Love As God Loves

Dear Parishioners,

It is not uncommon for someone who was raised in a strict household to rebel some… either as a teen or young adult. After we have done our share of willfully ignoring the wisdom of our elders, we might look back and wish we could have spared ourselves the wreckage we inflicted upon ourselves. We may have learned that their boundaries were for our well-being. This is the context in which today’s Gospel should be received. Instead of looking at them as just rules to restrict our freedom. Hear these precepts in a new way.

The original precepts or laws of God to Moses were intended to be written on their hearts. But because of the hardness of their hearts, they continued to sin and ignore God’s plan for them. Thankfully, when the time was right, God sent Jesus to us, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it so that our hearts would soar, our friendships flourish, and our love of God be more passionate. Jesus revealed that God did not want simple behavior compliance, but rather that we would have an interior transformation, so that we would live by the Spirit which would exceed the mandates of the law. Imagine a marriage that was simply about behavior compliance. That sounds more like forced slavery to me.

This weekend we celebrated National Marriage Week. In this covenant of love, husbands and wives strive to live out the promise to love as God loves in a particular way by giving of each other without condition. Anyone who is married knows that the Sacrament isn’t about rules, yet without the boundaries that cradle the awesome covenant we call matrimony, it would decay from the inside out. I think it is safe to say that on their wedding day, most couples have hope that their marriage would bring a lifetime of love and intimacy.

So the call for marriage is to imitate God’s love by dedicating oneself to service for their spouse and be open to the children conceived from their love. In other words, their vocation is to love as God loves. Through the highs and lows, the ecstasies and crucibles of marriage, each spouse’s vocation is to help the other become more of what God desires for them. More than ever today, we need to lift up couples and this divine institution, that’s right, an institution created by God and not us.

Among many of the aspects of marital love, the conjugal relationship of marriage holds within it one of the greatest “super powers” we humans have, and that is to co-create life with God. Pope John Paul II in his monumental teaching on marriage, now called the Theology of the Body, spoke about this aspect of marital union as a way to touch heaven. The passion of love in the “marital embrace,” as he describes it, touches the divine. And if we think about it, our lives are made for infinity-for ecstasy, and our hearts know it.

Pope Benedict XVI in his first Encyclical, “God is Love,” shared that we are an integral person, body and soul, and that when our bodies love through an undisciplined eros (think erotic love without boundaries), we we degrade ourselves. But when it is disciplined (again think ordered or given boundaries), it can provided “not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns.” Our being already yearns for heaven whether we know it or not. We were made for heaven. And the perfections of married life are intended to point us to heaven, where the Blessed Trinity, a communion of love, resides.

So, I want to encourage and thank all of our married couples for their daily example of sacrificial and passionate love you show to your spouse. Such a commitment encourages the rest of us who are not married to be faithful to our own vocations. I also want to let those who have broken marriages or marriages that have grown distant or worse, harmful, that you are not a failure. God’s love for you has not been lessened. His mercies are renewed each morning. In fact, our Lord has a special care for you who suffer in their marriage. And for those of you who are widows or widowers,  it is clear throughout the whole of the Scriptures that God has compassion for you.

Marriage and the Eucharist: Covenants of Love

Dear Parishioners,

Last week we celebrated the Most Holy Trinity, a mystery revealed to us by Christ himself. I reflected on an aspect of this mystery as a communion of love. Another way of putting it is a “covenant of love.” A covenant is different than a contract, though there are similarities. One similarity is that both are an agreement to enter into a relationship. But, it is the difference between a contract and a covenant that makes a covenant rise above. 

A contract enters into a relationship with parties whereby the minimal requirements are agreed upon. For example, the price for a car or a house. We all will seek out an agreement with the seller for a price we are willing to pay, a price that is the lowest we can get. This illustrates how a contract is about the minimal or least the parties will do for each other.

A covenant is an agreement between parties that does not spell out the minimal requirements, the LEAST that we can do. No! A covenant spells out the MOST the parties will do! An example is marriage. This weekend and next, we will celebrate our first two full weddings! Yea! At each wedding, the couple will vow their unconditional love to each other. They will not set boundaries as to what is the least they will do for the other. Nope! They will vow to all of themselves to each other, “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health... all the days of [their lives]” There are no conditions! They will vow to share and give of their whole selves in love for the other. This includes their mind, soul, and bodies. The two will become “one flesh.” Their vows are sacrificial in essence, not secondarily or coincidentally. They will become a sign of Christ’s love for all of us to see and remember, Jesus being the bridegroom, us being the bride.

This sacred covenant is connected deeply to today’s solemnity, Corpus Christi, where we celebrate the great covenant given to us by the bridegroom, Jesus. He also pledged to be with us through our good times and bad... to love us all the days of our lives. Christ, in the image of a bridegroom, has sacrificed himself for us, his bride. He suffered greatly due to our infidelity, yet never left us. He was rendered naked, yet unashamed, for he freely took on all our shame. Despite our infidelities, he continued to be always faithful. He was innocent and still chose us despite our guilt. 

When we receive the Eucharist, we consummate our covenant with our Lord. He becomes “one flesh” with us, rather, us with Him! He pulls us and woos us to himself. By his dying, he proved his perfect love for us. Yet, he never left us. His sacramental presence assures us of his continual presence. In this way, he accompanies us on our journey of life. The Eucharist becomes for us our spousal renewal of love. He has prepared a place for us and awaits so that he can lift us up through the threshold of heaven. Every time we come to Mass, we renew our vows of faith in our Savior. And we know he never disappoints. He is always perfectly patient with us. He speaks loving words of guidance through the Scriptures. And since Jesus isn’t just a man, but also God, we worship him, adore him, and dedicate our lives to him. May this Corpus Christi bring us a profound understanding of this Sacrament as well as the Sacrament of Marriage.

Blessings,

Fr. William Holtzinger
Pastor