Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time A
A
priest got up to preach at a wedding and began,
“Marriages
are made in heaven.”
Which
is when an old man in the back piped up,
“So
are thunder, lightning, tornados, and hail!”
On
Thursday, as I often do,
I
was listening to a Lighthouse Catholic Media CD in the car.
(If
you’ve never picked up one those CDs
on
the racks in our churches, you’re really missing out!
They’re
by top-notch Catholic speakers
on
important and interesting topics.
I
can’t urge you strongly enough to give them a try.)
The
subject of this particular CD was marriage.
(And
before you go looking for it on your way out from Mass,
but
I’ll be ordering some copies very soon.)
It
wasn’t focused on any of the usual issues that you’d expect:
not
about sex before marriage, not about same-sex marriage,
not
about divorce and remarriage.
It
was about something far more fundamental—
something
which impacts everything the Church has to say
on
these topics and so many others.
It
was called, “Jesus the Bridegroom:
And
the basic contention of the speaker, Dr. Brant Pitre,
is
that, when it comes to God’s plan for our salvation,
marriage
isn’t everything—
it’s
the only thing.
Have
you ever noticed that the Bible
both
begins and ends with a wedding?
The
first one—from Genesis—takes place in the Garden of Eden;
the
last one—from Revelation—in the New Jerusalem.
The
first marriage is between Adam and Eve,
between
man and woman;
the
last is between heaven and earth,
between
Christ and the Church, between God and the human race.
From
the very start, God’s been leading up to this big finish:
the
first union—“till death do us part”—
pointing
to and preparing us for
a
communion that is eternal.
All
between these two biblical weddings,
marriage
is a favorite metaphor
in
the writings of prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea,
in
the parables of Jesus, and in the letters of St. Paul.
In
this Sunday’s first reading,
we
find King Solomon praying to the Lord for wisdom,
and
his prayer is granted.
Among
the wise writings he left us is the Song of Songs:
a
lengthy love poem—right in the middle of the Bible—
that’s
not just romantic, but downright racy;
a
celebration of what’s right and beautiful and holy
about
the love of bridegroom and bride;
a
passionate book which more than hints
at
the ultimate love story—
the
one which ends happily forever after.
help
us to realize that all this talk of marriage
is
more than merely metaphorical:
it’s
the truth at the very heart of reality.
The
treasure buried in the field,
the
pearl of great price—
we
assume that these are moral lessons
about
the virtue of making
whatever
sacrifice might be necessary
in
order enter the Kingdom of God.
But
what if that’s completely backwards?
What
if we are the hidden treasure,
we the pearl in the market,
we the pearl in the market,
and
God is the one who recognizes our
true worth,
who
will stop at nothing to take us as his own?
Indeed,
God has paid the highest price—
the
Father gave his Son, the Son gave his life—
motivated
only by the purest love.
Whatever
it takes, no matter the cost,
the
Lord pursues us,
that
we would belong to him and him alone.
Although
most often unknowingly,
we
experience this reality in every Mass.
The
Eucharist is matrimonial, too:
it
is the marriage feast of the Lamb of God;
it
is a continual wedding reception.
One
of the great photo-ops at a wedding reception
is
when the bride and groom feed each other a piece of cake.
I
always feel kind of sad if they smash it into each other’s faces…
…but
there’s something deeply moving
if
they begin their marriage by feeding each other
with
clear and obvious tenderness.
Every
time we approach the altar,
Christ,
the bridegroom of our souls,
reaches
out to lovingly place a morsel in our mouths—
not
of cake and icing, but something infinitely sweeter:
his
most sacred Body and most precious Blood.
We’re
now at the end of the Catholic Church in America’s
annual
Natural Family Planning Week.
Hopefully
you read Bishop LaValley’s letter in last Sunday’s bulletin,
or
some of the articles in the North Country
Catholic,
or
the other literature made available in our churches.
If
you haven’t yet, why not now?
Whenever
she addresses matters of sexuality,
you
hear people say,
“The
Church should just stay out of my bedroom!”
That’s
such an ironic statement in this day and age
when
there’s so much very public and frank talk about sex—
when
everybody else seems to be invited into that intimate space
which
was once considered rather sacred.
But
the Church only shows
such
care and concern for sex and marriage
because
God has a plan—a plan for the world’s salvation—
and
he’s built that plan right into the nature of things:
into
our bodies and our souls,
into
the structure of our relationships and our society.
What
Christ’s Church desires to teach us today
is precisely
the same as the Lord
has
desired to teach us since the beginning:
that
marriage is indeed “made in heaven.”
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