Wedding Homily

We speak words of love. We exchange gifts. Then we embrace. This is a natural expression of human love. We say what we feel as best we can. We exchange gifts that express that affection. Then we embrace, sharing that love in a physical way.

The vows. The rings. The kiss. The three natural progressions that take place during a wedding. Yet in the liturgy we are in the midst of celebrating, the vows and the rings do not immediately give way to the kiss. They give way to something else - they give way to the celebration of Mass.

Chris and Sasha, when you are asked if you come here today freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage, you will be able to say yes in a way that gives a witness to what true freedom is, and what it is for. When you say yes to this question of your freedom, you say much more than simply stating that it didn't take any shotguns to get you here, nor did you have to resort to anesthesia to get the courage to come down the aisle. At least I hope you did not. No, those that know you, Sasha and Chris, know that you have found freedom in Christ Jesus, for it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. In Christ, you have discovered the truth that as unnatural as it is for man to live alone, without the benefit of human companionship and love, it is far more unnatural for man to live without God. You have found in Christ the completion of the mystery of who you are, for Christ came, as our late Holy Father John Paul II said, to fully reveal man to himself. Christ has set you each free, and so you enter into this sacrament with real freedom, the freedom of one whose heart and whose life has been completely redeemed by the love of Christ, the freedom of one who has decided to follow Jesus by loving another person just as He has first loved you.

In the spirit of this freedom you have received from Christ your Lord, it is natural for you to direct the minds and hearts of those who have come with great joy to celebrate the beauty of your romantic love for each other toward the love of Christ revealed most fully in the Holy Eucharist. After the exchange of vows and rings, there is of course great momentum for you to celebrate the new ontological reality of your marriage in a physical way, beginning with a kiss. Yet directed by the liturgy of the Church, you will turn instead and offer your bodies not first to each other, even as a new married couple, but to Christ. After the vows and the rings, you first act as a married couple will be to offer your bodies on this altar of sacrifice, asking God to take your bodies up into the one perfect sacrifice of His only Son, the acceptable sacrifice that brings salvation to the world.

Chris and Sasha, you proclaim in and through the liturgy of the Church today, that Christ is the source and the seal of your marriage. You place your new marriage within the eternal marriage of Christ to His bride, the Church, the one marriage that is fully free, and faithful and fruitful, as you wish your new marriage to be. You proclaim that the vocation you have received from Christ is to complete the mystery of another person, your spouse, by first sharing with your spouse the truth that Christ has completed the mystery of who you are. Before you kiss your spouse for the first time as a married couple, you turn to remember that you have first been kissed by Christ Himself, and are already one flesh, one mind, one heart, one Spirit with Him through the Holy Eucharist.

Chris and Sasha, as essential as it is that you use the human freedom given you by God to choose one another today, you proclaim all the more loudly that you have been chosen by God to be his adopted son and daughter through Jesus Christ, and by Christ you are chosen to go out and to bear fruit that will remain. May the eternal salvation that flows from the Holy Eucharist be always the greatest gift that you offer to each other and to your children, and to those of us so privileged to share in your marriage as your family and friends. Thank you for coming here in freedom today to strengthen the faith of all of us who know Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life. +m