On the 11th of May, my wife and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary. I still remember our sacrament of matrimony so clearly. Some of my friends took wagers on how soon I would cry after seeing my beautiful bride. Well, before Cassandra reached the end of the aisle, my eyes were filled with tears. The ceremony was surreal as if time had temporarily paused and everyone around us vanished. It felt like we were alone with God at that moment.
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| 11 May 2019 - Nazareth House Pretoria |
When God created the earth, he did so with a purpose in mind. Nothing God creates has no meaning, which is evident in nature. From the beginning of creation, God has written the story of love deep within our hearts. He plays a love song that guides us to our heavenly home. That home is the wedding feast of the marriage of the Lamb. Therefore, borrowing a catchy phrase from Christopher West, if we were to summarise the entire Bible in five words, it would be "God wants to marry us!".
1. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:26-27)
In marriage, the husband and wife are the ministers of the sacrament witnessed by the priest and guests representing the Church. The marriage bond is established by God, and a marriage is made complete every time the couple comes together in conjugal love (CCC, 1640). When a husband gives his seed to his wife and his wife receives this gift in a free, fruitful, and total way, they participate as co-creators through love with God the Creator (CCC, 2367). When the couple becomes one, and God wills for life to come from that union, the invisible is made visible in the form of a child.
If it were not for marriage between spouses and the fruit of their union, the generations since Adam and Eve up until our current generation would be void. The life created from the union of a husband and wife is bonded by the Holy Spirit. That very bond is the same bond uniting the Holy Trinity, as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit that makes them not three gods, but one God.
2. "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the chalice, after supper, saying, 'This chalice is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'" (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
My YouTube is no longer my own. It is filled with lots of nursery rhymes and children's songs to play with my son. There is a song that combines random things together to teach children about preferences. It goes as follows: "Do you like ice cream? … Yes!" and "Do you like broccoli? Yes!", but "Do you like broccoli ice cream? No, that's yucky!" It is a really random rhyme but very catchy. God's creation, like the children's rhyme, can sometimes seem quite random. Still, dive a little deeper, and it can open our eyes to mysteries we take for granted.
Have you ever wondered in the Mass why Jesus chose to take the form of bread and wine?
The bread is made of wheat, grass grown for its seed which when dried out the grain is used for baking bread. A grape is the fruit of a vine—a fruit results from the fertilising and maturing of one or more flowers. After the ovary, the embryo sac produces an egg cell for the purpose of fertilisation. When the plant's ovary is fertilised with pollen (discharged from the male part of a flower), it will grow within the mother plant. The grapes are later crushed and fermented overtime to produce a beautiful tasting wine.
During the Mass, after the consecration, the priest will break a tiny piece of Our Lord's body (in the substance of bread or once a seed of the earth) and places it into the chalice containing Our Lord's blood (the wine formed from the ripened ovary or fruit of the vine). We begin to see the mystery of the marital union of spouses embedded in the mystery of the Mass. We believe that Jesus is the bread of life, and when we receive Our Lord in the Eucharist, we become a reflection of Christ in the world. The giving and receiving between spouses in marriage point us to the Mass. Importantly, the Mass points us to our heavenly destiny.
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| Our Lord lifted before us during the consecration |
3. "Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure – for the fine linen is the deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, 'Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.'" (Revelation 19: 7-9)
In the Mass, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, is the bridegroom, and we are the bride. Our Lord gives, and we receive. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life, for in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Jesus Christ himself (CCC, 1324).
Our goal on earth is to enter into the marriage feast of heaven. In heaven, we will no longer need the sacraments as signs directing us home. In heaven, we will enter into union with the Love of God. However, the wedding feast is a feast like no other. The banquet requires the purest, most refined, and pristine linen worthy of God.
Our Christ-like actions on earth, our participation in the Mass, frequent and regular confession, and friendship with God through prayer will help us better "know" our heavenly bridegroom. Does scripture not state, "Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, 'I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord." (Genesis 4:1).
The point is God composes the most romantic love songs. He writes love sonnets that would make Shakespeare look like an amateur, talks the purest and sweetest words of affirmation to our heart, and shows us every day that he loves us. All he asks from us is to realise that this life is only worth living as a stepping stone to the most lavish, incredible wedding feast. A feast that goes beyond our imagination could only be the wedding feast of heaven.
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning - 1806-1861
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
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