Fr. Roger J. Landry
Basilica of the Sacred Heart
University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana
Nuptial Mass for Nicholas Marr and Alexandra DeSanctis
May 1, 2021
Tobit 8:4-8, Ps 103, Rom 8:31-35.37-39, Jn 2:1-11
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
The first of May is a special day in the life of the Church. It is the beginning of the month especially dedicated to Mary. It is also the day since 1955 dedicated in a special way to Saint Joseph the Worker, which in this Year of Saint Joseph takes on adding meaning.
And so it’s fitting, here at the university dedicated to Our Lady, in this beautiful Basilica erected to the honor of the Sacred Heart that first beat within her womb, on this day in which we remember the loving labor by which Saint Joseph, through toil, sweat and callouses supported them in their vocations, that we give thanks to Jesus, Mary and Joseph for getting you to this day, Nick and Alexandra, and ask their intercession so that through the great sacrament you minister and receive today you may become a truly holy family.
Saint Joseph is very much involved in this day. Alexandra has long has a devotion to Saint Joseph, which she learned from her father Joseph’s deep devotion to his patron. In 2019, while on pilgrimage to Spain, Alexandra prayed a novena to Saint Joseph in anticipation of his March 19 Solemnity. She prayed for her future husband, whoever he might be, entrusting her vocation to God and praying that Saint Joseph would help “bring the right man at the right time” into her life. In essence, she put Saint Joseph the Worker to work, and he didn’t waste any time! Immediately after the pilgrimage she needed to go to a conference in Arizona. Nick and Alexandra had been introduced five months prior by Professor Phil Muñoz, had had a couple of brief conversations and exchanged a few emails related to an article Nick was working on. But Nick, seeing that Alexandra would also be at the conference, emailed to ask if Alexandra might want to go to daily Mass with him at a nearby parish the following morning, at … 6:30 am. Alexandra “very uncharacteristically” — because of the early time, but perhaps responding to Lenten graces — said yes. They spent that whole day of March 22 together, quickly became friends, had what Nick called “a blast,” kept in close touch and started dating on April 28.
Saint Joseph, it turns out, indeed brought the right man into her life at the right time.
Our Lady is similarly very much a part of their relationship. Alexandra has always praised Nick for his intentionality and Nick chose to propose on August 22, the feast of the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They went to Mass together at St. Rita’s in Alexandria, and after Mass, across the Potomac at the Lincoln Memorial, Nick proposed. For Mary, to reign is to serve, and the Queen of the Family was very much there that day, serving and praying for them as they began their 252-day preparation for what Christ, her Son, will be doing in them today.
Mary is always at the service of the young couples and the family, as she seeks to help them enter into the covenant of her Son the Bridegroom with his Bride the Church, as she intercedes that they may grow together more and more into the image of God who created the human person male and female so that through their communion of persons in love open to life they might bear the image of the Trinitarian communion.
We see Mary’s powerful service in support of authentic human love in the Gospel Nick and Alexandra chose.
Jewish wedding receptions at the time of Jesus were extraordinary eight-day affairs, with several meals a day and plenty of wine. To run out of wine would have been a humiliating disaster. When Mary noticed the problem — perhaps even before the couple or the parents did — she got involved, interceding with Jesus to do for the couple what she knew only he could. Even though he said it was not yet the time for his public miracles to begin, Jesus did the sign at his mother’s insistence on behalf of the young newlyweds.
The Church has always looked at the great miracle Jesus worked as more than just a wedding gift to a married couple, converting 180 gallons of water into precious wine, the equivalent of 912 750-ml bottles! The Church has understood its deeper significance as Jesus’ elevating the “water” of the natural love between a man and a woman — the primordial “sacrament” or sign of the divine image in the union of Adam and Eve in the beginning — into the “wine” of his divine love and life, a sacramental sign and means of intimate communion with God.
Saint Francis de Sales, in his spiritual classic Introduction to the Devout Life, challenged young Christian spouses to seek to relive in their married life each day the mystery of the Wedding Feast of Cana. He noted that many marriages struggle and some fail because, rather than inviting Jesus, Mary and the saints into their marriage, many couples invite rather Adonis and Venus, the pagan gods of eros; or open the door to the golden calf; or import the mentalities and ways of the world. Saint Francis de Sales urged couples instead to invite Jesus and his mother into the whole of their life, into their home, their prayer together, their labors, their joys and sorrows, their disagreements and reconciliations. Jesus, Francis said, is always ready, eager and desirous to receive the invitation to remain in the couple’s life full-time, 24/7, for as long as they both shall live. And just like Mary interceded for that young couple before they probably even knew they needed help, so she is praying for you, Nick and Alexandra, to her Son, even before you know what you’ll need as husband and wife. For Mary, to reign is to serve and right now she is praying that you will receive and imitate the fruits of her maternal service. She is praying that, like the zealous servants in the Gospel scene, you will do whatever Jesus tells you, as he seeks to transform all of the moments of your married life into occasions of holiness and to fill your married life, like those six big water jars, to the brim.
And so today on this first day of May, we learn from Mary and Joseph how to make the family Christ will form today in you a truly Holy Family. It’s striking that when the Son of God entered the human race, he deliberately chose to do so within a family of an already committed husband and wife. He could have come as a 30-year-old adult, or a teenager, or a 90-year-old. He could have willed to be born of a single mom, or raised by two bachelors or three girl friends, or some other arrangement. He chose, however, to be conceived as a one-celled embryo and eventually born within a family comprised by a marriage of a man and a woman. He did so in order to redeem the family and make it an instrument of salvation and sanctification.
Saint John Paul II wrote in his beautiful document on the family 40 years ago about what every family needs to learn from the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
“Through God’s mysterious design,” he said, “it was in that family that the Son of God spent long years of a hidden life. It is therefore the prototype and example for all Christian families. … Its life was passed in anonymity and silence in a little town in Palestine. It underwent trials of poverty, persecution and exile. It glorified God in an incomparably exalted and pure way. And it will not fail to help Christian families — indeed, all the families in the world — to be faithful to their day-to-day duties, to bear the cares and tribulations of life, to be open and generous to the needs of others, and to fulfill with joy the plan of God in their regard” (Familiaris Consortio, 86).
Thanks to the cooperation of Mary and Joseph, the mystery of the incarnation, the reality of God-with-us, has come, he added in his Letter to Families, “to be profoundly inscribed in the spousal love of husband and wife and, in an indirect way, in the genealogy of every human family. … Thus the family truly takes its place at the very heart of the New Covenant … in which the divine Bridegroom brings about the redemption of all families [and] from [which] Jesus proclaims the ‘Gospel of the Family.’” (Letter to Families, 20). Just as sin entered the world through the family of Adam and Eve, so the Redemption happened by means of a family, as the loving and trusting obedience of Mary and Joseph reversed the distrusting disobedience of Eve and Adam.
Saint John Paul insisted, “The future of humanity,” “the history of mankind,” and the “history of salvation,” “passes by way of the family” (Letter to Families, 30). The family, he said, is “at the center of the great struggle between good and evil, between life and death, between love and all that is opposed to love. To the family is entrusted the task of striving, first and foremost, to unleash the forces of good, the source of which is found in Christ the Redeemer of man. Every family unit needs to make these forces their own so that …the family will be ‘strong with the strength of God.’”
Joseph and Mary show you, Nick and Alexandra, and all of us, how to become strong with the strength of God. They do this first by teaching us how to trust in and depend on God. For the second reading, you chose St. Paul’s powerful passage in his Letter to the Romans in which he declares, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” If God the Father loved us enough to allow his Son to be crucified for us, everything else we will ask of him is, in comparison, small change. St. Paul goes on to say that no matter what vicissitudes we may have to endure in life, nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord.” You told me, Nick, that for many years this has been your favorite passage of Sacred Scripture, a reminder of what’s most important: that if you have God, if you remain in his love, everything else matters less. God wants to strengthen you, like he strengthened Joseph and Mary, through the emboldening power of his redeeming love.
The second thing Joseph and Mary teach us in order to become strong with the strength of God is the importance of prayer. Like every Jewish family, they prayed at home. They went to the synagogue on the Sabbath. They made pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year. They taught Jesus how to read right to left according to his humanity by reading Sacred Scripture. The first reading you chose is about the prayer of a couple on their wedding night. Tobiah and Sarah first praised God, saying “Blessed are you, O God of our fathers,” they said, “Let the heavens and all your creation praise you forever.” Then Tobiah asked, “Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine not because of lust, but for a noble purpose. Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.” Today, Alexandra and Nick, you take each other for a noble purpose, the purpose of mutual self-giving love, for the sanctification of each other and, if God wills, for bringing into the world sons and daughters not only of you but of God with vocations and missions in God’s eternal plan. Today you pray, and we pray with you, that God’s mercy will always be upon you, so that you will not only live together to a happy old age, but through the sacrament you minister and receive today come to be ever young at the eternal wedding banquet.
The third thing that Mary and Joseph show us about how to become strong with the strength of God is through mutual support. In the first reading, Tobiah and Sarah prayed, “You made Adam and you gave him his wife Eve to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended. You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a partner like himself.’” To strengthen us, God gives us others, partners fit to fortify us in the love and ways of God.
God gave Joseph to Mary to strengthen her in her vocation as the Mother of the Son of God and God gave Mary to Joseph to help solidify him as a “just” or “righteous man.”
And God has given you, Alexandra, Nick to make you stronger in faith, and Nick, he has given you Alexandra.
You told me, Alexandra, “I knew that Nick was the right man for me to marry because he is a kind man of outstanding character and strong faith. What helped me feel most sure about him was the overwhelming sense of peace and security I always have when it comes to him. From the very beginning of our friendship, he has made me feel safe and secure and at rest with him.” You added, “Nick is among the most selfless people I have ever met. He is understanding, honest, hard-working and incredibly patient. I admire the way he treats other people, and I want to be more like him. He loves me in a way that makes it easier for me to believe in the love God has for me. I love that I can look up to him as a spiritual leader. He pursues God and seeks a closer relationship with God purely out of love. He accepts me as I am while still encouraging me to be better. He has also helped me a lot in my spiritual life, encouraging me mostly by his example to seek to love God for His own sake. He helps me when work is difficult or I’m unmotivated or forget why I am working so hard. He has helped me to prioritize friendships and want to be a more selfless and merciful friend.” And you concluded that he has also given you “lots of opportunities to grow in patience!”
Nick, you were equally effusive about how Alexandra strengthens you.
“I knew she was the right one,” you told me, “because she makes me want to be a saint.” You added, “She’s beautiful, brilliant, courageous, playful, articulate, young at heart and simultaneously very mature. She has a wonderful heart that breaks for those who suffer and rejoices in the things that matter. She wants the absolute best for me. She encourages me and supports me to be me, in the best way. She helps me to take myself less seriously when I need to and believe in myself more when I need to. She has excellent judgment, knows what it takes to live a well-ordered life, and helps me to continue to live my life in a well-ordered way, identifying where it falls short and trying to improve. She’s also helped me to be okay with not always ‘accomplishing’ things, but with just, sometimes, abiding. When I spend time with her, I usually just want to abide in that time rather than worry about [other] cares. She’s helped me to realize that I really am the man who can marry her: that I have what it takes and want to have what it takes.”
God wants to continue to use you to strengthen each other in the strength that comes from God, from the particular graces that the God who did not spare his own Son has given each of you to help each other. Mary is indeed praying for you like she prayed for the couple in Cana for those graces. Saint Joseph is still on the job, just like he was on that novena in Spain, so that you may continue to find in each other the right person at the right time, the suitable partner in each moment, to help you unite your entire life to God and make your home a true domestic Church.
To live as a Holy Family means to learn from Mary and Joseph how to center your love and life on Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us. For them it involved focusing on the one Mary carried in her womb, the one whom both embraced in swaddling clothes in their arms in Bethlehem, the one whom they fed, bathed and raised in Nazareth. For you it will mean focusing on the same Jesus made truly present for us in the Holy Eucharist.
There’s great meaning to the fact that over the altar in so many of the most historic Churches in Christianity, there’s an exquisite baldachin — like I had the opportunity to point out to you, Alexandra, in May 2018 at St. Peter’s in the Vatican, as I was helping to lead a pilgrimage for journalists. 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 will regularly strengthen you, Nick and Alexandra, with the strength of God.
This is the way by which you will receive within Christ’s love for you and become more capable of strengthening each other with a love that says, “This is my body, given for you.”
This is the channel Jesus provides to help you to fulfill your “noble purpose” and make your marriage a truly holy family.
Today around this marriage bed of Christ’s union with the Church and with you, your family, your friends, St. Joseph, the Blessed Mother all the saints and angels join me in praying that the Lord who has begun this good work in you and brought you here to this altar will nourish your sacred vocation and bring it to completion in the eternal nuptial feast of heaven.
We pray that he will never stop blessing you with his holy, spousal love and, through the way that you live this holy sacrament from this day forward, never to stop blessing us all.
The readings for this Mass were:
A reading from the Book of Tobit
When the girl’s parents left the bedroom and closed the door behind them, Tobiah arose from bed and said to his wife, “My love, get up. Let us pray and beg our Lord to have mercy on us and to grant us deliverance.” She got up, and they started to pray and beg that deliverance might be theirs. He began with these words: “Blessed are you, O God of our fathers; praised be your name forever and ever. Let the heavens and all your creation praise you forever. You made Adam and you gave him his wife Eve to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended. You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a partner like himself.’ Now, Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine not because of lust, but for a noble purpose. Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.” They said together, “Amen, amen,”
Ps 103 — 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 Letter of St. Paul to the Romans
What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” [And] Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.
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