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.

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I will be celebrating my 10^th anniversary as a priest later this month.  Since I was ordained a deacon in 2010, I have kept a record of the various sacraments that I have celebrated.  Since this we are considering the Sacrament of Matrimony this month, I decided to look back at the list of weddings at which I have presided.  To date, I have witnessed the marriage vows of 34 couples (35 by the time I finish this weekend), not necessarily a huge amount for 11 years of ordained ministry, but not insignificant either.

As I looked over the names on the list, I thought of a question that was recently posed to me.  A brother priest asked what part of the wedding ceremony is most memorable.  For me, I am always moved when it comes time for the couple to exchange their vows with one another.  After declaring their intention to enter Matrimony, I say the following words to them:  “Since it is your intention to enter the covenant of Holy Matrimony join your right hands and declare your consent before God and His Church.”  As they join hands and look one another in the eyes, it is a beautiful moment to behold, and I count myself to be so privileged to be closer than anybody else in the church to see this special moment as the two prepare to enter into the one flesh union of Holy Matrimony.

Because they are often nervous, the couples that I have worked with rarely choose to memorize their vows.  They choose to repeat after me as they pronounce their vows to their future spouse.  Once again, it is a great privilege to be so close to the couple at this moment of great intimacy.  It has happened on many occasions that the voice of one or both crack as they are flooded with emotion, an emotion no doubt of great joy.  Then after the vows have been exchanged, the peace that floods their faces is a sight to behold.

When preparing couples for marriage, I like to remind them that this brief moment in the ceremony, not much longer than a minute or two, is what marriage is all about.  Everything else, from the dresses, to the flowers, to the reception, to the guests, and the countless other details that go into the day, pale in comparison to what happens in this sacred moment of the exchange of vows.  At that moment, they stand before one another and before God, asking the Lord for the grace to keep together the bond that is created.  And with God’s grace, it is indeed possible to do so, but the couple must never forget to keep Him at the center of their lives.  The couple is not alone in this, of course.  All of those who are privileged to witness this sacred moment are also reminded of the obligation that we all have to pray for married couples that they might remain rooted in the grace of the sacrament they have received so as to persevere until death do they part.

I therefore invite each of us to call to mind those we know who are married.  Bring them before the Lord and ask Him to bless and strengthen their union.  Whether they have been married 50 years, or less than one year, every couple can benefit from our prayers for them.  Let us also pray in a special way for those couples who are preparing for marriage, that amidst all of the details to attend to in planning their weddings, they will ever keep before their eyes the love of God who has drawn the two of them together, and who alone can guarantee that their marriages will be able to withstand the trials of life and so be a source of joy for the remainder of their lives.

Father Alford     

Although most Catholics are aware of this, I have recently encountered some people who were surprised to hear that Catholics must get married “in the Church.” By this phrase, I do not necessarily mean that Catholics must get married in a church building, but this should happen too. To get married “in the Church” means to get married according to the ritual of the Catholic Church in the presence of one of her ministers, usually a priest or deacon. If a Catholic gets married in a different way, such as at a courthouse, he or she is in fact not married at all according to the laws of the Church. 

So why do Catholics have to get married in the Church? There are several important reasons, although this has not always been the case. As I have said in previous columns, marriage was not invented by Christianity, but it was raised to the level of a sacrament by Jesus. In the time of the early Church, Christians probably did not have a distinct marriage ceremony from other people in their communities. At that time, most people would have taken marriage for granted, and the cultural understanding of marriage would have been that it was lifelong, faithful, and open to children, which is how our nature is built for marriage. However, at a certain point in history, the Church judged that there would be a great spiritual benefit for Catholics to get married in the presence of the Church’s official minister. The Catechism lists four of these reasons in paragraph 1631.

• Sacramental marriage is a liturgical act. It is therefore appropriate that it should be celebrated in the public liturgy of the Church;
• Marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and creates rights and duties in the Church between the spouses and towards their children;
• Since marriage is a state of life in the Church, certainty about it is necessary (hence the obligation to have witnesses);
• The public character of the consent protects the “I do” once given and helps the spouses remain faithful to it. 

A sacramental marriage is a union in Christ of the two spouses. With this in mind, it only makes sense to enter into this sacred covenant in the presence of the Church and in the house of God. Some couples would prefer to enter into marriage on an island somewhere as part of a vacation. While this might be fun, it does not reflect a good understanding of what marriage is. Marriage is certainly not just a vacation, and to place the beauty of a beach before the beauty of being in the presence of God is not a correct prioritization. 

There are exceptions to this rule. Catholics can ask for permission from their local bishop to get married outside of the presence of the Church’s minister. Bishops may give this permission for a good reason, such as when a Catholic is marrying a Jewish woman, and her family will not come to a Christian wedding ceremony. As long as there is not a danger of the Catholic losing his faith, a bishop could give permission for him to get married in the Jewish ceremony. While not a sacrament, this marriage is still a natural good and blessed by God. 

Marriage can get complicated and a little messy, as I’m sure we have all witnessed at some point in our lives. Christian marriage is no exception. If you have questions regarding the validity of a marriage, or if you would like help rectifying a complicated situation, contact your local parish or one of the priests at the Cathedral; we would be happy to help. Marriage is a beautiful gift from God, and it is worth the effort to ensure that our married couples are receiving all the graces they can from this great sacrament.

Feast Day: 40 days after Easter, this year, Sunday, May 16^th 

We are contemplating marriage this month, and having given two weeks to St. Joseph, it now seems the right time to turn to turn to his spouse, and Jesus’ mother, Mary.  But, we find ourselves at a particular place in the Church’s liturgical life: the last days leading from Easter to the day of Our Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost, when He fulfils His promise of sending the Holy Spirit upon the Church.  How does Mary fit into this?  And marriage?  

… as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. …Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away; and when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. (Acts 1:9-14)

I include this entire passage because this week I want to invite you to pray through this scene with Mary.  This is the very last time that Mary will be mentioned in Scripture (though St. Paul references Jesus’ birth in Galatians 4:4), but what last example does our Spiritual Mother offer us?  

She is with the apostles and disciples (that would be us!) – begging for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit – and Mary is the perfect person to show what it means to be open and available for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, because that was precisely the gift she received at the annunciation, 30-something years before.  

They are of “one accord” – of one mind, one heart, one mission, one hope; they are united, in communion, with the Lord – but wasn’t Mary the first one to be centered on Christ?  She held Him in her womb for 9 months, and in her heart every minute since, how much she can teach us about unity around, and union with, Jesus?!

They are praying – united in worship of God, and entrusting their lives to Him – and as all the scriptures come into clearer focus, and all the teachings and actions of Jesus begin to set their hearts afire, isn’t it proper that Mary, the one who had so long pondered the Lord’s working in her own life, is there to teach them the ways of trust and surrender?

They are joyful, indefatigable, hopeful, on fire – but Jesus just ascended! – wouldn’t most disciples be discouraged by their master’s disappearance?  Not these disciples, for Christ goes to prepare a place, and promises to remain with them, and once again Mary’s discipleship has preceded the Church’s.  She had already said goodbye to her son as He began His ministry, and then called a new family of disciples around Him, and then took up the cross … and each time she found herself even closer to Her savior and son.

And lastly, we are considering the Ascension, when Jesus takes our humanity with Him up to heaven.  What a glorious transformation, and promise of future transformation for us?!  Mary is the only saint to have been carried aloft to life with God in this complete and bodily sense.  There too, she follows closely after her Son, and shows us the path towards our own bodily resurrection.

In all these ways, Mary knows that discipleship and motherhood are related.  Both the disciple and the mother have to be open to life from on high … or else fail to bear fruit.  Both must be centered, captivated, consumed by love … lest their activities become scattered and meaningless.  Both need a deep, quiet, personal life of prayer … because without relationship the burdens of either life can crush.  Both must find joy in surrendering the life entrusted to them by God … for to grasp that gift is to lose it.  And, both must surrender their bodies to the vocation to which they are called … to give our spirits to God, but not our bodies, is to fail to receive the fullness of His gift for us. 

– Fr. Dominic Rankin prays the rosary every day.  One day stands above all the others as including a profound encounter with God in that devotion.  His spiritual director on the retreat before Theology I invited him to pray each decade imagining Mary, as a young girl, holding his hand and walking him through the mysteries she would live out in the years to come.  Many blessings were found that afternoon allowing her to show me her Son.

Many years ago, somebody asked me a rather interesting question.  It went something like this: “What was God’s first commandment?  And does He still ask it of us?”  I thought about the question for a moment, then I did what many people do when looking for an answer related to the faith…I went to Google!  Thankfully, the algorithm in Google pointed me to where I should have started in the first place, the Bible, specifically in the Book of Genesis.  

After the creation of Adam and Eve, and before the Fall, God issued this command: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28)  To be fertile (or fruitful) is understood to be a command to cooperate with God in the creation of new human lives.  Even though the Fall damaged humanity’s relationship with God and one another, He nevertheless desires for this command to remain in effect and asks that couples who are entering into the Sacrament of Matrimony to be open to this important aspect of married life.  We see this in the Celebration of Matrimony itself.  Just before the couple exchanges their vows, the Church asks them: “Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and His Church?”

Today, as our country celebrates Mother’s Day, everybody who reads this can be thankful that their mother chose to say yes to God’s first command to be fruitful and multiply.  I am more than aware that not every child who is born into the world comes from the context of a couple who is married.  And while not ideal, we must still rejoice because every life is a gift from God, and the mothers who chose to accept that life lovingly from God are to be commended and praised.  I know that I will be thanking God in a special way for my mother today.

When I was younger and more foolish, I used to tell people that after having had two boys, my mother really wanted a girl.  She was indeed blessed with a girl, and I tagged along in the womb with my sister.  I remember how my mother reacted one time when she heard me say that.  She was clearly not in agreement with my assessment of the situation, and through that rather awkward experience, I realized that my mother had lovingly welcomed both my twin sister and me.  I was not just an extra to what she really wanted, I was a double blessing to her.  And so I thank her in a special way for lovingly welcoming me as a gift from the moment I was conceived in her womb up to the present moment.

Let me express my gratitude to all mothers on this day for their willingness to lovingly welcome their children into this world.  And for those mothers who may have had to endure the pain of losing that gift to death too early, we pray in a special way for their healing and comfort from the Lord, who looks upon all mothers with tender love for their willingness to obey His first command.

Father Alford     

In our American society today, there seems to be skepticism about the goodness of marriage. This is also a reflection of our skepticism about the world in general. As the Catechism quotes from Vatican II, “The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life” (CCC 1603). Marriage is a human reality even before it is a Christian reality, but the degradation of the esteem in which marriage is held has serious consequences for us as Catholics, because this sacrament is a great source of grace for those who need it. 

Marriage is hard. It is a way that most people in our Church are called to lay their lives down in service of God and his Church. Since God never expects us to do the impossible, we can know that he gives the help that is needed to live out such a sublime calling. Without the eyes of faith, it may be easy to discount the value of marriage as a simple social construct (even though this is not true). For Christians however, marriage is a source of incredible grace. 

When two Christians enter into a marriage, a special, invisible bond is formed, and this bond is the source of strength for the married couple. This covenant between the spouses does not remain simply on a human level but is “integrated into God’s covenant with man: ‘Authentic married love is caught up into divine love’” (CCC 1639). Christ dwells in a special way with a married couple. The graces that Jesus gives through the sacrament of matrimony are quite remarkable: “Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens, to ‘be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,’ and to love one another with a supernatural, tender, and fruitful love” (CCC 1642). Marriage sounds like quite the sacrament! Couples who choose to forego marriage in favor of simply living together are forfeiting all of these possible graces, and sadly the results often reflect this. 

True love is found in commitment. It can be very attractive to keep our options open indefinitely, and never make a true life commitment. But true freedom is found through giving ourselves away in love. This is true for married couples, priests, religious, and for all of us who are generous with ourselves in any way. “It can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself for life to another human being. This makes it all the more important to proclaim the Good News that God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love, that married couples share in this love, that it supports and sustains them, and that by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God’s love. Spouses who with God’s grace give this witness, often in very difficult conditions, deserve the gratitude and support of the ecclesial community” (CCC 1648). 

I used a lot of quotes from the Catechism this week, because I thought that these quotes expressed the great value of marriage so well. Let us give thanks to God for all the wonderful examples of married love that we have in our parish and in our families!