Deacon Jerry Franzen 9/15/18 Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption
Sirach 26:1-4, 13-16
Ephesians 5: 2a, 21-33 John 2:1-11
Praised
be Jesus Christ. Good afternoon.
Welcome
to the wedding of Dawn Franzen and Daniel Fletcher.
A
woman accompanied her husband to the doctor for his physical.
After
the doctor finished the various procedures,
he asked the wife for a private conference with her
before
they left the office.
“Your
husband,” the doctor said, “is under a great deal of stress
and you must devote your life to sheltering and
comforting him.
Don’t
argue or disagree with him.
Get
up early each morning and fix his favorite breakfast.
Spend
the morning cleaning house,
but have a nice lunch ready at noon,
if he happens to come home.
You
can spend the afternoon on chores outside the house,
but make sure that a special dinner is waiting for
him
when
he returns.
The
evening hours may be spent watching sports with him on TV.
This must be your schedule to
help him through this.”
The
wife left the office, picked up her husband and drove him home.
“Well,” asked the husband,”what did the doctor say?”
“He said,” replied the wife, “that you’re going to
die.”
That
story requires that we reflect on the proper relationship
between a husband and wife.
That
relationship is not the one expressed in the doctor’s directions
nor the one exhibited by the attitude of
the wife.
Dawn
and Daniel, your relationship is the heart of the matter
this afternoon.
The
story presents the self-centered extremes of a husband and wife,
the very antithesis of love.
It
prompts the question, “What makes a good spouse?”
*A Protestant minister once described a religious
person
as a strange mixture of three persons:
a poet, a lunatic and a lover.
I think we can apply this analogy to a couple who is
about to
embark
on the great adventure of married life.
I
By poet I do not mean that you must compose cute
little verses
for
each other.
“How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth and the height that my soul
can reach.” Etc.
Maybe you would do that, but not just that.
Poets are people of profound faith.
They see beneath appearances with new eyes and
then put
the essence of what they sense into words.
The Blessed Virgin Mary noticed that the wine supply
was low
and her
Son was present.
She knew that Jesus COULD take care of the problem.
Her words were simply, “They have no wine.” –
no
motherly direction to her Son on what to do. Faith.
She had faith that He WOULD take care of it,
despite
his questioning, “What does this have to do with me?”
There was no need for motherly advice; her words were
simply
to the
waiters, ”Do whatever he tells you.”
Dawn and Daniel, without faith in each other and God,
you risk
seeing only as far as the eye can see,
and losing the wonder, the miracle, in
the other person.
That other was made by God, in His image, for you.
Without faith, you see only what grows old, gray and
feeble.
Pray for the poet within you to see in the other what
God sees.
II
You must have some degree of lunacy, and
by that
I do not mean “off your rocker” lunacy
I mean a “wild ideas” lunacy,
A
lunacy that fully understands what others might see
as
foolishness, like the foolishness of the cross,
believing in the seeming foolishness of
the Messiah
suffering
and dying as a criminal.
It means the wild idea of persons
who are ready to give all of themselves for
God.
and for each other in this era of the
“me” generation.
Many in these times would class this self giving as foolishness
when we
are constantly being told to grab for all that we can.
In the second reading some focus on the line
containing
“wives should be subordinate to their
husbands”
and
somehow lose sight of the rest of the reading
St. Paul does not mean a wife is not equal to her husband.
In fact, he is expressing just the opposite.
In that reading from the letter to the Ephesians
St. Paul clearly states:
“Be
subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ”
BEFORE
he gets specific about wives or husbands.
Wives and husbands are to be subordinate to each
other.
that certainly sounds like lunacy, doesn’t it? How can that be?
Each subordinate to the other?
It sounds like a general out-ranking a major
while
the major outranks the general. Lunacy.
Well, it is all tied up in the meaning of the word
“subordinate.”
St. Paul is saying that the relationship between
husband and wife
should be the same as
the relationship
between Christ and the Church.
The reading in two places described that relationship:
The Church must be subordinate to Christ
by
giving itself to Christ.
And Christ made himself subordinate to the Church
by
giving His life for the Church.
Dawn and Daniel, you are embarking on a life together
with
this premise of being subordinate to
each other,
and
that may sound like lunacy to many.
Near the end of that second reading,
St.
Paul did admit that it is a great mystery.
III
That giving of self, the being “subordinate”
is the definition of true love, of God-like
love.
St. Paul says that it is great mystery,
but we
have ample evidence in the married present here
that St. Paul’s great mystery can be lived
out.
Dawn and Daniel, you may be wondering
just how YOU will be able to live that
mystery.
Mysteries can be lived, but only with the grace of
God,
the
wisdom expressed in the words of His Son
and
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
In Greek there are four words
used to show different nuances of “love.”
One of them, “agape,” represents the love
that is rooted in the sacrifice one makes for
another.
That is the God-like love of which I speak.
It is the complete antithesis of the relationship
the doctor expressed in the introductory story
and
the attitude of the wife in that story.
It is the essence of the covenant God has made with
each of us;
This is what Paul was getting at in the second
reading.
It is also what Sirach was saying in the first reading.
That reading was heavily skewed
toward
the effort and the sacrifices of the wife.
One could just as easily write a counterpart to it for
the husband.
That
would be a good homework assignment for someone.
Dawn and Daniel, your relationship must be structured
as
described by St. Paul as giving your lives for each other,
as
in that great mystery.
Remember that such a great mystery can only be lived
out
with
the help of God.
May a request for that help be your constant prayer.
**Now I would like to direct
some remarks particularly to you,
dear friends.
You have come together in
this glorious Cathedral
not just to
ooh and aah at the beauty of this ceremony.
You are here because each of
you has played a role in this love story.
You are here to celebrate
with Dawn and Daniel
that their
love has culminated in this sacrament.
But when they walk down the
aisle at the recessional,
and you follow, your task is not done.
For Daniel and Dawn will
live their love not on some fantasy island,
but in a world where love mingles with hate,
belief struggles against cynicism,
hope all too often ends in despair,
and death never takes a
holiday.
They must live their love
when the
wonder of each other gives way to the routine,
when the joy
of their journey is confronted with
what we now call “reality.”
Wedded love cannot subsist
without support.
It needs the solid
foundation of God’s love.
If Daniel and Dawn are truly
to recognize the Lord as their helper
they need to
know how to welcome God into their marriage.
They need men and women,
who, have lived the
love that has endured good times and bad,
poverty and plenty, sickness and health.
They need men and women who
can tell them without words,
but by their
sheer presence, that, Yes, it can be done;
that, with God, all things are possible.
I know many of you married
couples
and I know that you have the experience of which I speak.
My dear friends, you are not
mere spectators;
you are an
integral part of this event.
You are here to indicate
your willingness to be those examples.
For this reason,
when Dawn and Daniel join their hands and
hearts
a few moments from now,
I invite the
wedded among you to join your hands,
and to murmur softly or just express silently in your soul
those awesome words that gave you to each
other,
for
as long as life pulses within you.
I can think of no greater
gift –
not Wedgewood
china or Tiffany crystal –
that you can offer this afternoon to Dawn and Daniel.
For in this gift, in your
daily example of sacrificial love,
you are giving
this dear couple the best possible gift.
You are giving them yourselves.
** Based on Rev
Walter Burghardt, Speak the Word with Boldness
(New York: Paulist Press, 1994) p 135
