. As a community of faith, what will we do to
assist these young couples so that they will effectively witness to
their vocation in the real world?
This past week,
the Archdiocese of Valencia, Spain, hosted the Fifth World Meeting of
Families. The goal of this meeting, Pope Benedict XVI said, was to
provide a message of hope for married couples and for families so that
“all those who humbly and concretely, everywhere in the world, [will]
commit themselves so that love will find ways to maintain and manifest
itself.” For husbands and wives and families to act as if God does not
exist or to relegate their faith to the privacy of the home, the Pope
continued, “undermines the truth about [humanity] and compromises the
future of culture and society. On the contrary, lifting one’s gaze to
the living God, the guarantor of our freedom and of truth, is a premise
for arriving at a new humanity....And today, in a special way, the world
needs people capable of proclaiming and bearing witness to God who is
love.”
What our culture
and the world need are marriages and families whose members witness to
their important mission in service of the Church and in service of all
humanity. The paradox is that many Catholics today who come to be
married in the Church and are sent forth into the world from the Church
are not adequately formed to address these threats so that they will
build and preserve both marriage and family life. And, as our culture
and its ideology of secular individualism threatens to undo the bond of
love, honor, and obedience which the bride and groom profess to each
other on their wedding day, so it is that husband, wives, and their
children suffer profoundly. The pain isn’t just physical; it strikes
deep into the human spirit.
What is at stake
in our culture and world today is the experience of authentic love as
this is expressed especially in the Sacrament of Marriage. This is too
great a good for us, especially as Catholics, to neglect and to allow to
be put asunder by the ideology and forces of secular individualism. We
all know in our hearts what is at stake and the need to make it better
understood in our culture and world. Our challenge, then, is to protect
marriage and family for this generation and for the next generation,
because there are forces in our culture and world seeking to redefine
and undermine marriage as Catholics understand it. It’s hard to
conceive but, left unchallenged, these forces will make marriage seem so
archaic and strange that our grandchildren will consider sacramental
marriage an exception, no longer a common point of reference for the
strengthening of culture and the world. “Who needs to be married? Why
not just live together?” many young Catholics ask themselves today.
And, sadly, many of their parents concur. Here’s what’s at stake,
however, for any failure on our part to catechize the present
generation. If the forces present in our culture and world are
successful in their efforts today, our grandchildren are likely to
consider the question of sacramental marriage irrelevant tomorrow.
Jesus didn’t send
the Twelve into religious buildings or strange places to teach the
gospel. Instead, Jesus sent them two by two into regular places where
regular people live, places like homes, places of employment, places
like stores, and places where people are entertained. The Sacrament of
Marriage isn’t put on and taken off like the bridal gown or tuxedo worn
on one’s wedding day. No, the Sacrament of Marriage is a way of life
and newlyweds are sent two by two into the regular places where they
will live, work, shop, and be entertained to witness to the truth,
dignity, and majesty of marriage and family life.
It’s the real
world and real people who most need the catechesis spouses today can
provide. They teach and preach best by the example of their committed
and faithful love. They demonstrate authentic love as they serve
each other and always seek what’s best for the other. In the Sacrament
of Marriage, God offers husbands and wives a way of life that provides
greater happiness than a life of selfishness, of self-gratification, and
one which considers selflessness something to be feared. This is
how spouses provide challenge and hope to others in a culture and world
whose members are obsessed with themselves.
Believe it or
not, in these and so many other ways, spouses are prophets. But, like
Amos, don’t be surprised if many spouses don’t believe God is calling
them to be prophets. They have jobs and families, mortgages and credit
cards, and feel inadequate to the task of proclaiming the gospel. And
yet, like Amos, spouses are sent forth to prophesy to all of God’s
children through the witness of their married life. In essence, the
challenge for married couples is to be a sign in the world of what they
promised they would become on their wedding day.
And, that’s why
the two by two part is so extremely important.
Alone and
individually, spouses are not strong enough to challenge our culture and
its ideology of secular individualism which threatens the Sacrament of
Marriage. Alone and individually, spouses are vulnerable to attack
to or succumb to temptation and discouragement. Husbands and wives are
sent forth in the Sacrament of Marriage—like the Twelve, two by two—to
serve and to strengthen each other so that their witness to authentic
married love will change our culture and world. Spouses catechize most
eloquently and effectively as they witness to the happiness and abiding
peace they experience as they keep their marriage and family rooted in
God not in alleged “rights” which have no basis in scripture and Church
teaching. |
HOMILY
