Fr. Roger J. Landry
Nuptial Mass for Andres Ignacio Perez-Benzo and Grace Elizabeth McInerney
Church of St. Agatha-St. James, Philadelphia, PA
June 22, 2019
Sir 35:1-12, Ps 103, 2 Tim 4:1-8, Mt 7:21.24-29
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
In God, there are no true coincidences. The fact that Andy and Grace are getting married on June 22nd, the feast of Saints Thomas More and Saint John Fisher, is no historical accident. Today is not merely a convenient early summer afternoon when the Church of St. Agatha-St. James and the Union League of Philadelphia both happened to be available. It’s not just a nice, grateful homage to the fact that the first time Andy set his eyes on Grace four years ago was at the Church of Saint Thomas More in Manhattan. The reason is not simply because Grace and Andy are daily Mass goers, know the liturgical calendar, and have a devotion to these two great British saints. The deepest reason is because God in his providence desired Andy’s and Grace’s marriage to be associated in a particular way with John’s and Thomas’ feast. He wanted Andy’s and Grace’s loving union to be inspired by John’s and Thomas’ sanctity. He wanted Andy’s and Grace’s wedding anniversaries each year to be flavored by John’s and Thomas’ life and love, their testimony and triumph.
As many of you know, Saint Thomas More is one of the most famous laymen in the history of the Church. When he was 27, he married the affable and beautiful Jane Colt. Their marriage was very happy and God blessed them with four children in their first six years of marriage before Jane sadly died. Within months, out of love for his children, he married the sharp-tongued widow, Alice Middleton, four years his senior, and together they raised his and Jane’s four children and Alice’s and John Middleton’s daughter Alice. Thomas More had a great practical love for the Sacrament of Marriage as part of God’s plan for the sanctification of men and women in ordinary life. Saint John Fisher, on the other hand, was a priest, theologian, eventually Chancellor of Cambridge and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He became Bishop of the Diocese of Rochester the same year Thomas married Jane. Even though several richer, more prestigious, more desirable dioceses were offered to him over the course of time because of his talent, he remained spousally united to his poor, small see, out of love for the family of faith that God had entrusted to him.
We celebrate them together liturgically because in 1535 they were both martyred under King Henry VIII for their witness to the sacredness of marriage. Henry, as many are aware, wanted to receive an annulment for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, who was unable to conceive for him an heir, so that he would be able to marry Anne Boleyn. But there were insufficient grounds for a nullity declaration and Pope Clement VII refused. Henry, not used to not getting his own way, decided to separate the Church in English from the pope, establish himself as supreme head of the Church in England, appoint Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury loyal to him, and have Cranmer try to grant him an annulment and pronounce his marriage to Anne valid. Henry also wanted the bishops and prominent citizens to swear oaths that he, not Christ or Christ’s vicar the pope, was the head of the Church in England and that his and Anne’s progeny would be the legitimate heirs to the throne. Even though the vast majority of clergy and faithful through pressure, bribes or self-interest took the oath, John and Thomas refused. John wrote seven treatises defending the Church’s teachings on marriage. Thomas, a lawyer and eventually chancellor of England, remained resolutely tight-lipped, but everyone knew, including Henry, the conscientious reason for his silence. After being imprisoned in the tower of London for not taking the oath, they were condemned to death, with John dying 484 years ago today, and Thomas two weeks later. They were both, like John’s patron saint John the Baptist before them, martyrs for matrimony.
Andy and Grace, by God’s joining you in one flesh today, you, too, are called to be, together, martyrs for marriage. This vocation is not inconsistent with your prayers, and the prayers of today’s Rite of Matrimony, asking God to bless you with many years together and eventually, after seeing your children’s children, a holy and peaceful death. The word martyr, in Greek, means witness. And you are called to be witnesses of God’s plan for marriage just as much as Thomas, as a husband and father, and John, as a priest and bishop, heroically did.
You’re already doing so today simply by getting married. As Christians have believed and taught from the first centuries, today you are not only receiving a Sacrament— a sign and means of intimate communion with God — but are becoming a Sacrament, a visible sign pointing to the invisible reality of the Trinitiarian loving communion of persons. You have been called, chosen and commissioned by God to be not just a living reminder of the fruitful, faithful, indissoluble love of God for his people, and to reflect efficaciously in your own marriage Christ’s love for his bride the Church, but to preach that Gospel of human love in the divine plan, in words and body language, for as long as you both shall live. This is the witness of holy matrimony every Christian couple is called to give.
Today that testimony is more urgent and needed than in centuries. Sacramental marriage between a man and a woman has become a courageous and counter-cultural act. So many are afraid of making a commitment — especially a commitment that is for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health, all the days of one’s life. Seeing so many relationships break down, many millennials today prefer to keep their options open. They refuse to entrust their future to another. They seek to receive some of the comfort and benefits that come from relationships that in many outward ways resemble marriage but without giving themselves totally to what God desires and true love entails. Many others are confused about what marriage is, with some thinking it’s just romantic symbolism, or a piece of paper, or a temporary union for as long as two shall love, or a changing reality whose meaning can be defined or redefined by the parties themselves, or the popular culture, or the courts or a modern day King Henry. Today, Andy and Grace, in contrast to the spirit of the age, you are making a public profession about marriage and its nature and importance. You’re publicly proclaiming that you’re entering not into a contract but a covenant, a sacred commitment not just to each other but to God, consecrating your love in a special way within the love of the God who created you, brought you together, and who today is making a sacred commitment to you to accompany you for richer or poorer, better or worse, in sickness and health all the days of your life. You’re openly declaring that you desire not just to make the other happy, but to be God’s instrument to help make the other holy. You’re avowing that the gift you ultimately want to give each other is not merely a beautiful ring, or the exchange of last name, or even the gift of yourself, however faithful, fruitful, free and total; but you’re overtly affirming that you are seeking to give God to each other, to help the other grow in God’s image and likeness. You’re asserting that you want your bond truly to be a holy matrimony, one that will lead you, hand-in-hand, we pray, down the nave of a sanctuary more beautiful than this, for a Nuptial Banquet that will know no end.
You’re making this witness together a time when many people, as St. Paul noted in the second reading you chose, do not “tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires … stop listening to the truth” and are “diverted” to romantic myths. To use Jesus’ image in the Gospel you selected, they build their relationships on various forms of sand, commitments and lifestyles that cannot withstand the storms of life that will inevitably blow and buffet against it. You are doing something different. You are intentionally seeking to build your life on the rock, the solid foundation of God himself and what he has revealed about marriage in the divine plan. You’re not just crying out “Lord, Lord” with words, but seeking to ground your individual and communal existence in doing and fulfilling his will to perfect you in love like his. Together the Church is saying to you, as Saint Paul said to Timothy in the second reading, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ: … proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching; … be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.” Jesus sent out the 72 disciples two-by-two to fulfill the ministry of evangelization. Today Jesus launches the two of you, hand-in-hand, to proclaim in and through your marriage the fundamental core of the Gospel: God’s spousal love for us and call to receive and reciprocate it. He has given you each other to help you fight the fight the good fight, to finish the race, to keep the faith. And through both of you he wants to help many others join you in that holy battle, complete the marathon, and live and spread the faith.
Even though viewing marriage as a sacred mission is not that common today, you are certainly not alone as joint martyrs of matrimony. God has blessed you with much help.
He has blessed you first with the witness of your own parents, something for which both of you have told me you are so grateful. “From my parents,” you said to me, Andy, in the essays I had you write as part of marriage preparation, “I received the best possible formation both spiritual and material. By word and example, my parents transmitted to me the faith in its entirety.” You also mentioned the way your grandparents taught you “how fruitful marriages can create a very large and unified extended family where excellence in virtue can touch a broad swath of society outside of the family itself.” Grace, you told me, “My parents instilled Christian values into our home and continue to do so. My father embodies sacrificial masculinity, selflessly serving our family through his work while also providing deep emotional support to each of us. My mother has so many qualities that remind me of the Blessed Mother through her femininity, generosity and humility. They exemplify a good and holy marriage for my siblings and me, operating inspiringly as a team and showing us love through their sacrifice and devotion to each other and our family.” How lucky you are that God continues to bless you with them and this witness in your life.
The second great gift he has given you is the example of each other. The deepest reason for today’s great celebration is that you have found in each other someone who shows you a standard of Christian witness that inspires you never to stop growing in faith. Andy, when I asked you what you love about Grace, you responded with a litany: “Her deep interior life. The way she supports me in prayer. Her love for Mary. Her love for St. Joseph. Her love for many of the saints. Her love for her family. The strength of her friendships. Her intelligence and quick mind. She comes to pray with me at 10 p.m. if I haven’t yet prayed before the Blessed Sacrament. She prays for me and encourages me in my work and the causes I support. She comes to family events and spends time with my friends. She moves her schedule around to make time to speak with me when I’m traveling. She’s always paying attention.” When I asked you the same question, Grace, you were equally effusive: “Andy is a selfless, thoughtful, mature, and loving man. I am so grateful for his formation. He seeks to serve me in any way he can. He welcomes my thoughts and seeks to help calm my anxieties. He is so gentle with me. He learned early on how important words are for me and has tried to speak words of affirmation to me as often as possible. He also seeks to serve others and strives to do his apostolate well. He is not afraid to speak the truth even when it is difficult or unpopular. He is constantly trying to improve himself in every aspect of his life, especially as a partner, but also in his work and spiritual life. He is never complacent and is always seeking to become the best version of himself. I am honored that I have the privilege to marry Andy and thrilled to have him as the leader of our family.” God has given you each other to continue to help you in these ways and in others he will reveal to you over time.
The third and most important means of help is God himself. As you make a sacred covenant today with each other, the Holy Trinity and the two-of-you also make one. In the back of this Church on the right side is a beautiful stained glass window of St. Francis de Sales, one of the greatest and most practical saints of all time. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he challenged young Christian spouses to seek to relive in their married life each day the mystery of the Wedding Feast of Cana. That young couple invited Jesus and Mary his mother to their wedding and it was through their presence that not only did was their reception saved by Jesus’ converting 180 gallons of water into precious wine — the equivalent of 912 bottles! — but Jesus also elevated the “water” of their natural love into the “wine” of his divine love, something that obviously points to the way that Jesus would later transform wine into his blood so that his outpoured love would be able to flow literally through our veins.St. Francis de Sales encouraged all couples to remain in Jesus’ love by inviting Jesus into their home, their prayer together, their labors, their joys and sorrows, their disagreements and reconciliations, into the entirety of their married life. He noted that many marriages struggle and some fail because rather than inviting Jesus, Mary and the saints into their marriage, many couples invite Adonis and Venus, the pagan gods of eros, or bring in the golden calf through the worship of money and material things. They invite the standards and ways of the world rather than those of God and the friends of God. Jesus wishes couples to remain in his love and is always ready, eager and indeed desirous to receive the invitation to come not just to their wedding and reception but to remain in the couple’s life full-time, 24/7, for as long as they both shall live. He wants you, Andy and Grace, not only to receive him personally and together but to show others an example of receiving him so that other couples, too, might learn how he desires to change the water of their natural love into something far more precious and lasting.
The greatest means of inviting Jesus into your home and married life is by responding to Jesus’ invitation to enter his home and life. That’s why it’s so fitting that you are getting married in the context of a Nuptial Mass here in God’s house. The early Christians used to illustrate the reality between marriage and the Mass in their architecture, covering the altars with a canopy just like ancient beds were covered, to communicate that the altar is the marriage bed of the union between Christ the Bridegroom and his Bride, the Church. Catholics believe that it’s here on this altar that we, the Bride of Christ, in the supreme act of love, receive within ourselves, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, the divine Bridegroom, becoming one-flesh with him and being made capable of bearing fruit with him in acts of love. This is the means by which Christ regularly renews couples in their indissoluble one flesh union This is the way husband and wife receive within Christ’s love and become more capable of loving each other with the love with which he first loved them. This is the channel Jesus provides to strengthen couples to continue in your courageous and even counter-cultural witness to the Sacrament of Marriage in its fullness.
How beautiful it is that 196 days ago, when you, Andy, proposed to Grace, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, in Our Lady’s Chapel at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, you did so at the end of Mass after ten minutes of Thanksgiving for receiving Jesus within in Holy Communion. That day, in which we celebrate the beginning of our redemption with the “I do” or “fiat” of the one who was “full of grace” to God’s proposal of her vocation, you dropped to a knee and asked a stunned, grace-filled woman, for a similar yes. Your engagement began with the Eucharist and today so does your marriage. In the words of Sirach from the first reading, you are not appearing before the Lord “empty-handed.” As the Lord gives himself to you, you are giving yourself to him and to each other and seeking to love with all of your mind, heart, soul and strength. Your self-offering “enriches the altar and rises as a sweet odor before the Most High” as a “most pleasing … sacrifice [that] will never be forgotten.” Let your whole marriage develop in this Eucharistic key, as you learn from Jesus here how to say to each other in body language, “This is my body, this is my blood, this is my heart, and sweat, and tears, and labors, and joys, given out of love for you.” This is the Eucharistic echo of Christian marriage, which is meant to be the source and summit of a Catholic married couple’s life, and their most fundamental witness.
On the day of the proposal last December 8th, Grace, not knowing what was coming, you asked Andy to begin the day by making a pilgrimage, praying the Rosary, from your apartment on 98th Street down 47 blocks down to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral. You told me that because of the surprise, you “never finished the pilgrimage.” There’s something highly fitting and symbolic in that, because the pilgrimage you began was not supposed to finish that day. That pilgrimage continues, and will continue each day of your marriage, as together, hand in hand, enveloped by the prayers of the Queen of the Family and all of us, you journey through life, up hills and across valleys, to the heavenly altar where, we pray, you both will receive not rings but the crown of righteousness to which St. Paul alluded.
Today as we celebrate in tandem the triumph of John Fisher and Thomas More as martyrs of holy matrimony we pray through their intercession that one day we will be able to celebrate jointly Saint Andrés Ignacio and Saint Grace Elizabeth for your joint witness not just to this sacred institution but to the way that through it God can, wants to and does make husband and wife truly holy and their family a sacrament of his love and life.
May God bless you today with every spiritual blessing in the heavens and, through you and your cheerful martyrdom of matrimony, bless us all.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the Book of Sirach
To keep the law is a great oblation, and he who observes the commandments sacrifices a peace offering. In works of charity one offers fine flour, and when he gives alms he presents his sacrifice of praise. To refrain from evil pleases the LORD, and to avoid injustice is an atonement. Appear not before the LORD empty-handed, for all that you offer is in fulfillment of the precepts. The just man’s offering enriches the altar and rises as a sweet odor before the Most High. The just man’s sacrifice is most pleasing, nor will it ever be forgotten. In generous spirit pay homage to the LORD, be not sparing of freewill gifts. With each contribution show a cheerful countenance, and pay your tithes in a spirit of joy. Give to the Most High as he has given to you, generously, according to your means. For the LORD is one who always repays, and he will give back to you sevenfold. But offer no bribes, these he does not accept! Trust not in sacrifice of the fruits of extortion, For he is a God of justice, who knows no favorites.
Responsorial Psalm: “The Lord is Kind and Merciful”
Bless the LORD, my soul; all my being, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, my soul; do not forget all the gifts of God, Who pardons all your sins, heals all your ills, Delivers your life from the pit, surrounds you with love and compassion, Fills your days with good things; your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The LORD does righteous deeds, brings justice to all the oppressed. His ways were revealed to Moses, mighty deeds to the people of Israel. Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger, abounding in kindness. God does not always rebuke, nurses no lasting anger, Has not dealt with us as our sins merit, nor requited us as our deeds deserve. As the heavens tower over the earth, so God’s love towers over the faithful. As far as the east is from the west, so far have our sins been removed from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on the faithful. For he knows how we are formed, remembers that we are dust. Our days are like the grass; like flowers of the field we blossom. The wind sweeps over us and we are gone; our place knows us no more. But the LORD’s kindness is forever, toward the faithful from age to age. He favors the children’s children of those who keep his covenant, who take care to fulfill its precepts. The LORD’s throne is established in heaven; God’s royal power rules over all. Bless the LORD, all you angels, mighty in strength and attentive, obedient to every command. Bless the LORD, all you hosts, ministers who do God’s will. Bless the LORD, all creatures, everywhere in God’s domain. Bless the LORD, my soul!
A reading from the Second Letter of St. Paul to Timothy
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingly power: proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths. But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance.
A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew
Jesus said to his disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.” When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
