Nuptial Mass of Nicholas Marko and Amanda Flaig

In all of our lives we only see a very small part of what is actually going on. The full picture of who we are, whence we have come and whither we are bound, is seen only by God.

With inexplicable and tender love, he created each one of us as a unique thought of his own heart. That thought remains the core mystery of who we are, a mystery we hardly understand ourselves. Again, with untold love, the Lord preserves and guides our lives, intertwining his grace with our freedom and, even when we sin, seeking somehow to draw good out of our failures.

Our lives are unique, planted in existence never again to be the nothing from which we were created. When our body dies, our life changes, it does not end; it returns to the heart of God from which it has come until, in good time, he reunites us with our bodies in the resurrection.

I lay out these thoughts for you, Amanda and Nicholas, as a very poor attempt to sketch the “foundation” of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel you have chosen for your wedding (Mt. 7:21,24-25). The rock on which each of us is built is the plan of God for us. There is not, for there cannot be, any other foundation.

None of us exists by his or her own volition. If we live, it is by and for the Lord that we live. If we die, it is for the Lord, and at his bidding, that we die. By the same token, the major decisions of our lives must be taken in true fear of the Lord, that is, with a lively and loving awareness that ultimately we belong to him and our decisions must be pleasing to him. The decisions we take are what make us who we are, for better or for worse.

This is another way of talking about responsibility. We must be responsible. Only, the question is: ultimately, to whom do we respond? Surely it is the Lord! Even although someone says they are acting responsibly, yet they act in a way that is contrary to the will of God, then they are acting irresponsibly. Responsible living means God-fearing living, understanding fear, not as terror, but as a living awareness that our lives unfold before the face of God.

If that is how you live, then you will have built your lives on rock. If that is how you made your decision to marry, then your marriage will also be built on rock.

The Lord creates, preserves and guides our lives. He calls us to himself along the paths that he makes known to us, with the people he also makes known to us. First, our parents, who should reflect God’s love and truth upon us; then our siblings, who are the first neighbors the Lord gives us to love; then those, or the one, with whom, in a special way, we intend to live out our vocation to God.

For you, Nicholas, that one is Amanda; for you, Amanda, that one is Nicholas. God has called you together; you have not so much found or met one another, as he has drawn you to each other. He drew you first, through your birth, then, and above all, through your baptism. He has built each of you up, with gifts of nature and of grace, with opportunities and strivings, with desires and dreams, with nobility of character and high moral ideals.

Not you, but He, has given you all this, and He has done it for a purpose which far surpasses your own understanding. For before Him today, and before this community, he has called you through holy matrimony to be living signs of Christ and the Church, united in faithful, fruitful love.

Today he consecrates you to be witnesses to the undying love of Christ for the Church in the midst of a world which has largely forgotten the meaning of true and faithful love. Christ and the Church are today the object of mockery and scorn, even by some who call themselves Christians.

Marriage itself, intended by God to mirror Christ the Bridegroom’s self-surrender to the Church the Bride, is being mimicked and degraded in ways alien to authentic belief in God and even to authentic humanity.

Your marriage is thus to be a strongly built home, rooted in the solid rock of the truth and grace of Jesus Christ. You are not called only for your own sakes. Like every vocation, you are called to be consecrated and to be sent out on a mission. Marriage is a mission! A mission of witness: to an exclusive fidelity until death, to unfailing and mutual understanding and forgiveness, to the power of the Creator who gives new life to his children through the spousal union of your flesh, to the mystery of the Cross in the midst of the inevitable trials of life, to faithful practice of the Catholic faith despite the hostility of the world, to genuine hospitality and generosity to those in need.

All this is only possible in the grace of the sacrament of matrimony you are about to receive. You do not receive today from the Church a mere blessing; you are not here just for the beauty of the ceremony or social conviviality; you are not even here just because you want to do the right thing either by your parents or by God. All of this may be valid to some degree, but the real and radical meaning of your commitment to one another today is to surrender yourselves to Christ in one another.

You are not the heart of your marriage: Christ is. You are not the strength of your marriage: Christ is. You are not the goal of your marriage: Christ is. It is not your human love which counts most: it is Christ’s love in you, for you and for each other through you. It is not your plans which count most: it is Christ’s.

Marriage is not some afterthought among the sacraments. Next to the Eucharist, it is marriage which most clearly shows forth the mystery of God’s union with mankind. The marriage covenant is not just a human contract with holy water on it: no, it is an absorption into the new and everlasting covenant Christ established by the shedding of his blood. Today, Christ admits you to his marriage to the Church, as ambassadors of his new and everlasting covenant.

For this reason, marriage is a central vocation in the life of the Church. When you marry in Christ, you commit yourselves more deeply to the life of the Church. So much so, that your family will itself be called a “domestic church.” In that domestic church, you will be the priests for your children, that is, mediators between them and God; you will be the teachers of a truly virtuous human life rooted in the sacraments of faith; a top priority will be to baptize your children, since the whole purpose of their physical birth from you is that they become children of the living God.

It is above all the Eucharist, the Holy Mass, which must be at the center of your married lives. For what is marriage if not the living out in human flesh of the sacrifice by which Christ offered his body to all believers? Are not the very words of consecration filled with marital meaning? “Take, this is my body which is given for you”, “take, this is my blood, poured out for you.” Is not Holy Communion another way of speaking of that complete surrender of oneself to God? In marriage, that complete surrender takes place through one’s spouse.

Note further that the “outpouring of blood” is “so that sins may be forgiven.” There will be times, let’s hope very few, if any, when you will have to forgive each other and that forgiving will seem as painful as the outpouring of blood. Here again, another sacrament should school you in forgiveness, the sacrament of confession.

Forgiveness is the highest form of love, for it is purely given to the other who does not deserve my love. It so treasures the other that it is willing to see beyond the offense. If you receive confession frequently, it will give you peace of mind and heart individually and it will strengthen the quality of your love for one another as a couple. I will make you ambassadors of Christ’s own forgiveness to one another.

A few exhortations: be lovers of God, be constantly aware that Christ is the heart of your marriage and your home, be lovers of the sacraments, pray together that you may stay together, be faithful, be exclusive, be willing to forgive, be open to life before God, be generous in giving life, always communicate with one another, never presume, surprise with love, share trustingly with one another your deepest feelings, be patient in times of trial, talk to your children about God and prove by your life that you really do love Him.

Today is the memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As at Cana, may Our Lady ponder in her maternal heart all the needs of your hearts, souls and future life together. Do not fail to turn to her and when she says, “Do whatever Jesus tells you”, obey her and your lives will be overjoyed with the abundance of the new wine of Christ’s eternal love for his Bride, the Church.

Amanda and Nicholas, we thank God for you; we thank him for your courageous witness; and we beg him to bless all your ways and bring your paths and purposes to that end which accords with his loving will.

Msgr. Peter Magee

Saturday, June 4^th, 2005 – St. Matthew’s Cathedral, DC – 7.00 pm