During my over 40 years as a priest, I have found that some of the most memorable, stirring and emotional moments have occurred at weddings and marriage Masses. To be intimately involved in this blessed and beautiful sacrament is among my greatest privileges of the priesthood. Marriage is a light to the world that provides hope, stability and love to both husband and wife, the community in which they live, and the Church.
At the Cathedral of St. Thomas More this coming Sunday, I will celebrate our annual Marriage Jubilee Mass with about 200 couples who are observing their 25th or 50th wedding anniversaries. In total, they will represent over 7,000 years of marriage. Seven thousand years!
I am truly honored to spend time with these couples, who have lived out the vocation of marriage with honesty, respect and, undoubtedly, a sense of humor. They have welcomed children into their homes, been an example of love to those around them, and honored their vows taken 25 or 50 years ago.
Today's news is filled with talk of marriage. While our diocesan family of faith rejoices in the lasting, selfless love of those couples celebrating an anniversary this year, a debate is being carried out in the public sphere regarding our commonwealth's definition of marriage.
The sacrificial love of a husband and wife, expressed through their children, should be the norm of marriage, rather than the exception. Those who will gather at the Marriage Jubilee Mass know this sacrificial love of which I speak. The truth of marriage is that it is between one man and one woman. Turning away from the true definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman places the emphasis on what each partner will get out of the relationship, rather than what each partner can give to the relationship. Put another way, marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman is not one "model" among many options of equal public significance. Rather, it is the very building block of the family and of society. I applaud our jubilarians for their dedication to marriage and their living witness to us all.
Pope Benedict XVI urged us to focus on the centrality of love in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, or God is Love. In this encyclical, Pope Benedict recognized that "love" is an over-used and often misused word. We may "love" our favorite TV show, our car, our job. He says, "Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness" (Deus Caritas Est, part 1, section 2).
It is important for us to differentiate these different types of love. Ultimately, our love should be for one another, our spouses, our children, all those who belong to the household of faith and all people within the human family. As we recognize the couples with over 7,000 years together living out this one particular meaning of love, we can see the true meaning of love in action.
Let us focus on fostering this type of lasting, selfless love in our homes and our society. As we move forward in our week, let us call to mind the remainder of the passage from the Gospel of St. John that became the title of Pope Benedict's encyclical, "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn 4:16).
