Reflections on love

Here's the text of the homily I shared on Friday evening at the wedding of two of our parishioners - a call to love, to be loved and to celebrate God's gift of love.

Homily for the wedding of Darren and Linda

A number of months ago, Darren and Linda came to visit with me.  They told me that they wanted to celebrate their wedding, so I started to ask a few questions – the same questions I normally would ask of any couple who might ask to celebrate this Sacrament.  It took a while, but finally all the questions were answered, all the permissions were granted and finally we set the date for the celebration … and here we are.

Tonight, your family and friends are here to celebrate this moment of new beginning in your lives.  It’s time now to put aside all the worry about whether you got everything done: it’s done.  Put aside all your concerns about what’s coming next: someone will tell you where you need to stand, what you need to say, and when you should say it, but before you do, I want to reflect for a moment on the significance of what you are about to do because when a man and a woman celebrate their wedding, it is a moment of grace, a moment for receiving the gifts given by God, a moment when family and friends join with you to give thanks for God’s goodness in your lives.

God knows us – each of us – even better than we know ourselves.  Ever since the time he created us, he knew that we were not meant to live on this earth alone.  The first reading we heard tonight tells one of the creation accounts recorded in the book of Genesis.  According to this account, when God created the living creatures on the earth, he brought each of them to Adam, hoping that they might be a suitable partner for him, but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.  Finally, God created woman, and now you know the rest of the story.

When we gather to celebrate a wedding, we are celebrating God’s goodness to us, for it is he who has brought you together. God does indeed work in mysterious ways, so sometimes there are twists and turns along the way, but eventually, everything does turn out the way it should be.  Tonight, God will seal and strengthen your love in the bond of matrimony, so that from this day forward you may be living witnesses of his joy and his love to others.  Each of us already shows this joy and this love to others by virtue of our baptism, but married love adds a kind of security blanket, brightening the light of faith that we show to others.

We would be foolish to think, even for a moment, that every day of your lives from this day forward is going to be filled with roses and sunshine.  There is always a part of us that is tempted by egoism, tempted to believe that we can do all things, and do them well – that we don’t need God, but can rely on our own merits.  Saint Paul reminds us that even if we speak with the tongues of mortals and angels … even if we can understand all the mysteries of life, even if we give away our bodies so that we might boast about our own good work, this would all count for nothing.  Everything we do must be done with love.  Everything we do must be done in love, and this is because God loves us so much that everything we do, and all that we are is a reflection of his love.  We demonstrate God’s love to others by the way we show patience and kindness to each other.  Love is lacking wherever there is envy, arrogance, rudeness or boastfulness.  Love is the free gift of God.  We don’t have to work at it, or do anything special in order to merit it.  We only need to accept it, and say thanks.

And so, if I were to offer only one word of advice, it would be that you should go out into the world, and look for opportunities every day to show God’s love to the world.  Show God’s love through your own humility, by the way in which you comfort others in their time of need, by your gestures of kindness to the hungry and thirsty of this world and even by acts of mercy if necessary.  This is definitely not the way of the world around us, but it is the way of the gospel.  Living a life dedicated to love will be challenging at times, but those who persevere are richly rewarded.  Celebrate joyfully, love deeply, pray fervently and bask in the presence of the one who fills you with his joy.