The
Wedding of Matthew Deters and Magdalen Hun
Dear brothers and sisters,
Permit me, if you will, to pose to you
a most important question in a couple of different ways. Why do you follow the
Lord Jesus Christ? Why do we dare to call ourselves Christians? I ask these
questions because we have just heard how “a large crowd followed him, because
they saw the signs he was performing on the sick” (John 6:1).
Within this great crowd of followers
and hangers on existed a great variety of purposes and reasons for following
this rabbi from Nazareth. Some followed him, we can be sure, out of a sincere
and deep faith in their recognition of Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the
living God,” as Saint Peter would come to know (Matthew 16:16). Others surely
followed him because they were curious and wondering, joining the crowd simply
to see what might happen next, like the tax collector Zacchaeus who “was
seeking to know who Jesus was” (Luke 19:3). Still others were certainly
skeptical about this “carpenter’s son” and followed him so they might learn
where he found such “wisdom and mighty deeds” (Matthew 13:55, 54). Others yet
followed because they saw within the miracles he worked the telltale sign of
the coming of the long-awaited king would restore the kingdom of David (cf.
John 6:15).
Each of these more than five thousand
individuals followed Jesus for a specific reason, whether it be praiseworthy or
not. None followed Jesus for no reason at all; each had their own motive. None
followed the crowd simply to keep the status quo; none remained
apathetic. Can the same be said of us? What have you seen in the person of
Jesus Christ that leads you to follow him? Have you heard him say to you,
“Follow me” (John 1:43)? What led you to follow the one who is “the way, the
truth, and the life” (John 14:6)?
Some see in Jesus an abundance of food,
and rightly so; he is “the living bread come down from heaven” (John 6:51).
Others see in him an abundance of health, and rightly so; “he cured many who
were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons” (Mark 1:32, 34).
Others yet see in him an abundance of justice, and rightly so; he “is just in
all his ways and holy in all his works” (Psalm 145:17). Others see in him
understanding, and rightly so; he is wisdom itself. Others seek riches in him,
and rightly so; he is the “treasure buried in the field” and the “pearl of
great price” (Matthew 13:44, 46). Some see in him unending life, and rightly
so; he alone has “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
Just as Jesus asked Saint Andrew, so he
asks you and me: “What are you looking for” (John 1:38)? What it is you seek,
you will find it in Christ Jesus. “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you
will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). He will
satisfy your every need and for this reason Our Lady says to us, “Do whatever
he tells you” (John 2:5).
Jesus had Andrew give him the five
barely loaves and the two fish; in short, he had Andrew give him all he had.
Nothing was to be held back, and so it is with us. Everything we have and are
must be handed over to Jesus: our strengths and our weaknesses; our joys and
our sorrows; our fidelity and our sin; nothing can be held back.
It is true that when we come before
Jesus, we, like Andrew, recognize how small and insignificant we are. As we
offer ourselves to Jesus with all that we have, we are tempted to ask, “but
what good are these for so many” (John 6:9)? Pope Benedict XVI once said, “Many
times we feel like useless servants, and it is true. And, despite this, the
Lord calls us friends; he makes us his friends; he gives us his friendship.”[1]
Matthew and Magdalen, in looking to Jesus for the satisfaction of your hearts’ desire, he has led you to each other. Today, even as you offer yourselves to Jesus, you offer yourselves to each other. Just as we cannot hold back anything of ourselves from Jesus, so you must not hold back anything of yourselves from each other.
You may be tempted to think the gift of
yourself is a meagre offering, too little to be of much good. Do not give in to
such self-doubt. Through the Sacrament of Marriage, the Lord Jesus wishes to use
you as an instrument of his love. As individuals, he wishes you to be an example
of his love to each other; as a couple, he wishes you to be an example of his
love before the world. When placed in the service of God, no gift is too humble.
In offering yourselves to each other,
you make something of a sacrifice; you say “no” to a romantic relationship with
everyone else, but you also make a loving “yes” to each other. It is a most
beautiful gift you are about to make, but one that brings with it the Cross,
for in the bonds of marriage, a husband is bound to care more about his wife
than he cares about himself. Likewise, in the bonds of marriage, a wife is
bound to care more about her husband than she cares about herself.
Because a sacred bond joins those
united in holy matrimony, a bond which the Apostle Saint Paul calls “a great
mystery,” marriage brings the considerable danger of more opportunities to sin
by not living up to the promises made between husband and wife before God and
his Church; marriage provides more opportunities for a man and woman to fail to
be suitable partners for each other (Ephesians 5:32; cf. Genesis 2:18). This
considerable danger is the very reason why Jesus raised the natural state of
marriage to a sacrament, to infuse it with his grace and provide a supernatural
aid to those called to live the still more excellent way of love in marriage so
their love can always be a reflection of Jesus’ love for his Bride, the Church
(cf. Ephesians 5:25).
There is a temptation today to
over-romanticize marriage, to think it will somehow automatically bring about a
life of bliss without any difficulties whatever. The reality, however, as any
honest couple will tell you, is not quite so picture perfect. Marriage is
difficult and requires compromise, patience, and gentleness; and when these are
embraced, marriage is also beautiful, perhaps because of its difficulties. Like
the Christian life in general, marriage is quite simple, but it is not easy. It
is simple because, at its core, marriage involves only one thing, namely, that
every day each spouse must desire the good of the other above his or her own and
labor to obtain that good for the beloved. In this, marriage daily requires self-denial,
and, for this very reason, it is far from easy.
The great J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, reflected on the reality of marriage in a letter
he wrote to his son Michael in 1941. Then, after twenty-five of his fifty-five years
of marriage to his beloved wife Edith, the elder Tolkien wrote these words:
Faithfulness
in Christian marriage entails that: great mortification… No man, however truly
he loved his betrothed and bride as a young man, has lived faithful to her as a
wife in mind and body without deliberate conscious exercise of the will, without self-denial. Too few are
told that – even those brought up ‘in the Church’.[2]
Tolkien here speaks of a danger for the
groom in marriage, but lest some think marriage brings no danger for the bride,
we might note the temptation of the wife to always imagine herself to be right.
Marriage, for her, too, requires deliberate conscious exercise of the will,
that is, self-denial. I do not want the two of you to be unaware of this.
If you, Matthew and Magdalen, would
have your marriage survive the difficulties that will daily beset you, if you
would walk the way of love, if you would be worthy of each other, then you,
too, must both fix your whole heart upon God; you must live in his friendship.
Your love must always have its foundation in the love of Christ Jesus, in the
love expressed so clearly on the Cross. It is this same love that you must
reflect for each other and for the world; you must become sacramental signs of
Jesus’ love for every person by daily believing in it, by daily confessing it,
and by daily attesting to it.
Saint Rose of Lima said, “Apart from
the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”[3] In marriage,
you must help each climb the ladder of the Cross, sometimes pushing each other
higher and sometimes pulling each other up. You must be for each other the embodiment
of love. To become such a sign of love, to become a sign of this way of
perfection, is not easy, but with the grace of God it is possible, admirable,
and desirable. If you help one another fix your hearts of God, you will be able
to keep your promises and, having been found faithful to each other, the Lord
Jesus will welcome you both into his Kingdom and satisfy your every desire. Amen.
[1]
Pope Benedict XVI, Homily before the Conclave, 18 April 2005.
[2]
J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter to Michael Tolkien,
6-8 March 1941. In The Letters of J.R.R.
Tolkien. Humphrey Carpenter, ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000),
51.
[3]
Saint Rose of Lima, cf. P. Hansen, Vita Mirabilis (Louvain, 1668). In Catechism
of the Catholic Church, 618.
