Cody Schock/Isabela Beck Wedding

Being on a retreat this last week reminded me how important it is sometimes we need to take a break from it all get away and be with the Lord. The mind to rest, to get some sleep. One of the beautiful things of a honeymoon, get to love one another and, be without a chaperone, and rest after the long march of learning and preparing and praying up to and through this day.

During Covid Daniela and Isabela had a joint quinceañera, a time when a girl accepts the responsibilities of becoming a woman, and moving towards her vocation. Cody, Isabela had been preparing for today and her marriage for at least four years now, before you started courting her. And yet, she’s wearing white, a reminder, yes of chastity, but also it’s her baptismal garment, a lovelier more exotic baptismal garment. God created her and has been preparing her for this day as God, through the hands of Jason into Cody’s, in whose stead he stands, to keep this baptismal/wedding garment unstained to heaven:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church an handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Eph 5:26-27

You didn’t create her, she is gift. God heard your cry and provided for you even before you started to have the heartache for a wife. The cry of the dove, the cry of Mary…

The Gospel at Cana evokes the memory of the first MAN and the first WOMAN - “Woman, what to me to you!” The desire of the new WOMAN, the New Eve, MARY, “ they have no wine!”, please, give me the desire of my heart!

And so today Isabela, as another little Mary, you look at your bridegroom, Cody, and look at God, and say, “Please! Unite me to this young stag, this gazelle that races across the hills” like Song of Songs said! And how could God refuse one of his so loved on her wedding day?!

The first Adam dreamed of a woman who didn’t exist. You Cody, while you were dreaming of dirtbikes also had this desire for marriage, God heard it, even before you could express it.

But you are both gift to the other, and this is the proper time.

“Do not say, “I am too young.”

To whomever I send you, you shall go;

whatever I command you, you shall speak.

8 Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you

Je 1:7–8.

Too young for what? For sacrifice? For the Cross? Nay! You follow the Lord as best you can and take the other with you.

But the wedding dress also represents the righteous deeds of the saints.

Rev. 19

8 She was allowed to wear

a bright, clean linen garment.”

(The linen represents the righteous deeds of the holy ones.)

You two are to be worn out by love! The other, the bride, the bridegroom, must be your greatest work of charity that you present before God. Kids are great! They come second. Work is great! It comes third.

St John Chrysostom said that as you kiss your bride, when you say, “I love you,” you are simultaneously saying, “Christ I love you!” Theres is no competition. Be devoted to one another, for Christ’s sake.

As you hold hands today, hold the other, you can see each other’s youth, hands without wrinkles, eager to get started, to get to work, to be full of alms for the poor and good works to allow the Lord to test by fire (St. Paul), these hands that take the other into their own, are the same hands that will be holding the other on the final day of the marriage.

Hopefully then the hands are old and wrinkled from all the active love you’ve shown, arthritic from all the use! Worn out! Not just by fire sprinkler installation and fixing teeth and building a home, But it will be the same hands that are empty today of good works, they look pretty today but are empty of charity, they won’t be beautiful on that last day, but they will have learned how to love, thus like Christ’s! Hands that have loved beautifully and hands that have continuously placed offerings onto the altar and received what the Lord has seen fit to bestow upon your family. Pierced hands. Not pretty I might say, but beautiful!

If I could be a little vulnerable with you, Cody and Isabela, one of the things that scares me about priesthood, and that scared me about marriage was always being tired, long days on a short night sleep. But I read a little Fulton Sheen on the retreat. Sometimes I’m looking for other peoples to sacrifice, yea, bring me your fattened lamb and I’ll sacrifice that, other people to pay the tithes when “Christ himself came down not to live,” said Fulton Sheen, “but to die, we were all born to live, but he’s the only one who was born to die.” As a priest, I have to be priest and victim. You two also must learn this. Today is happy, easy in one sense to love each other. We’re going to the party after to watch you two eat, and we’ll clink glasses, and you’ll cut the cake easy, but the difficulties start today in a sense…Cody, you’ll probably have to dance, Isabela likes to dance, and she’s good. But you’re getting married to lay your life down, that Christ might give your life back to you in abundance. If you’re looking for the wedding crown without the cross you’re in the wrong place. That’s why we have an altar. We offer this time of prayer and commitment upon the altar that we may feast afterwards.

Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. Eph 5:21-22

If you aren’t ready to be subordinate to the other, Isabela, if you don’t trust Cody with everything, don’t marry him. If you don’t trust him to lead you to heaven. But isn’t this why you share a bed, each others’ body, a bank account, a fridge? Because you trust each other, these are all signs of the trust you have, a commitment unlike any other in this life.

But you aren’t just offering up today, you are offering up all of the time of courtship, all the long suffering of young love and insecurity must happen before the consummation of the marriage! But that is to be offered up too! What a pity if the only thing you offer to the Lord is your sufferings and not your joys and your hopes!

I promised to pray, to celibacy, to obedience/respect my bishop. What are your promises today?!

To Freedom, To Full, Fidelity, Fruitfulness

Mary told the servants: Do whatever He tells you

Jesus says: Fill up your jars with water, that he might fill you with the best wine.

but you have kept the good wine until now, said the Maitre’d.

Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.

Through your marriage, show me the love of God, reveal to me His glory, that if marriage was the plan for creation all along, that if the religious story of God and His Church is a marriage forever…prove to me, to us that God exists and that God is love, so that we, God’s disciples might begin to believe in Him through the wine that He has given us through you.

The Yes and the promises you make today are in imitation of the Yes that the Son made to the Father, it’s a full hearted Yes, a complete Yes, but an imperfect yes because the consequences of this yes are yet to be seen. To say yes to this particular behavior, this particular cross, this particular child. As it should be, an imitation of Christ.

But eyes on Christ, both of you, keep saying yes to God throughout. Eyes on each other, for to you, the other is Christ, simultaneously the other is the Church.

Your job isn’t to have all the answers to marriage all figured out, you are to say yes to Christ, “Yes, Lord I am still here.” A child is not strong. It would be foolish, childish, for one to say so. You are not patient, you are not kind, you are not humble, etc, but love is. Be vulnerable to the other for the other to be the friend, the helpmate.

I once asked your sponsor couple, in Mass, “do you know your faults?! If not ask your spouse they can tell you!” Chris looked at Anne and said, “I can’t think of any faults of mine?” Anne replied, “My dear, let’s wait until we get home!” How blessed married life is!!!! How incomplete we are, how perfect God has created marriage to perfect us through imperfect people!

In OT priests offered gifts outside themselves. Christ offered himself. We are challenged to offer ourselves. “This is my broken body, this is my shed blood”. How is my body being broken and blood shed?

Marital language too. The spouse should be able to say that to the other, to the children.

To wrap up, yesterday Fr Mike had us read the whole Gospel of Mark, on St Marks day, cute right?! At the very end of the Gospel it says…Mark 16:19 (NABRE): The Ascension of Jesus. 19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.

This means that 50 days after Easter Jesus didn’t take off His human suit… his humanity, like a costume and throw it down and say’ “whew what an ordeal, ok Father I’m coming.” He kept the suit on. He kept humanity and goes to heaven as a man. 1) it is almost impossible to think of two married people having two different eternal destinations… you don’t just get to throw the other off when they’re annoying or too much. Look at Christ, not on the cross did he stop loving , not in heaven did he lose his humanity. As Christ wed humanity, that should give you an idea of how close the bond of your souls is. 2) he didn’t throw off the costume. He’s not cos-playing a human. Neither are you. In a few moments you will be married. You will do everything as a married couple. You’re not just trying to act the part. You don’t get to stop being the husband when you go out with the boys or go to a wedding/baby shower with the girls. This is you now. This changes everything, and yet God designed it this way and made it a sacrament. Every sacrament is the love of the Trinity poured out. That is you now, love poured out, time to get on the cross. What have you been doing these last 19 years?!!