What's the best wine?

Homily

Wedding Mass of Quinn Germann and Madison Schaefer

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

8 June 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

What's the best wine?

I get this question a lot, since everyone at SLC has learned I have a wine cellar.  My reputation is that I'm a wine snob, and I probably am.  

What's the best wine?  I get the question a lot.  The truth is that the best wine is not in my cellar.  It's the wine we're about to drink right now.

Quinn, you have learned that in order to marry Madi Schaefer, you have to be at your best.  Madi is not gonna drink the cheap wine, at least when it comes to her choice in a husband.  Quinn, I'm so proud of you for not shrinking from this call from God to be worthy of Madi's faith and love.  Mary has told you in prayer to 'Do Whatever He tells You' - and He has told you to become worthy of Madi's heart.  You have grown so much in virtue, maturity, faith and obedience, so much so that I am confident you are able to bathe your new bride in the good wine of your chaste and sacrificial love.  You're still a work in progress, and still dining above your pay grade, but I could not be more excited for the man you have become and for what you are about to do, which for you represents your very best.  Congratulations to you and all who have loved you and believed in you.

Madi - you crack me up.  In addition to being so accomplished and beautiful - I'll never forget how proud I was when you and Mik let your priest cut the line for a private tour of the 804 project - I was and still am so amazed at your talent - but most of all, you make me laugh.  In marriage prep you so humbly admitted that this marriage has to be from God, because you 100% planned to be stuck on yourself and your plans when you were 22.  Yet here you are, at the altar, not against your will, but to your great surprise - because when you prayed to Mary and she told you to 'Do Whatever He tells you' - you came to the conclusion that you are at your best when you live not for yourself, but for Quinn.  It's so funny that the trick is on you Madi - but the irony of it all makes me all the more excited for the beautiful and obedient gift of yourself that you make because Christ has invited you to marry Quinn, and this too represents your very best.  Congratulations to you Madi and to all who have loved and believed in you.

Even now as we celebrate the best that is within each of you - this capacity to make a complete gift of yourselves to each other in faith through the sacrament of marriage, we place this best in the context of the best wine that always comes last, the wine of the Eucharist.  

Jesus's first sign at Cana teaches that only a fool would dare attempt something as impossible as marriage, without connection to a superabundant source of faith and mercy, without access to the new and everlasting cup of the Eucharist.  The fullness of marriage is impossible for man alone - the wine will run out - but Cana teaches us that Jesus came to restore the meaning and destiny of marriage, by making the very best of wine that is the gift of Himself, and by making enough of it that it will never run out.  

I praise you, Quinn and Madi, for making the first act of your marriage to be a participation in the chaste and sacrificial love that Christ has for His bride the Church, and that you would not dare to promise faithfulness to each other til death do you part, without receiving his faithfulness to you, consummated in this best of wines that is truly His most precious blood.

The desire of Mary's Immaculate Heart for you Quinn and Madi, -  that the blood of Her Son will always be the source, perfection and destiny of your love for each other, caused Her to say Her last words at a wedding - Do whatever He tells you.  There is no greater response to Mary's command, than to drink the best wine of which Jesus says - This is a new marriage in my blood - Do this in memory of me.

+mj