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well this a few weeks ago I had the
great good pleasure of presiding at the
wedding of my niece Brenna and her
husband Nelson and it was a great joy
because of course I've known Brenna all
her life and she's always been a great
person full of joy and cheerfulness and
goodness and then Nelson have I known
now for a couple years a very good man
and also took the courageous step to
become a Catholic in advance of this of
this day so the two of them are a great
couple
everyone in the church was exalting in
their and their goodness and just to see
this young couple love terrific but the
point I made in my homily was we're not
here because here's this beautiful young
couple and love because any romantic any
secular romantic could look in and see
the same thing we were gathered in
church because we saw them with the eyes
of faith and that means we saw them as a
hint or a sign or an echo of God's love
of Christ's love for the church you know
it's a peculiarity of Catholic
sacramental theology that a married
couple don't so much receive a sacrament
as they become a sacrament I just tell
people when I was doing a parish work
full time and I was working with young
engaged couples at the time we were all
about the same age I was in my like
upper 20s at the time but I would always
ask them at some point how come you guys
want to get married in church and they'd
usually say some version of well because
we love each other and I would say well
that's great I'm delighted you love each
other but that's not reason to get
married Church to be one love to get
married under on the beach in front of
the justice of the peace you get married
in church when you're convinced that God
has brought you together for His
purposes so the people gathered the
other day for my niece's wedding would
say this young couple did not come
together just by dumb chance but rather
they were brought together by God's
providence for God's purposes and that's
what we were celebrating that day
in church now to get a clearer sense of
this I suggested in my homily that we
should look with fresh eyes at the great
story of the wedding feast at Cana so
famously in John's Gospel the first sign
the first miraculous sign that Jesus
performs is not the raising of a dead
it's not the comedy of a storm at sea
it's not the healing of a blind person
the first sign he performs is providing
wine at a local wedding reception now
every one of his brother has commented
over the centuries how wonderful how
charming that Jesus you know Stoops to
do this very simple thing to help this
distressed couple and sure I mean I
won't deny that but I think we have to
look a lot deeper because what we see
there is this great motif of Jesus the
bridegroom Jesus who is the God of
Israel made flesh comes as the
bridegroom to marry his people now to
get that fully take a step back into the
Old Testament look in the prophet Isaiah
Isaiah relays this extraordinary line if
you look in the history of religions and
religious philosophy you won't see
anything quite like it it seems to me
when the God of Israel says or Isaiah
says of him your builder wants to marry
you
now again I think spend a little time
even in prayer with that line your
builder meaning the Creator the one who
designed you and created you God wants
to marry you now I mean every religion
and religious philosophy will talk about
God will talk about our relation to God
following the demands of God all of that
but here we've got the distinctively
biblical approach that God wants to
marry us that means to share his life
with us in the most intimate life-giving
faithful way possible when they were
looking for the great metaphor for this
faithful life-giving intensely personal
love they reached for the metaphor of
the wedding of the marriage
your builder wants to marry you God
wants to share his life utterly with us
now press it in that same prophet Isaiah
we hear that when the Messiah comes
there'll be this great banquet the
beautiful description on the holy
mountain there'll be these fine meats
served and then pure choice wine will be
served and indeed we hear there'll be so
much wine that the very hills will run
with it okay okay
against that background look again at
the wedding feast of Cana you don't just
have you know Jesus being a nice guy and
helping out this young couple he is the
God of Israel made flesh and he presents
himself in his first sign as the
bridegroom of his people mind you it was
the responsibility of the bridegroom at
a wedding reception to provide the wine
which is why the steward when he taste
the water made wine comes to the
bridegroom he says hey what are you
doing
most people serve the the good wine
first then when people have drunk a bit
they serve the bad wine you've gone
ahead and served the good wine last
Jesus in other words is the definitive
bridegroom come to marry his people
another step we hear John gives us the
details how much wine was made he said
there were six stone jars each one
holding about thirty gallons of water so
Jesus makes a hundred and eighty gallons
of wine what we're meant to see is the
Isaiah prophecy has come true that when
the bridegroom comes the Messiah the
very hills will run with wine this is
the full meaning it seems to me of the
wedding feast at Cana and this is
exactly what we're meant to see now in a
married couple that's why we come into
church we see them as a hint a sign a
sacrament of that love just one last
observation I mentioned how Jesus first
great sign is turning water into wine
now it's
ordinary wonderful that is how
symbolically resident it is but then at
the wedding mass so after I finished the
homily we move into the Liturgy of the
Eucharist which culminates in what not
just the transformation of water into
wine as marvelous as that is but now the
transformation of wine into the very
blood of Jesus which will now be poured
out on behalf of the people gathered
there and even more extraordinary
wedding banquet is being hosted by the
Son of God right so every mass is not
you know Robert Barron presiding at
something it's Christ I'm acting simply
in Persona Christi in the person of
Christ its Christ hosting a banquet at
which he is serving his very body and
blood acting as the bridegroom come to
marry his people that's what we see
that's what we see whenever two people
get married in church and that is reason
to celebrate
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