Fr. Roger J. Landry
Church of the Holy Trinity, Poughkeepsie, New York
Nuptial Mass for Paul Von Uffel and Aimee Giguere
September 9, 2023
Ruth 1:16-17, Ps 23, 1 Cor 12:31-13:8, Mt 5:1-12
To listen to an audio recording of the homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
It was just over ten years ago, at freshman orientation for Pace University, that Paul and Aimee met for the first time. The motto of the University, founded in 1906, is “Opportunitas,” and it prides itself on being at the forefront of creating academic, professional and socioeconomic opportunities for its students. The Latin word opportunitas comes from roots ob portus, a nautical expression which means “toward the port,” describing favorable winds to bring a boat to harbor. Well, the wind of the Holy Spirit was at work that last week of August 2013 and guided Aimee and Paul to meet for the first time at an orientation activity. Paul was a few minutes late to the meeting and headed to his table. He saw a seat free close to Aimee and, because he was immediately attracted to her, knew where he had to sit down. He says he tried to hit on her “a little,” but Aimee didn’t pick up on the clues. At the beginning of their sophomore year, however, with the help of a friend, they started dating, and the wind that blows where it wills, as Jesus describes it, has happily kept them together since as today they put up their sails and set out together for the seas of married life.
St. Paul, doubtless because he spent so much time on the seas sailing from port to port to preach the Gospel, used the word opportunitas often in his letters. He told the Colossians to “conduct [them]selves wisely,” “making the most of the opportunity” (Col 4:5). He made a similar point to the Ephesians, saying “Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise,” once again, “making the most of the opportunity” (Eph 5:14-16). He told the Galatians, “Therefore, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to all people” (Gal 6:10). And he crowned his advice by saying, “Pray at every opportunity in the Spirit” (Eph 6:18). His point was that we are to take advantage of the favorable winds God gives us to pray, to live morally, to do good to others. He urges us not just to do something, but to “make the most” of the time and graces God provides. Paul, you did so, seizing the moment on June 12, 2021, when, mischievously conspiring with your parents, you proposed to Aimee at the Long Island Arboretum. Today, we’re so happy that you have come here before God so that you might make the most out of the opportunity he has given you both, thanking him for the gift of each other and asking him to join you as husband and wife for the rest of your days in a sacred covenant of life and love.
The readings you’ve chosen for your Nuptial Mass are full of advice as to how to maximize the gift of love you have received. In the Gospel, Jesus describes for you the path to happiness, and it’s very countercultural advice. In a world that seeks after money, that places its faith, hope and love in material positions and in things that can be bought, Jesus tells us that the truly blessed are those who are poor in spirit, who treasure his kingdom above all. In a world that relies on force, that bullies its way to power, Jesus tells us that real happiness comes from being meek, from making peace, from being merciful. In a world addicted to the lust of the flesh, in which consequently so many hearts, lives and families are broken, Jesus proclaims the importance of purity of heart that sees God and reverences and loves him in others. In a world in which a global indifference to others is metastasizing, Jesus says that the path to happiness is through a compassion so great it mourns over others’ sufferings and through hungering and thirsting for justice and holiness. At a time when people crave publicity, idolize celebrities, and yearn to be popular members of the “in” crowd, Jesus says we will be blessed, rather, when we’re insulted, persecuted and calumniated because of our faithful love for him. These are not easy words. The reality to which they point is likewise difficult to live. But they are the path Jesus himself lived and the way he calls us to follow him. In the face of many who doubt that the way Jesus indicates is the way to true and lasting happiness, you are called in your marriage to become the living validation of Jesus’ wisdom.
St. Paul, in the Epistle you selected, reinforces the point Jesus makes in the Gospel, encouraging both of you and all of us to “strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts,” as he tells us that the “more excellent way” to achieve them is through patterning your life on the love we see and have received in Jesus Christ. St. Paul says that if he spoke powerfully the words of God, if he had faith to move mountains, if he gave his body over in martyrdom — all of which he did — but didn’t have love, he would just be making noise and gain nothing. In 21st century terms, if we have a huge house, expensive cars, great careers, an enormous investment portfolio, honorary degrees, good health, lots of friends, millions of Instagram and Twitter followers, a big family, huge extended family and everything else that many materially equate with happiness, but don’t have real love, in the final analysis our life will be empty. The human person, made in the image and likeness of God who is love, cannot live without love. Love, however, doesn’t mean merely a feeling of attraction. It doesn’t just mean being desired or adored by another. It’s a choice to sacrifice oneself for the good of another. It involves — as Jesus declared during the Last Supper — the willingness to lay down one’s life for another, to sacrifice one’s own interests, preferences, and autonomy for the other’s good. St. Paul makes love concrete in the litany of adjectives he lists. Striving eagerly after the greatest spiritual gifts, seeking to love each other as Christ loves you, Paul and Aimee, means each day resolving, even heroically, to be kind and patient with each other, even when the other tries your patience and isn’t as kind to you as you’d prefer; it means not being jealous but trusting; it means never being pompous, inflated or rude toward the other, but humbly serving each other as a privilege; it means that rather than keeping score over the ways the other has hurt you, you remember the Lord’s mercy and share that same mercy with each other, giving the other a second chance, a third chance, and even a seventy-times-seventh chance, grasping that it is through mutually forgiving each other that you are helped to become more like God, whose mercy endures forever and in whose image you’ve been made.
Love, in short, is virtuous, and seeks to imitate Jesus’ own mercy, patience, kindness, humility, meekness, joy in the truth and holy perseverance. The “more excellent way” Saint Paul is urging you to adopt is indeed challenging. It’s hard to live for better and worse, in sickness and health, in poverty and prosperity all one’s days. That’s why the Sacrament you are receiving today is so important. The Sacrament of Marriage is a gift of God to a man and a woman to help them continue striving for the greatest spiritual gift of all, so that their lives, like Christ’s, will become a living commentary on St. Paul’s words and proclaim the beauty of married love according to God’s plan to the multitudes in every age who are tempted to disbelieve, doubt or discredit it.
Many today, sadly, don’t make the most of the opportunity they’re given. Some out of a fear of commitment, of failure, or of being hurt, resist making the life-time commitment of marriage. Others, because of cultural confusions with regard love, marriage, sex, family, and even what it means to be a human person, can look at marriage as more a burden than a benefit, a restriction of one’s freedom rather than a means to perfect it through freedom’s connection to love. Even many Catholics and fellow Christians can lose their faith in the meaning of marriage in the divine plan. That’s why what you are doing today, Paul and Aimee, is such a powerfully prophetic act. You are making a conspicuous joint 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 stating openly that, indeed, 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. You’re openly affirming that, like Ruth said to her mother-in-law Naomi in the first reading you chose, that you will never abandon or forsake the other, that wherever the other goes you will go, that the other’s family will now become your family, and that you will together worship the Lord who brought you together. Our world today needs to believe in love, not as the world or the courts of 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 that God is real, that he accompanies us as a Good Shepherd through dark valleys and verdants pastures, and seeks to communicate his love to us through human love. For that, it needs the witness not just of devout priests, religious, missionaries and catechists, but most of all Christian spouses and families who show them the difference God makes in daily life. This is the vocation to which God is calling you and wants to help you live!
And the greatest means he gives is the Mass. As you’ve heard me say before at Ryan’s and Emily’s, and JP’s and Victoria’s weddings, there’s great meaning in the fact that Catholics get married in the context of a Nuptial Mass. The early Christians used to illustrate the reality between marriage and the Mass in their architecture, covering the altars — like we see famously at St. Peter’s in the Vatican — 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, Paul and Aimee, 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 capable of loving each other as he has loved you. The Eucharist is the channel Jesus provides to help you to make the most of the opportunity God has given you and to choose the still more excellent way of love and beatitude.
Today, in this beautiful Church dedicated to the Blessed Trinity, 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 began this good work in you ten years ago and has brought you here to this altar will nourish your sacred vocation and give you favorable winds to bring you, together, to the eternal port of heaven. We ask him never to stop blessing you with his divine and spousal love and, through you and the way you strive after the greatest spiritual gifts, never to stop blessing us.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A Reading from the Book of Ruth
Ruth said, “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! for wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die, and there be buried. May the LORD do so and so to me, and more besides, if aught but death separates me from you!”
“The Lord is my Shepherd. There is nothing I shall want.”
The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack. In green pastures you let me graze; to safe waters you lead me; you restore my strength. You guide me along the right path for the sake of your name. Even when I walk through a dark valley, I fear no harm for you are at my side; your rod and staff give me courage. You set a table before me as my enemies watch; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Only goodness and love will pursue me all the days of my life; I will dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come.
A Reading from the First Letter of St. 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 Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew
When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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