Friends
Peace be with you.
Before I continue talking about vocations, I need to announce a slight change in our Mass schedule. I’m going to discontinue offering Mass on the first Saturday of each month. I need to be honest and admit that, when it comes to First Saturday, as Bilbo Baggins put it in the Lord of the Rings, “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” I started First Saturday confessions and Masses, in part, to help Fr. Conway who was lamenting the number of confessions they hear at IC on First Saturday. But, I don’t feel we get a significant number of people coming here instead of there so that it would help cut down on the number going there. Plus, it means my day starts at 7:30 in the morning and goes until at least 9:00 at night without a real break. I hope this doesn’t disappoint too many of you, especially the people who appreciated the Eucharistic pilgrimage from the church to the chapel each month. I hope this will help me put more emphasis on the weekend Masses and Levare.
Last week, I talked about the vocation to priesthood with a strong encouragement for men who are interested in priesthood to talk to me. Today, I’d like to talk about Holy Matrimony. I will obviously be writing about this as a person who helps prepare couples for marriage and gets to interact with couples constantly but without first-hand knowledge of my own. And I intend to focus more on why Sacramental marriages are important and not on techniques couples can do to make their Sacramental marriages more sacred. For more information on that, talk to Deacon Dan Rouse about books that he would recommend.
We live in a world where the need for Sacramental marriages is beginning to become clearer and clearer. Even though the vast majority of relationships in the secular world continue to be heterosexual involving one man and one woman, by equating same-sex relationships, self marriage, “thruples”, and other relationships as equal to marriage, society has put itself on a trajectory of dismantling one of its most important stabilizing institutions. Marriage has to be two people who love each other, agree to a life-long relationship, and are open to human life for the propagation of the species and the well working of society. It’s possible that American society will self-correct by recognizing the uniqueness of marriage from these other relationships in some way but it’s just as possible that it will be like Nero and play the violin while Rome burns. If this happens, it will be the Church who will, once again, have the responsibility of putting society back again. When Rome collapsed under the weight of its immorality, we had to operate as the only social institution that ensured cooperation among peoples. We stabilized Europe by providing the means by which they moved from tribal to urban, cooperative societies (See the book “How the Catholic Church Saved Western Civilization”).
But that really is the good news as well. The church will continue to emphasize the unique dignity of marriage. Despite some church leaders trying to turn Pope Francis’ approval of informal blessings for people who are attracted to members of the same gender as an equivalent to marriage, the Pope has continued to emphasize that marriage is and will continue to be between one man and one woman committed to a life-long relationship based on love that is open to having children. But we must emphasize, as well, the dignity of marriage as a sacred institution. Marriage is one of the only situations whereby God joins one person to another. It’s the only Sacrament that can trace its roots all the way back to the beginning of creation. And it’s an act whereby God, who is love, is most explicitly manifested in the love of spouses for each other.
We do need to pray for holy marriages and continue to foster them in our homes and in our families, not just because it is the normative source of other vocations for us, including Holy Orders, but because it is the very building block on which God has established the building up of His Kingdom in holiness.