6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Holy Matrimony)
Perhaps you've heard the Santo Anello, Italian for “holy ring”. A 19th century woman named Anne Catherine Emmerich, wrote about a vision, in which she saw the ring which Joseph gave to Mary on their wedding day. Blessed Anne Catherine said the ring was a very wide band that was dark and iridescent. She described further details of its engraving. In her vision, something was telling her that the ring was somewhere in Italy, but she didn’t know where, nor would she ever know in her lifetime.
It turns out that there is a ring that very few people ever knew about prior to Blessed Anne Catherine’s mention of it. Her writings stirred an interest among those who read her visions and eventually was discovered in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Perugia, Italy, housed in a reliquary. She had never been there, but the ring and its detailing matched her description. Today, couples preparing to celebrate their weddings, as well as couples already married, are allowed to touch their wedding rings to the Santo Anello, as a way of seeking blessing for their marriage.
I mention this because while Valentine’s Day is right before us, this year, February 13th has been set aside as World Marriage Day, in which we ask God’s blessing upon marriages and celebrate the meaning of Holy Matrimony as a gift for all the world, and an instrument in God’s plan of salvation. As a celibate man, most anything I know and have learned about marriage has come from you all and witnessing what makes marriages strong and what causes them to suffer.
I think it’s fair to say that in our culture the importance of marriage has been largely lost. In fact, it’s not merely marriage that couples are called to, it’s Holy Matrimony. Too few of us understand the distinction, and this lack of understanding gives way to too many couples simply settling with cohabitation, too many marriages that are not life-giving, and too many that sadly, end in divorce.
To explain the difference, I’ll describe a weekend in which I attended two weddings. The first took place here in our parish. I officiated, following the Catholic Order for Celebrating Matrimony, which is full of language that clearly and gracefully states that God is at work in what is happening, and furthermore that God desires to be part of the couple’s life. It articulates that the union is to be permanent, exclusive, and an act of mutual self-giving. For example, the nuptial blessing, prayed over the newly married couple, declares:
“O God, look with favor on these your servants, joined in Marriage, who ask to be strengthened by your blessing. Pour your love into their hearts, that they may remain faithful. Made one in the flesh, may they bear true witness to Christ; may they be blessed with children, and prove themselves virtuous parents, who live to see their children's children. And grant that, reaching at last together the fullness of years for which they hope, they may come to the life of the blessed in the Kingdom of Heaven….”
The second wedding took place the next day at a beautiful outdoor setting, a facility commonly rented for such purposes. In this case, I was an attendee, not the officiant. The ceremony followed a similar structure: a procession of the wedding party up a center-aisle, arranged as bridesmaids and groomsmen; the bride came at the end of the procession, escorted by her father, and was handed-off to the groom; it likewise included an exchange of vows, an exchange of rings, and a kiss at the end, followed by applause. But what was so different was that God was never mentioned, no Scripture, no prayer. There were many references to love, but given the many meanings of that word, it wasn’t clear what love meant. Again, it was a beautiful ceremony, but it didn’t seem to have the same purpose and intention as the first ceremony.
One might say we’re splitting hairs, or that the same ideas are inferred. But I believe that the meaning and purpose of marriage, God’s role in it, the responsibilities of the spouses, and its ultimate end are all too important to be merely inferred, or regarded as arbitrary. The second wedding, I believe, was more “earthly”, primarily about the couple. The other seemed to acknowledge and seek something transcendent.
I have no naïve notions about how challenging married life and family life can be. But I consider the words of the today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 1, which proclaimed, “Blessed the man who…delights in the law of the LORD and meditates on his law day and night. He is like a tree planted near running water, that yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. Whatever he does, prospers. Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away.”
It seems to say that those who sink their roots into God’s soil and draw upon the graces that feed those roots. As it’s true for individuals, it’s also true for married couples. If you sink your roots into God’s soil—maybe better said, draw upon the graces he gave you, but also invest yourselves in what nurtures that grace—it will provide strength and stability in the inevitable challenges.
There’s so much more to say about marriage—why it’s so important and what makes it challenging—but I implore couples to get help when your marriage is struggling, but also occasionally go on a marriage retreat to reset and remind yourself what it’s really about, but also to allow God to be part of your shared life together in explicit ways.
While we usually regard a ring as the symbol for marriage, maybe it’s the crucifix: “Bob, accept this cross as a sign of the life you’re pledging and what you are called to do for me”. Because on the cross, our Bridegroom shows us what love looks like: arms wide open with everything to give, and seeking nothing for gain—a love that is freely given, that is total, faithful and even fruitful. As Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, ”The remedy for all the sufferings of the modern brain lies in the enlargement of the heart through love…”[1]
[1] Sheen, Fulton J.. Three to Get Married. Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.