Fr. Roger J. Landry
Espirito Santo Parish, Fall River, MA
Nuptial Mass for Nicholas Edward Pacheco and Jade Claudette Arruda
June 25, 2023
Gen 2:18-24, Ps 103, 1 Cor 12:31-13:8, Mt 5:13-16
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
- Today’s beautiful day has a long prehistory. It goes back well before Nick proposed to Jade, May 15, 2022, surprising her right after she finished exams while they walking together along the Cape Cod shoreline. It goes back beyond when they started dating nearly ten years ago during sophomore year at Bishop Stang as well as before they met during biology class a year and a half earlier. It goes back far beyond their baptisms and births. It goes back to the beginning, as we heard in today’s first reading. In the Book of Genesis, when God created Adam, Adam had God all to himself in the garden. All of creation had been made for him to govern. He was perfectly in right relationship with God. Even though he seemed to have everything one could ask for, something — more specifically, someone — was missing. And after God had said in the first six phases of creation, “It was good,” “It was good,” “It was good,” “It was good,” “It was good,” “It was good,” and with the creation of the human person, “It was very good,” God finally thundered, “It is not good…for man to be alone.” So he created Eve, whom today’s first reading called a “suitable partner,” symbolically out of his side, to show that they stand side-by-side, equal, before God. When Adam saw her, he rejoiced and exclaimed, “Finally this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!,” a Hebrew idiom saying that they shared the same strengths and weaknesses. As Jesus would later say, this is the reason why a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh in love. The upshot of the Creation account is that God, who is love, has created the human person in his image and likeness … in love and for love. Since no one can love in a vacuum, God could not be solitary, there needed to be a Lover and a Beloved, and in God the eternal love between them was so strong as to take on personality. In creating the human person, therefore, God created not just a “him, male and female” but a “them,” a communion between man and woman, whose love for each other could be so strong as literally to “make love,” to generate new life, as a fruit of their loving communion of persons. From the first marriage of Adam and Eve, to your marriage today, Nick and Jade, marriage was created by God to be a sacrament of love, to help you to grow to be more and more like God and at the same time more fully human. Today you will not only receive a Sacrament but become a Sacrament, a visible sign, as St. John Paul II used to say, pointing to the invisible reality of the Trinitarian loving communion of persons, a living reminder of the fruitful, faithful, indissoluble love of God and an icon of Christ’s love for his bride the Church, for as long as you both shall live.
- Jesus spoke about that matrimonial vocation to be a sacrament of God’s love in the Gospel you chose for today. Christian marriage is never just about the husband and the wife alone. It’s never even just merely the family that, with God’s help and encouragement, they will together raise up, putting into practice God’s sweet command to “increase and multiply.” Every marriage has a mission, as does yours. That’s why I’m so pleased that the Gospel passage you wanted to hear and ponder on your wedding day — and have all of us reflect upon as well — was about Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount in which he told us, as his disciples, “You are the Salt of the Earth,” and “You are the Light of the World.” Those rich Biblical metaphors describe various aspects of the mission of every follower of Jesus, but they are particularly fitting to describe the joint task of Christian married couples.
- Salt had three purposes in the ancient world, light two. The most well-known purpose of salt, like today, was to give flavor, to improve the taste of what is bland. The second purpose was as a preservative. In an era without refrigeration, in a place like the Holy Land where temperatures in the summer can regularly reach 125 degrees Fahrenheit, salt was essential for preserving fish and meat. The third purpose was as a fire starter, something that is still used in various impoverished countries today: salt is mixed with animal waste and lit on fire for cooking and heating, much like those in the developed world occasionally use wood and charcoal. And so we see from this analogy that Christian marriages are meant to bring good taste and flavor, joy and vivacity to their surroundings. They’re meant to prevent the persons around them, and their culture, from corrosion and preserve the good. And they’re meant to be catalysts through whom Christ can light a fire on the earth.
- I rejoice, Nick and Jade, that you already have a great head start on putting Christ’s words about being salt of the earth into practice. You both told me with gratitude how much flavor the other has brought to your life. Jade you said, “It took only a few months of knowing Nick to realize he was a blessing in my life and I didn’t want him ever to leave it.” You went on to mention how much you appreciate his “intelligence, humor, kindness, humility, understanding and curiosity,” how he makes you feel listened to, and “cracks the best jokes.” Nick, you expressed your gratitude for how easy it is to communicate with Jade and be fully yourself. You’ve both described how how much you enjoy hanging out with each other and the others’ loved ones.
- You’ve likewise helped preserve the other’s faith and helped it grow. Jade, you said, “Nick challenges me to be a more faithful person,” and said that whenever you’re together on weekends, you always try to go to Mass together. You added, “Nick inspires me to work hard to achieve my goals in work and in school. He helps me to stay positive by providing constant support and encouragement. He is honest with me when he thinks I am making a mistake or not being true to myself. I can rely on him to help me push through any hard time. He has been an example of tenacity, who inspires me to stay humble, stay thankful, and to smile during the journey.” You told me, Nick, that Jade likewise has played the preservative role of salt in your life and often helped you to change for the better. You said, “I love how grounded and rational Jade is. She continues to put effort into our relationship every day. She is willing to have conversations whenever there are problems. Whenever I have conflict with my siblings or coworkers, Jade is always there to encourage me to give people the benefit of the doubt, or to correct me when she thinks I have mishandled situations. I can talk to her about anything and she will give me her honest opinion and to give me advice when I need it.”
- Salt, third, is a fire-starter, and your relationship has ignited both of you to deeper things. You both talk about how the other takes the initiative to build something beautiful. Jade, you pointed out how when you were undergrads he would return home regularly from Worcester so that the two of you could spend time in Providence. Similarly, Nick, you described how during your senior year in college and first years of grad school, when you didn’t have wheels, she used to drive to see you pretty much every weekend. You added that she tries to catalyze your getting done what needs to be done, even helping you with shopping for clothes and getting some of your house chores done.
- This three-fold salt you are for each other Jesus wants you to be together for many others. To do that, he says, you must ensure that your salt “does not lose its taste.” Chemists tell us that salt loses its flavor when it becomes denatured, when the cations separate from the anions, the sodium from the chloride. Human beings lose their sacred saltiness when become separated from God and each other. To keep your saltiness intact, you must increase your bond not just with each other but together with God. As the great servant of God, Venerable Father Patrick Peyton, buried 30 miles from here in North Easton, and after him, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, made famous: “The family that prays together, stays together.” The Lord is calling you to pray together, Jade and Nick, so that your salt might help flavor, preserve and spiritually ignite the earth.
- Jesus also calls you to be the “light of the world.” Light, two thousand years ago and still today, has two fundamental purposes: to illumine and to warm. Christians are called to bring the light of Christ’s truth and the warmth of his love to others. Because of our communion with the One who said he is the “Light of the World,” we’re called to be lighthouses for others in the midst of stormy seas, as well as hearths that can rekindle those worn out by the coldness of a sometimes brutally harsh world. That’s what St. Paul was describing in the second reading you chose, when he called all Christians, but in a particular way, Christian married couples, to imitate Christ’s loving patience, kindness, humility, focus on others, meekness, truthfulness, hope and perseverance. It’s hard to do what St. Paul describes. It’s supremely challenging to be patient and kind for better and worse, in sickness and health, in poverty and prosperity all one’s days. It takes real love never to be rude or brood over injury, to insist on your own way or be jealous or envious. It requires a capacity to die to oneself for the sake of another to forgive each other readily and never to fail in love. But the more you do, the more you give off the light of Christ’s burning love to each other, to your family members, to other couples and beyond. You told me, Jade, “Nick and I often talk about how our love has increased every day, but that it is also a choice. Unlike familial love, there is an aspect of marital love that requires constant checks and balances from both parties. I think of marital love as the formation of a stronger whole, like two sides of a bridge coming together and being twice as strong because of it.” And that strength becomes a strength from which so many others benefit. To strive for the greatest spiritual gifts, as St. Paul encourages you today, is to strive for this form of sturdy Christ-like love that is the light and warmth that the world, and each person in the world, needs.
- Jesus tells you at the end of this Gospel never to hide this light. “A city set on a mountain,” he said, “cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so,” he concluded, “your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” Every sacramentally married couple is meant to give the witness of this light. In an age in which many in secular society are trying to pressure believers to hide their Christian faith, especially the Biblical teaching about man, woman, love, sex, marriage and family under a bushel basket, you’re meant to be part of Christ’s response to those trends. Today, bucking that pressure, you are responding to Christ’s call to be live openly and unabashedly in his light. You are making a conspicuous profession about the gift and importance of marriage and the family in the divine plan. You are 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 in return, to accompany you for as long as you live. You’re overtly 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 just a beautiful ring, or the exchange of a last name, or even the gift of yourself, however faithful, fruitful, free and total. You’re openly affirming that you are seeking to give God to each other, to help the other grow in God’s image and likeness, to assist the other to build your common life together on the indestructible foundation of Christ the Cornerstone. Our world today needs this light and this salt. It needs to believe in love, not as the world defines it, not as the courts define it, not as popular music defines it, but as God has made it. It needs to believe in marriage, in lifetime commitment, in fidelity, in mutual sacrifice, and in the blessing of children. It needs to believe ultimately in God, and to come to faith. For that, it needs the witness not just of devout priests, religious and missionaries, but most of all Christian spouses and families who show them the difference God makes in daily life. This is what it means to be salt and light. This is the vocation to which God is calling you and will help you to live!
And to help you become the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World, the greatest means we have is Jesus’ self-giving in the Holy Eucharist. There’s great meaning to the fact that you are getting married in the context of the Mass, because there’s a deep connection between the Sacrament of Marriage and the Mass. In so many of the most historic Churches in Christianity, like St. Peter’s in the Vatican, there’s an exquisite baldachin. 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. The Eucharist is the means by which Christ regularly wants to renew you, Jade and Nick, in the indissoluble one flesh union he will make of you today. The Eucharist is the way by which you will receive within Christ’s love for you and become more suitable partners sharing that love with each other. The Eucharist is the channel Jesus provides you to help make of your marriage a truly holy family, to keep your salt salty and to keep your light burning ever more brightly. Today around this marriage bed of Christ’s union with the Church and with you, your family, friends, and all the angels and saints 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 ask the Divine Bridegroom never to stop blessing you with his holy, spousal love and, through the way that you share that salty and splendid love with each other, never to stop blessing us all.
The readings for today’s nuptial Mass were:
A Reading from the Book of Genesis
The LORD God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” So the LORD God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man. So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, the man said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.
Responsorial Psalm:
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.
Merciful and gracious is the LORD,
slow to anger, abounding in kindness.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on the faithful.
But the LORD’S kindness is forever,
toward the faithful from age to age.
He favors the children’s children
for those who keep his covenant.
A Reading from the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians
Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
A Reading from the Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus said to the crowds, “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.
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