The devil hates marriage. The devil in fact hates all of us because we are made in the image and likeness of God. However, the devil especially hates marriage because marriage is a particularly beautiful reflection of God’s own love for his people, and marriage is the setting for God to create new life in his image. St. Peter tells us, “Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9). When the devil first tempted Eve, his goal was to turn Adam and Eve against each other, which also turned them against God. There is a spiritual battle going on between good and evil, and this battle will continue until the Lord comes again. We need to play our part in this battle by praying for the spiritual protection of our families, and by praying for our young people whom God is calling to the great vocation of marriage. 

There is a prayer for families by Pope Francis that the Knights of Columbus have promoted over the past several years. I hope we can all say this prayer at least one time this week. Going forward, may we all remember to keep families and engaged couples in our prayers. Many of our good people have been called by God to pray for seminarians and priests. Thanks to their prayers, we have been given many vocations to the priesthood, especially in this diocese. However, I believe that God is also calling our prayer warriors to pray for couples who are getting married. Having and forming a family is one of the most concrete ways to leave a spiritual legacy in the world, but it is no small task. 

Pope Saint John Paul II laid the foundation during his pontificate for both a renewal in our seminary formation and in our understanding of the sacrament of marriage. For many years, he taught the world about the theology of the body: how our bodies are an expression of our personhood and of God’s plan for our lives. We are a pilgrim Church on earth, meaning that we have a long way to go before we are perfect. Our seminaries and marriage preparation programs will never be perfect. However, we know that God provides for all of our needs. Let us commit ourselves to praying for our married couples and to supporting them in any way we can. I thank God today for the gift of all of our parish families who are great witnesses to love and generosity through the grace of God. 

Prayer to the Holy Family

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, in you we contemplate the splendor of true love; to you we turn with trust. Holy Family of Nazareth, grant that our families too may be places of communion and prayer, authentic schools of the Gospel and small domestic churches. Holy Family of Nazareth, may families never again experience violence, rejection and division; may all who have been hurt or scandalized find ready comfort and healing. Holy Family of Nazareth, make us once more mindful of the sacredness and inviolability of the family, and its beauty in God’s plan. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, graciously hear our prayer. Amen. 

Prayer composed by Pope Francis and offered on the feast of the Holy Family, Dec. 29, 2013.

May 31^st

These past months, we have watched the saints through the lens of the sacraments, gradually getting to know these exemplars of faith, these icons of living a Christ-ian life, with an eye to what they teach us about the 7 sacraments.  However, for the summer, we will no longer have an overarching theme for each month (until September when we will make it to the third pillar of the Catechism: our life in Christ).  It took me a bit of brainstorming to find some aspect of our faith not covered in the Catechism, but after some thinking on it I would like to take these summer months to examine the lives of the saints each week interwoven with scripture.  Of course, scripture comes up all the time in the Catechism, and we’ll find ourselves especially digging into praying with scripture in year 4 (so after next year), but it does not examine particular passages of scripture, which is what I want to do during these essays over the summer, but, as always, taking the saints as our guides in that endeavor!

For this first week, we remain with our Mother Mary.  The feast of the visitation happens each year on May 31^st, as we conclude the Marian month, and our scripture passage then is an obvious one:

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah,and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the child leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” 

[Luke 1:39-45]

Much of what we might learn from this passage begins with the lovely detail Luke mentions of John’s leaping within Elizabeth’s womb.  From many centuries before, we find the story of Jacob and Esau’s squirming within their mother Rebekah told with the same words.  Bringing her own pregnancy into her conversation with God, the Old Testament matriarch heard these alarming words: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” [Genesis 25:23] How different is the cavorting of John!  When Jacob reached maturity, he would make off with Esau’s birthright and blessing, whereas John would boldly, and humbly, proclaim, “He must increase, but I must decrease” [John 3:30].  

Yet if John’s reverence and delight at the coming of Christ offer us an inspiration for our own approaching before the Lord, perhaps another Old Testament character sheds further light on the scene.  We now fast-forward several more centuries and find ourselves watching David as he finally brings the Ark of the Covenant, the throne and promise of God’s presence, into his capital city, Jerusalem.  He asks, standing in the same hill country of Judea outside of Jerusalem, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”[2 Samuel 6:9], words that would be echoed by Elizabeth’s “what is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” [Luke 1:43].  “And David”, like John, “danced before the Lord with all his might”, but more than that, “David was belted with a linen ephod^” [2 Samuel 6:14].  David, robed like a priest, dances as his Lord comes to him; John, the son of a priest, does the same.   

But there is more. (When it comes to the Bible, there is always more!)  Elizabeth praises Mary “blessed are you among women”, as we do in every Hail Mary, and these words too come from the heritage of Israel.  Judith is praised in like manor after saving the Israelites from the Assyrian attacker, Holofernes – “O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all women on earth” [Judith 13:18] as was Jael, even further back in Israelite lore, when she assassinated the Canaanite general, Sisera – “Most blessed of women be Jael.” [Judges 5:24]  Now, I can’t leave us standing by Judith holding Holofernes head and Jael showing the dead body of Sisera to the beleaguered Israelites!  We see here, in even stronger words than before, Mary’s role in which she untwists the broken history of Israel.  Just as the leaping of John now shows delight and humility (rather than the deception of Jacob), and just as his celebration is without ulterior motive (unlike David’s brining the Ark into his city), so the high praises of Mary, come not from her conniving in order to save the nation, but her willingness to allow God to fight the true enemies of Israel with His own invasion.  

– Fr. Dominic Rankin reads the Bible every day.  And every day the Holy Spirit takes him down an unexpected road that always carries him one step closer to God.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated.” (1 Cor 13:4)  These words from St. Paul are words we often associate with weddings.  I would say that the vast majority of couples for whom I have witnessed their marriage vows have chosen this reading for the Second Reading of their wedding liturgy.  After all, at the heart of marriage is love, and St. Paul’s words are indeed a beautiful description of this gift of love.

However, I never miss the opportunity to invite the couples to listen more deeply to the type of love that St. Paul is describing.  He is not describing a feeling, which can sometime be how our world looks at love.  And in fact, when a couple no longer “feels” love for the other, they question whether it is worth staying in the marriage.  The love of which St. Paul speaks is the same love that Jesus Himself speaks to us, which we heard in the Gospel two Sundays ago: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15:13)  This love (in Greek agape) is a self-sacrificing love for the good of the other.  It is a love that sets aside personal interests and feelings in service of the one who is the object of the action of that love.  

Listen to the words that describe this type of giving love, that it is: “patient, kind, not jealous, not pompous, not inflated, not rude, does not seek its own interests, is not quick tempered, does not brood over injury, does not rejoice over wrongdoings.”  To live this type of love is HARD – in marriage, in family life, in Holy Orders, in everything!  But is it impossible?  No, because the Lord never commands anything that is impossible.  But it only becomes possible when His love is within us through the gift of sanctifying grace.  After all, as St. John tells us: “God is love.” (1 Jn 4:16)  The Lord makes it possible to live this type of love through the Sacrament of Matrimony, which He gave to the Church so that couples could persevere through “sickness and health, in good times and in bad” and so realize the promise that St. Paul mentions at the conclusion of his treatment on love, that “love never fails.” (1 Cor 13:8)  All of the sacraments, in fact, impart this love to aid us in the fulfillment of our duties as Christians.  This agape love, this self-sacrificing love cannot fail because God cannot fail.  If there is a failure, it is never because God’s love has failed, but that we have not let God’s love work in us and through us.

As we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, we are reminded of how powerful God’s love in the gifts of the Holy Spirit can be.  The same Holy Spirit that was able to do so many remarkable things throughout the Acts of the Apostles, and throughout the life of the Church, is available to each of us.  These gifts enable us to live the Christian agape love in any and all of the circumstances of our lives through the sacraments which the Lord gave to His Church to ensure that this love could be lived.  Let us all make that earnest plea: “Come, Holy Spirit” today, asking that our hearts will be more open to letting God’s love work in us and through us in ways that can transform marriages, families, relationships, our parish, the diocese, the Church, and the world!

Father Alford     

For the past several weeks, we have been looking into the great beauty of the sacrament of Matrimony and the many graces that Jesus gives to married couples through this sacrament. However, human sin is still very much a part of our everyday life, and all relationships are affected by sin. This has negative effects on marriages. You may have heard the word “annulment” used in the conversation about Catholics and divorce. My intention with this column is to briefly explain the distinction between a divorce and an annulment and hopefully dispel a few misconceptions. 

It is true that that Catholic Church does not allow for divorce, and this is for a very simple reason: Jesus condemned divorce by his teachings. He said, “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32). Moses allowed for divorce in his teachings, but the words of Jesus explain why this is no longer the case: “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8). In the same conversation, Jesus said, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Matthew 19:6). God is the one who joins a couple together in a sacramental marriage, and human beings have no authority to separate what he has joined. 

A declaration of nullity is not the same thing as a divorce. A declaration of nullity declares that a marriage never took place to begin with. This declaration can be granted for several reasons. A common reason is that the marriage did not take place in the Church. (Read last week’s article for why Catholics must get married in the Church.) Another reason why a Catholic could seek a declaration of nullity from the Church is that one of the spouses on the wedding day was not capable of entering into marriage, or simply lied at the statement of the vows. At the wedding, both the bride and groom promise to be faithful in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, etc. Tragically, some people later find out that their (apparent) spouse had actually lied on the wedding day, because they were having an affair at the time of the marriage. Sometimes, a man or woman is not psychologically capable of entering into a marriage, but this is not discovered until later on. There are priests, psychologists, and laypeople who are trained to help investigate situations like these to determine whether a failed marriage ever took place to begin with. 

There are some situations when Catholics can and should seek a physical separation or even a legal divorce from their spouse. In a case where one of the spouses is abusive, it is best for the physical and spiritual well-being of the spouses that they live separately for a time or permanently. However, a legal divorce does not mean that the sacrament of matrimony never took place. It is possible that even a sacramental marriage can fall apart because of the presence of sin and the choices that people make. Even if a Catholic seeks a legal divorce, the Church still considers that person to be married sacramentally. This is not in itself a reason to stop coming to Church or stop receiving Holy Communion. However, a Catholic is not free to enter another marriage unless a declaration of nullity is granted by the diocese. 

Talking about divorce and annulments is not easy. We do not live in a perfect world, and some marriage situations are admittedly complicated. However, God gives many graces to married couples, and it is worth the time and effort to make sure that the marriages among our parishioners are valid and receiving all the graces that God desires to give them.

Feast Day: 7 weeks after Easter, this year, Sunday, May 23^rd 

Last week we stood with Mary at Jesus’ Ascension, and realized that her motherhood is actually a prefigurement for all of our being/becoming disciples of Christ.  And so we continued talking about the vocation of marriage, and the call within/beyond that to also being a disciple and saint.  The idea seems pretty simple: when you’re in your first few decades of life, figure out if you’re supposed to be a priest (for the guys), religious, or married (or, if worse comes to worse, just find yourself in one of them one day…) and then spend the rest of life figuring out the particular way that you are going to be a saint/disciple within that (pray before work each morning?, volunteer time at the breadline?, go to daily Mass?, read the bible or catechism?)

The image that comes to mind is going to get an ice-cream: first you pick the main flavor (chocolate?, vanilla?, strawberry?), and then you have to choose the mix-ins (peanut-butter?, fudge sauce?, brownies-bits?)  Oh, and the rest of life – kids and work and oil changes and watching movies – is the hamburger you already ate for dinner: it takes up most of the calories of the meal, but then, when we have the chance, we go above and beyond all that natural stuff and go out to Coldstone.

But Mary challenges all of us beyond this cherry-on-top idea of vocation and discipleship.  We already saw that her motherhood and her discipleship were much the same thing: insofar as she was a good mother, she was a good disciple, and insofar as we are good disciples, we will fulfil the vocational-identity we have been given (as husband and father, or as wife and mother), so the two things are far more interwoven than even the best-blended concrete-mixer.  But Our Lady draws us deeper in another way as well, and it is one we discover at Pentecost.  Luke continues his narrative:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

– Acts 2:1-4

We know Mary is there because she is part of the “all together” that we saw last at the Ascension, but Luke does not mention it.  This allows our imaginations to fill in the details, but it also prompts us to ask how she remains in her vocation as wife and mother?  Mary’s Son has departed for heaven.  Her husband already passed years before.  Now what?  Where do you put the sprinkles if the ice-cream is melted?!

And there in the upper room we realize that our Christian identity goes far deeper than merely the unique commitment+particulars that make up our vocation+discipleship.  Mary is no less a wife and mother here as when she was in the stable at Bethlehem, but now her feminine vocation as wife and mother is shifted towards the Church, which is conceived with her continued cooperation and receptivity to the Father’s will, and is born as the Holy Spirit once more overshadows her, and all members of Christ’s Body.

This is the reality for every one of us too!  Vocation and discipleship are not just parts of our lives, they aren’t just the dessert to top off the meal, they are foundational to our way of being human.  We are either male and female, and so we are all called to be husbands/fathers or wives/mothers.  That is the way God created us from the beginning, and His love – to which our vocation and discipleship is merely a fitting response – is what draws us into life, and through our life, onto a particular path of making that love present in our own way.  Every action we do, every choice we make, every breath we take … all are opportunities to choose love, or not, and if we choose to truly love, then we are on the way of following our vocation, and of being faithful to the particular kind of fatherhood/motherhood that the Good Lord knows will bring us to eternal joy.

– Fr. Dominic Rankin likes to think he has a decent amount of energy and endurance.  He also thinks Ven. Fulton Sheen is right when he remarked: “A woman is capable of more sustained sacrifice than man. Man is more apt to be the hero in one great, passionate outburst of courage. But a woman is heroic through the years, months, and even seconds of daily life, the very repetition of her toils giving them the semblance of commonplace. Not only her days but her nights, not only her mind, but her body, share in the Calvary of Mothering. She, therefore, has a greater understanding of redemption, for she comes closer to death in bringing forth life.