Will you be tenacious?

Homily

Nuptial Mass for McKenna Reilly and Jacob Herbek

6 July 2024

Saturday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time

+Maria Goretti

Cathedral of St. Mary, Grand Island, NE

AMDG

Will you come to Grand Island and marry Jacob and me?  Well, Kena, I've never been to Grand Island, but I'm from a farm, so how far and how foreign could it be?  As long as I get a steak, I'll be fine!  And I'll drive anywhere for a Jayhawk!

It's true there's no place I'd rather be, even if my car gets hailed on tonight during an epic Nebraskan thunderstorm.  Nothing changes the world for the better more than a holy marriage, and there is nothing more important than two people giving their lives completely away in faith, with a love strong as death.  Nothing bring more life or hope into the world, than what you're about to do, so of course I'll be here.  I'd love to be here.  Besides, who wouldn't want to visit an Island in the middle of Nebraska?  Where is it again, by the way?

Being from a farm community myself, I get why you wanted to be married here.  This is where people understand how things really work.  Life is received here as a gift, with a responsibility to give it away in faith and love.  It's a simple formula, but one that is increasingly misunderstood, by a world that wants the meaning of life to be relative, with the highest values being privacy and choice.  Yet there is no lasting happiness nor peace, nor fruit that comes from this worldview.  It's only when we use our freedom to choose to die and suffer for something more than ourselves, that our lives fulfill their true purpose.

My German ancestors had a simple formula that I inherited.  Put the wheat in the ground in September, then go to Church until June, then go see what God has provided.  It's not a life of privacy and control, it's a life of trust and sacrifice.  That's what you enter into today, McKenna and Jacob - this is the WAY that Jesus has invited you to live, according to His Gospel.

Congratulations to you both and everyone who has poured faith and love into you.  May the beautiful work God has begun in you, be brought to fulfillment.

Another important lesson you have learned is that love doesn't control!  I've noticed how free you both are to trust the other. Maybe that's the fruit of having known each other so long, and knowing that your friendship is a gift from God that you can put your trust in.  Jacob, most guys would freak out thinking McKenna might end up with a fancy frat boy at KU, but you knew yourself, and her, and your love for each other was worthy of trust.  So your relationship grows in love when you are free to trust each other and include other friends and experiences in your relationship. I commend you for this virtue, which I don't find in everyone.

Finally, Jacob since you're marrying a Jayhawk, you get to hear a homily that I've preached to McKenna many times.  If you're going to go for a great life, do it with tenacity.  Whether or not the Jayhawks ever play or beat the Huskers again, the mascot was created to be a ferocious and nasty bird, one capable of defending freedom and dignity at the highest level!  I don't have to tell you two that because of what you have received, you are capable of living faith with amazing courage and tenacity, and bearing fruit that gives witness to the sacrifice of Christ, and the marriage of Christ to His Church.  By getting married at Mass, you witness with the courage of martyrs that this love from the cross is the most real thing in your life, and that you beg the grace today to let this love be the origin, perfection and destiny of your marriage to each other.  On behalf of all of us, thanks for marrying each other under this sign, and playing for keeps, til death do you part. Amen.