Nina and Paul, as we gather to celebrate your wedding, it only seems appropriate that we first pause and give thanks to God for bringing you two to this point. Afterall, it is certainly only by God’s grace that we are here today and if you need proof that it is God’s grace, go back to the beginning of your relationship. How else could we go from Nina boldly exclaiming her senior year of high school that if she was still single at 30, she was going to marry Paul to which Paul replied I’d rather be dead by 28, to the point that all of us are gathered here in this church this afternoon. Well, there is no doubt that God works in mysterious ways, and now, all that stands between the two of you beginning your life as husband and wife is this homily, which perhaps Nina is now wishing she did not encourage me to speak for as long as I want.
Given that start to your relationship, as we gather here at your wedding, I can’t help but wonder what has changed in the past 8 years? While I’m sure a lot has changed since high school, I think much of that change has to do with the fact that you have learned how to love and that makes all the difference. The Jesuit Fr. Joseph Whelan captured this beautifully in his poem Fall in Love, where he wrote, “what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart,and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”[1]
The love that we celebrate today is not some romantic idea expressed simply in words or feelings. While it is true, there can be very powerful feelings deeply intertwined with love, love is far more than a feeling, it is an expression in your deeds, that says through the way you live your life, that you matter so much to me I will give my life for you. This love you express is not some feeling that may go away later in life, no love is a choice to place another human being and his or her needs above your own. For as the many doctors present in the church today know firsthand, “if you really want to touch someone’s heart then, be prepared for a little bleeding along the way.”[2] Love is not something you have – love is something you use.
Love is one of those interesting things that cannot be taught. While I could stand up here and talk about different characteristics of love or I could quote today’s gospel telling us we remain in God’s love if we keep his commandments, but you would still not have learned how to love. Rather love is only learned by receiving love. Said in another way, we learn how to love others by being loved by others. Fortunately, both of you were blessed to grow up witnessing a beautiful example of love in your parents. While I won’t ask them to share the stories, I am certain there were many times growing up that one of them got up out of a warm bed in the middle of the night to take care of your needs. There were countless times when the alarm clock sounded that they got up out of bed and went to work, so that you would have food on the table, a roof over your head and cloths on your back. That’s love. Nothing fancy, just ordinary people who choose to be there with and for each other, day in and day out to help shoulder the burdens of life and to share its joys and laughter.
In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus tell us exactly how to love. “Love one another,” he tells us, “as I have loved you.” Said in another way, if we want to know how to love, then we ought to look at how Jesus loves us and to do that we only need to look to the front of this Church where we see Jesus hanging on the cross. In hanging on the cross, Jesus is living out his teaching which comes in the next verse after today’s gospel, “no one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for one’s friends.”[3] The lesson is clear, if we want to love, we need to be willing to lay down our lives for others and while the world may tell you this personal sacrifice isn’t worth it, the example of your parents, and the teaching of Jesus it today’s gospel tells us that this sacrificial love leads to our joy being complete.
So then if you want your joy to be complete, pursue love, pursue whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and gracious and then teach others how to love by placing love at the center of your lives.
[1] Fr. Joseph Whelan S.J. Fall in Love. Available at https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/prayers-by-st-ignatius-and-others/fall-in-love/
[2] Simcha Fischer. The Sinners Guide to Natural Family Planning. (Huffington: Our Sunday Visitor) 2014. Pg. 52.
[3] John 15:13
Through The Cross To Light 