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Dear friends in Christ,
Weddings are a wonderful time to see covenantal love given and received. Man and woman come together before God, family and friends, to profess a life-long commitment to each other. Marriage is a sacrament, meaning Christ bestows special graces on the married couple in order that they may keep the covenant they profess. For Catholics the ritual form matters. The way couples profess that forever-love is important. Rituals are important. It worries me that more and more couples are choosing to be married outside our Church’s norms, depriving themselves of the graces needed to be faithful to their commitment. Marriages will struggle more when couples choose not to avail themselves of the grace of the Sacrament, and of living a Sacramental life.
We meditate on marriage and its ritual form because it is the enduring institution that speaks most clearly to covenant for modern humanity. During the ritual couples profess a solemn vow: “I, Joseph, take you, Mary, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.” These words show us that the covenant of marriage is not temporary and that it involves an exchange of persons. “I am yours and you are mine.” The grace of the sacrament assists the couple to remain true in hard times and to flourish in good times. But as every couple knows, marriage must be kept and nourished daily, lest it stagnate or ossify.
Dear Parish Family,
Our journey this Lent traverses the great covenants of the Lord with his people. We are exploring the faithfulness of God: “The Lord remembers his covenants forever!” At the same time, we acknowledge that humanity has not always been faithful to guarding the covenants they have cut with the Lord. Remember, we cut covenants, and then we guard/keep or break covenants. Those are the verbs used in Hebrew. Covenants make a kinship bond between two people (or groups) who then become as family. “You are our God and we are your people,” is one formulation of this exchange.
Today on our journey we meet up with Abraham and Isaac as the Lord asks a father to sacrifice his son, perhaps the ultimate test of fidelity. Abraham has travelled a great distance with the Lord. The account begins in Genesis 12 when God took Abram and Sarai from the land of Ur (modern-day Iraq) all the way down to Egypt and then back to Mamre (modern-day Palestine), and many other places along the way. Childlessness is the great anguish of Abram and Sarai. Despite their wealth in livestock and possessions, they have not been blessed with children. And yet, the Lord God has promised Abraham, on more than one occasion that he will be the father of nations.
Dear Parish Family,
And so it begins! The great season of Lent is upon us, a time to live our Christianity with greater intensity, to be especially zealous in our love for God and neighbor. The words of Elijah the great prophet (who we meet next week) ring out in my heart: “With zeal I am zealous for the Lord God of Hosts” (1 K 19:10)! My prayer is that our time deepening our prayer lives, our interior life, with the book I Heard God Laugh , will assist us to be especially fervent and zealous in our journey through Lent.
This Lent “Promises Fulfilled” is the title of our message series. We will focus on the first readings more than the Gospels and attend to how God communicates love for his people through the cutting and renewing of covenants. Covenants are solemn oaths exchanged between two parties. Marriage is the most accessible covenant to our modern minds. Marriage is meant to be permanent, faithful, and God-willing fruitful. God instituted marriage to be a sign for us of his forever love. Often in the Scriptures, God uses language related to marriage to speak of his faithfulness.
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