Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Cathedral of St. Patrick, Fort Worth, Texas
Nuptial Mass of William John Robinson and Jace Luna Araujo
January 4, 2025
Prov 31:10-13.19-20.30-31, Ps 34, Rom 12:1-2.9-18, Mt 5:1-12
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided today’s homily:
- There are no coincidences in God, and hence it’s anything but random that God will join you, Jace and Will, in one flesh for the rest of your life today, January 4. You chose this date because you wanted to wed at a fitting time during the Christmas break. But God likely had something else in mind. He knew that every wedding anniversary you will celebrate — your first, tenth, silver, golden and perhaps even your platinum and beyond — will take place on January 4th, the feast of an American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton.
- On all your upcoming anniversaries, besides flowers, exchanged gifts and a great meal, I hope that you will come to Mass, with the children with whom we pray God will bless you, to thank him for the gift of your marriage, to receive his blessing, and to renew before him your commitment to each other and to him. And each year as you come, except on Sundays, the Church in the United States will be celebrating the liturgical Memorial of St. Elizabeth Seton, who is not only one of presently just 11 American saints, but the only one who was married.
- The Church remembers St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, of course, as the first native born American to be raised to the altars, as the founder of the first Catholic school for girls in the United States, the initiator of the American Catholic school system, and the foundress of the first American religious order, the Sisters of Charity. Before she was a religious, before she was even a Catholic, she was the wife for nine years of William Magee Seton, the mother of five children and the foster mom of six of William’s younger siblings.
- She was a very happy wife. At the time of the American founding, most marriages took place among social classes and professions in order to strengthen the professional standing and connections of their respective families of origin. She came from a medical family — her father was the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College as well as the first New York “health officer” or commissioner — and she was expected to marry a doctor. Will, like his father, was a wealthy businessman in the import business and was similarly expected to marry someone from a mercantile family. The fact that they married — she at 19, he at 25 — was a sign that they were marrying out of love, that they loved each other more than their families of origin and social convention. Elizabeth, called Betsy by her family and Eliza by Will, regarded her husband as “my beloved treasure.” Will, who traveled extensively for work, never journeyed without her portrait. Marrying at the very beginning of George Washington’s second term, they had a happy marriage, Will’s playing the violin, including on the first Stradivarius ever in the United States, and Eliza’s playing the piano, with their music a fitting symbol of the loving marital harmony.
- But their marriage wasn’t easy. Because of an international financial crisis beyond Will’s control, his business lost most of its money, he eventually had to declare bankruptcy, they needed to move and dramatically downsize their home, and together they needed to try to build the livelihood anew. Elizabeth, in the midst of homeschooling the many children, helped Will to run the merchant house, assisting him with sundry types of paperwork and correspondence. Throughout the good times and bad, sickness and health, prosperity and poverty, Elizabeth found God in her marriage, saying about Will, “Where he is, is my present home, and our God is everywhere.”
- Seven years into their marriage, Will came down with tuberculosis and suffered terribly for two years as Elizabeth cared for him. Eventually doctors advised him to travel to Livorno, Italy, in the hopes of an easier situation for his lungs. There he was quarantined for 25 days in a damp, stone quarantine house in the harbor where his situation only worsened. Soon after he was released, he died died. Elizabeth stayed close to him until the end and, rather than assisting him to stave off death, helped him to get ready for eternal life.
- She was at the time an Episcopalian, the granddaughter of a Church of England priest, and far more devout than her husband. She helped him, however, to realize that the life they had lovingly made together was not his real home, and taught him to pray not for recovery but for salvation. As Will struggled with the prospect of his upcoming judgment, Elizabeth urged him to trust in God’s mercy. She wrote her sister-in-law, “My William often asked me if I felt assured that he would be accepted and pardoned. I always tried to convince him that where the soul was so humble and sincere as his, and submission to God’s will so uniform as his had been through his trial, that it became sinful to doubt one moment of his reception through the merits of his Redeemer.” She fulfilled the purpose of her marriage in his regard and helped him long for and, she prayed, enter the eternal wedding banquet, something for which she would later pray with faithful, spousal insistence. She added in the letter to her sister-in-law something that points to an important spiritual truth, for couples, for family members, for all of us: “Willy’s heart seemed to be nearer to me for being nearer to his God.” The closer we are to God, the closer we are to those we love.
- Elizabeth Seton’s marriage teaches us in a powerful and beautiful way that Christian matrimony is ultimately about holiness, eternal happiness and heaven. It’s about the sanctification of the spouses and the procreation, education and sanctification of children. Marriage, like every sacrament, is a gift from God to help us to enter into intimate communion with him, to submit with trust and love to his will, and to help each other grow nearer to God until, by God’s mercy, we enter into eternal communion with him.
- Every January 4th from this point onward, you will be able to ponder, Will and Jace, the marriage of Will and Eliza and reflect on how they helped each other to become holy. Every anniversary you will be able to meditate on how marriage is meant to help spouses and their children not just to remain faithful but to become saints. Every anniversary you will be able one year closer to eternity and have the grace to stoke your desires to help each other come to the eternal nuptial banquet!
- The readings you’ve chosen for today help you and all of us to focus on how the vocation to marriage is indeed a call to holiness.
- The Book of Proverbs reminds us that a worthy wife is far more valuable that pearls, that the husband who entrusts his heart to her has an unfailing prize, because she will bring him good all the days of her life. The worth of such a wife, the sacred author goes to describe, is not found in her charm or physical beauty, but in her “fear of the Lord,” in her faith. This was certainly true of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, but Will, you have told me how in Jace you feel you have found a treasure more valuable than all the jewelry on the planet, that her worth is not in the beauty that all of us behold with you today but in her faith, the faith that you say has helped you draw much closer to God.
- You’ve described during marriage preparation how she stimulates you but the way she puts that faith into action. “Jace,” you told me, “has inspired me to take my faith more seriously. Although I grew up Catholic, I was away from the Church for a while. Seeing how she put serious time, thought, and effort into strengthening her relationship with God helped me do the same – which has had a dramatic impact on my life. In addition to faith, she has inspired me to be more confident in my identity as a Catholic, a thinker, and a Robinson. An extension of this has been an inspiration to be present, to enjoy life and be fully engaged in whatever is in front of me. Jace is full of life and her faith and vivacity inspires me every day.”
- And, Jace, you said to me in marriage preparation that you know that the treasure Proverbs describes is not one-sided, that in Will you have found a man who is “strong, smart, handsome, funny, and God-fearing.” You told me, “I genuinely feel Will makes me better every day through the kindness and selflessness he shows me and everyone else. We pray each night [on the phone] and before meals and try to pray together as much as we can. When I’m having a bad day or an anxious moment, I know Will is likely going to ask me if I’ve prayed today. When I tell him I haven’t, he’s probably going to tell me to stop whatever I’m doing and offer it up to God. He pushes me to strengthen my relationship with God—to deepen my faith and resolve to surrender to His will. He genuinely desires a holy life for me.”
- Like St. Elizabeth Ann Seton before you, you are both trying to live by the advice St. Paul gives you and all Christian couples in the second reading you chose for today. The apostle told the first Christians in Rome, “Let your love be sincere.” Sincerity doesn’t just mean “from the heart,” but it means truthful, pure, unmixed and unadulterated, free from pretense and falsehood. That’s the type of love so many saw in Mr. and Mrs. Seton and that’s the type of love God wants to help everyone find in the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. He gives you a list of behaviors to help you keep your love for each other as sincere as Christ’s love for you: to love sincerely, he stresses, means to hate what is evil and hold to what is good; to care each other with mutual affection; to anticipate each other in showing honor, the love and honor you will publicly profess in a few minutes you wish to give each other for the rest of your life; to help each other to be fervent and zealous in serving the Lord; to rejoice together in the hope Christ places in you even on days you might be tempted to complain; to endure in affliction, even in the midst of the sorrows and contradictions that inevitably accompany every marriage; to persevere in prayer, knowing that God is with you listening and responding; to have the same high regard for each other, never looking down on each other, but always concerned for what is noble; and to live at peace to the extent possible, never letting the sun go down on your anger, and seeking to abide together with the Prince of Peace even after quarrels. Christ wants to praise you for the sincerity of your love in speech and in your behavior.
- You praised the sincerity of each other’s love for you effusively during our delightful marriage preparation meetings.
- Jace, you told me, “I love Will’s goodness and his total self-giving. He is selfless with his time and energy in a way that amazes me. He is an amazing friend and not just to me. He is loyal and forgiving, at times mind-bogglingly so. He is immune to anger and inspires me to let things go, to assume the best in people and to forgive. He is silly and funny, and always, always, always,” — you can tell how important it is to you(!) — “fills up my water bottle if I ask, even if he doesn’t want to. He is always trying to show up more to those he loves. He never makes me feel annoying, even if I am being very annoying. He shows his love through actions. Whenever I ask anything of him, the answer is almost always ‘yes.’ He does this even if he doesn’t have the time, or doesn’t know how. He gives really good hugs when I need them —and even when I don’t — and is always trying to be more vocal and transparent. He also shows his love by how seriously he takes our discussions whenever we have a conflict. He cares about getting to the root of whatever issue we’re having and ensuring we have the systems in place not to recidivate. This means he’s not going to say sorry unless he actually believes the situation warrants it. He’s not going to lie to get out of a tough conversation.”
- Will, you told me you are so grateful as well for Jace’s sincere love for you and for others. “Jace,” you stated, “is as thoughtful as she is confident. She shows this through things like notes that she writes me or the things that she remembers. She shows this through sacrificing small things every day, like taking the smaller cup of coffee if they’re unequal, making the hike down to my apartment because I’ve had a long week, or being patient with me when I’m certainly annoying her after a long day at work. She has never failed to support me. She has always put thought into our relationship, doing the legwork to ensure we are communicating and remaining connected. She cares for me countless in ways. Her cooking is something that is never required but always puts warmth in my heart. Her effort to keep my life organized has saved me on countless occasions.”
- Paul’s summons to sincere love, however, is not the only connection between today’s second reading and the marital bond God will form in you in just a few minutes. At the beginning of today’s passage, the apostle urges you, “by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.” In Greek, the text is even clearer, when he says that the only worship that makes sense, that’s logical, is to give all, to offer your bodies, to make your life a commentary on the words of consecration. For you to be capable of such an exchange of self-gifts in love, the apostle tells you, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Today, Jesus wants to give you the graces to help transform your mind as you enter into this great sacrament of marriage. He wants to help you, in fact, put on his own mind, to look at things from his perspective, no longer viewing things the way everyone in this age does, but the way he does.
- That’s why it’s so inspiring that you chose the Gospel you did for your Nuptial Mass. There’s no passage in Sacred Scripture more countercultural than the way Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes, Jesus overturns earthly expectations and reveals to us the path to happiness, holiness and heaven. This is the way St. Elizabeth Ann Seton lived and God is calling each of you to help others live.
- In a thanatophobic age struggling to understand the relationship of death to life, Jesus promises that those who love enough to mourn will indeed experience great comfort through the truths of faith and the fact of his own triumph. 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 an epoch that relies on force, when people and leaders often bully their way to power and try to overpower those who have made themselves enemies, 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, leading to so many broken hearts, lives and families, Jesus proclaims the importance of purity of heart, which sees God in others, and reverences and loves both him and them. At a time in which a globalized indifference to others has gone viral, Jesus says that the path to happiness is compassion, through hungering and thirsting for justice and through the perfection of charity that is holiness. In an era when people crave publicity, idolize celebrities, and yearn for social media likes, influence and popularity, Jesus says we will be blessed, rather, when we’re insulted, persecuted and calumniated because of our love for and fidelity to 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, they are the way St. Elizabeth Ann Seton lived, and they are the way he calls you to follow. They indicate how not to be conformed to this age and to be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may discern what is God’s will of God, what is good, pleasing and perfect, what leads, in fact, to sincere love. In an age in which many doubt that the path Jesus indicates is the way to true and lasting happiness in this world and forever, you are called in your marriage, just like St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was in hers, to become the living validation of Jesus’ wisdom.
- And to help you in this Christian mission you are taking on today, Jesus wants to give you himself. This is perhaps the greatest lesson of all from Saint Elizabeth Seton. After her husband Will died in Italy, she and her daughter Anna Maria stayed for a few months in Italy. There Elizabeth became exposed to the Catholic teaching on the Holy Eucharist and she began slowly to yearn for Jesus. She wrote to her sister-in-law, “How happy would we be if we believed what these dear [Catholics] believe, that they possess God in the Sacrament and that he remains in their churches and is carried to them when they are sick.” A couple of weeks later, she wrote that when she happened upon a Eucharistic procession, “I fell on my knees without thinking when the Blessed Sacrament passed by and cried out in agony to God to bless me if he was there, that my whole Soul desired only him.” That prayer would be heard. She would come to believe what Catholics believe. She would be blessed by having her whole soul desire him.” About a year later, at St. Peter’s Church in lower Manhattan, she would become Catholic and receive him in Holy Communion. She counted down the days to her first Communion. The night before she would receive him for the first time, she could barely sleep. And when she did receive him, finally, she wrote a friend, “It seemed to me my King had come to take his throne. At last,” she emphasized, “God is mine and I am his.”
- She became one of the Catholic Church’s greatest Eucharistic converts and a great Eucharistic saint. Because of her Eucharistic love and witness, last summer, as you know, she was selected as the patroness of the eastern Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, as for 65 days six permanent pilgrims, including a friend present here at this Mass, and I accompanied Jesus through the streets so that others, like St. Elizabeth, could cry out for his blessing and, we prayed, follow her on the path of Eucharistic conversion and holiness. When we were in Manhattan, both of you joined Jesus and us on that journey. Today you continue that Eucharistic pilgrimage, as the Lord Jesus comes here to meet you, to bless you, to unite you, to possess you and you him, to renew not just your mind, but your heart, your soul, your bodily strength, your entire life, and to lead you for the rest of your days on the Eucharistic pilgrimage of Christian life.
- Jace, you told me, emphatically, in marriage preparation, “God put Will and me in each other’s lives and held us through each and every turn to get us to this moment.” Indeed, God has come today to fulfill what he began in you when you met in the eighth grade at Oakridge School and advanced at your high school senior prom, during your college years, your journeys in Europe, and over the last year and a half in New York City. And as God comes here to join you for the rest of your life in one flesh, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is doubtless praying for you, that you may experience the joys she had in her marriage and even more, as you, Will and Jace, will be able to share in what Will and Eliza were not able to do on earth, the fulfillment of Jesus’ saving will, as he gives us his body and blood in Holy Communion. It’s here at Mass, by means of his sublime self-gift in Holy Communion, that he will help you to become a worthy wife and husband. It’s here where he will regularly renew your minds and help you to conform yourself to him and not to the world. It’s here where he will strengthen you to love each other sincerely, to become a couple of the beatitudes, and to learn how, as we sang in today’s Psalm, to bless the Lord at all times. It’s here— today, every January 4 hereafter, and in fact each time you come to Mass— that you, like St. Elizabeth, will ultimately come to possess God and he you, so that, with self-mastery, you will be able to say to each other, “This is my body, this is my blood, this is my heart, my hands, my feet, my sweat, my bones, and my everything and all, given out of love for you,” conscious, as she grasped, that the nearer you are to God, the nearer you will be to each other. May God who has put you in each other’s lives and held you through each and every turn to get you to this place, this moment, bless you all the days of the Eucharistic pilgrimage of your married life, and, through you and your holy love for each other and for him, bless us all by inspiring us to join you all the way to that pilgrimage’s fulfillment at the eternal banquet!
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A Reading from the Book of Proverbs
When one finds a worthy wife, her value is far beyond pearls. Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize. She brings him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. She obtains wool and flax and makes cloth with skillful hands. She puts her hands to the distaff, and her fingers ply the spindle. She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy. Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her a reward of her labors, and let her works praise her at the city gates.
“I Will Bless the Lord at All Times”
I will bless the LORD at all times; praise shall be always in my mouth.
My soul will glory in the LORD that the poor may hear and be glad.
Magnify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.
I sought the LORD, who answered me, delivered me from all my fears.
Look to God that you may be radiant with joy and your faces may not blush for shame.
In my misfortune I called, the LORD heard and saved me from all distress.
The angel of the LORD, who encamps with them, delivers all who fear God.
Learn to savor how good the LORD is; happy are those who take refuge in him.
A Reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans
I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor. Do not grow slack in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality. Bless those who persecute [you], bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same regard for one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly; do not be wise in your own estimation. Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all.
A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to 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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