Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! All you married couples. Thank you, from God the Father; thank you, from God the Son; thank you, from God the Holy Spirit in whose name you began your marriage, however long ago, some of you right here in this very church building!
Thank you for reflecting and mirroring the Love that is God the Father; thank you for reflecting and mirroring the grace and mercy that comes from God the Son; thank you for reflecting and mirroring the life of communion of the Holy Spirit.
We thank you, and we look to you as a reliable and faithful sign of hope for us all in these difficult times that we find ourselves in as a nation among nations. Most everyone has felt and is feeling pressures in all aspects of life like never before – but we thank you, dear married couples, for your example and for your willingness to be like stars shining in a dark night!
But some of you are looking at me and saying: "Who us?" "How can we be those things for you?" "It sounds so very difficult!"
Actually, it's very simple:
(as you have probably already learned and can tell us through your own experience): SURRENDER TO GOD AND HIS WILL AND HE WILL DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU! [This is the real "compromise" that we hear so often about in marriage: compromise is not either side just "giving up" or "giving in" but it is BOTH SIDES "giving themselves, individually and as a couple , to God: his will and his way:" and then, solutions for any problem just seem to magically appear! – it's not really magic though: it is the workings of grace!]
Yes, the very real power of the Holy Spirit that is constantly available in any sacramental marriage enables the surrendering to God, and the happy outcome of rather difficult situations!
The readings today – at first glance – seem to have little to do with marriage: they are about lepers and leprosy! But, on closer inspection – they may have something to do with marriage after all! They may have something to do with the "uninvited guest" that shows up at every wedding, and stays well into any couple's marriage and family life; the guest that brings disease of sorts to the beauty, dignity and integrity of married life.
This can happen internally in marriages and family life; or it can come from the outside as a general intrusion on married and family life as an institution, as a whole! There will always be tests of the freedom, totality, fidelity and fruitfulness that are of the essence of married life: God and you, if you stop to think about it, really would not want it to be any other way: married people have to consciously and generously give themselves to marriage again and again every day: say "I do" again and again every day– and thus earn their way to heaven. But in our day there is also a very large threat from the outside to the very stability and integrity of the institution of marriage and family life itself: the aggressive notion that the laws of God, the laws of marriage, the laws of family life can be arbitrarily modified, changed and rewritten because "God must have gotten it wrong!" God does not get things wrong, but we can!
The good news – the gospel Good News – is that Jesus has the power to cure leprosy. He has the power to heal parts of a marriage that may have become infected with it; he has the preventative power to stop misguided notions of marriage from ever taking hold, taking root! But he can't do it without you: without your faith and belief that he can do it; without your active prayer for it to happen; without your active participation in a healthy marriage; without your active stance against those who oppose the original family concept!
The second reading today tells us to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus thus giving glory to God the Father! If all you do in your married and family life is run through this simple filter: then your family life, your life in your parish, your life in society and your life in your country – will be that much stronger and that much more protected from uninvited guests – until we are all safe in the heavenly wedding feast of the Lamb to which we are all invited! And there, if you don't have your wedding garment on you won't get in! Yes, our goal, as church: as bride of Christ, is to be married one day to the Groom – the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! The Cross reminds us of the price he paid to marry us! What takes place on the altar is a very real sign of that heavenly banquet! and our response of gratitude, of love and of service to our fellow men and women – beginning with our spouses and our own families - will reach its fullness one day in the Kingdom!
Yes, thank you, married couples, for being willing to be a sign of all of these mysterious things that are here now and are yet to come…
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