Fr. Roger J. Landry
Basilica of Old St. Patrick, New York, New York
Nuptial Mass for Andrew Lev Shemin and Anna Florette Fata
May 13, 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, which Anna, her parents, brothers and many cousins, her friends, Archbishop Auza, her fellow coworkers and I from the Holy See Mission, and so many others have long awaited, and a day on which Andrew, his parents, family members and friends have awaited far longer, has finally arrived. And it has a long prehistory, one that goes back far beyond last October 16, when Andrew, astride the Seine River next to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, asked Anna to spend the rest of her life with him in a consortium of love and life. It extends beyond when they first started dating in June 2018, or when they first met through friend groups in 2015. It goes back far beyond their births in 1991 and 1980. 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 in the Gospel, 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, Andrew and Anna, 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 for as long as you both shall live, 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.
- Jesus spoke about the matrimonial vocation to be a sacrament of God’s love in the Gospel you chose for today. Christian marriage is never just about two people, the husband and the wife. It’s not even merely about 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 age without refrigeration, in a place 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 might use wood and charcoal. 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 supposed to be catalysts through whom Christ can light a fire on the earth.
- I rejoice, Andrew and Anna, that you already have a great head start on putting Christ’s words about being salt of the earth into practice. One of the things you both noted distinguished the other from anyone you had ever dated was how much flavor the other brought to your life. Andrew you told me about Anna, “She is really funny and I liked entertaining her. Even though we weren’t dating, we always had fun together.” When you once waved to her goodbye from a ship bound from Barcelona to Italy, she did something quirky and you told yourself, “If you end up with her, you’ll have laughter your whole life.” Similarly, Anna, you told me about Andrew, “He always makes me laugh and we always have a great time together.” Even though you were dating others, you began to realize that compared to him, no one else measured up to his sense of humor and depth. You have brought that flavor of salt to each other.
- Likewise you’ve helped preserve the other’s faith and helped it grow. Anna, you told me about Andrew, “He cares about the important things: faith, friendship and family. He is someone who is goal-oriented and unafraid to make sacrifices for his work and his art. But he is also very people-oriented and loves to build relationships as well. He is trustworthy. Once he commits, he follows through. In some of the areas I am weak, he is very strong, which inspires me to be more like him, but also lets me trust that he will pick up where I am lacking.” Andrew you told me that Anna is someone with whom you recognized early on that you never regretted spending time and would not regret spending your whole life, that she strengthened you in faith and helped you through many challenges. You likewise grasped that you wanted to be salt of the earth with her, telling me, “Modern society has a lot of bad messages about what marriage is,” which you recognize have had huge consequences for society. Traditional Marriage, you saw, “is so important … and a powerful institution to help individuals in their life and also keep order in society, … stabilizing people’s lives with love and responsibility, creating a prosocial home for children, and on the sacramental level of bringing people towards holiness.” Together with Anna you’re trying to be joint preservationists of this great gift given to us from the beginning.
- Salt, third, is a fire-starter, and your relationship has ignited both of you to deeper things. You told me, Anna, that you love how “he has grown so much in his faith through the years,” that the faith “lights him up,” that it strengthens him to center himself on the well-being of others, including your own good. That’s inspired you to become even more selfless. Andrew, you described how Anna has really inspired you to get to the next level. “Anna,” you said, “really makes me feel special and loved. She gives me lots of attention. She listens to me. She always makes time for me. I feel like her top priority. She also wants me to be holy. She believes in me and what I can accomplish in my work, and that I can be a good father and husband.” That has led you to push ahead in various aspects of life.
- This salt you are for each other Jesus wants you together to be 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 sodium is separated 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, and after him, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, both emphasized: “The family that prays together, stays together.” Pray together, Anna and Andrew, 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 called himself 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. To strive for the greatest spiritual gifts is to strive for this form of 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 Christian and every sacramentally married couple is meant to give the witness to this light. In an age in which many in secular society are trying to pressure believers to enroll in a witness protection program, to hide the Christian faith, especially the Biblical teaching about marriage, under a bushel basket, you’re meant to be part of Christ’s response to those trends.
- Today, in contrast to the trends of the age, you are responding to Christ’s call to be the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World. You are making a conspicuous profession about marriage and the family, their nature and importance. 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 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 life together on the indestructible foundation of Christ the Cornerstone. Our world today needs this salt and light. It needs to believe in love, not as the world 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.
- In this vocation and mission, never forget that you have a great cloud of witnesses above, praying for you and seeking to cheer you on to victory. One of the most important is Our Lady. Today, as you know, the Catholic Church celebrates the Memorial of Our Lady of Fatima, remembering how, 106 years ago in Portugal, the Mother God the Father chose for his Son and that Son from the Cross chose for us, appeared six times to three young shepherd children in the Cova d’Iria in Fatima. In the midst of World War I, she came to call us all to conversion, to do penance for our sins and those of others that were leading to so much destruction, and to entrust ourselves to her so that she might teach us how to love God and others as she did with her immaculate heart. In the last of her six appearances, on October 13, 1917, when she appeared during the remarkable “Miracle of the Sun” that, in addition to drying immediately the drenched clothing of 70,000 people, converted many journalists, lukewarm Catholics and even communists present, the three children saw her together with St. Joseph holding the child Jesus as the baby Jesus was blessing the people. Sister Lucia dos Santos, the pastorinha who remained in the world after her cousins, Saints Francisco and Jacinta Marto were embraced by Jesus into eternal life, commented in her book Calls from the Message of Fatima on why she believes Mary appeared in that way. Her words that have only grown in relevance since she wrote them. “In times such as the present,” she stated, “when the family often seems misunderstood in the form in which it was established by God, and is assailed by doctrines that are erroneous and contrary to the purposes for which the Divine Creator instituted it, surely God wished to address to us a reminder of the purpose for which He established the family in the world” By Mary’s appearing together with the other members of the Holy Family, a sign was being given to the world of the importance of the family. “God,” Sr. Lucia said, “entrusted to the family the sacred mission of co-operating with Him in the work of creation, … a sacred mission that makes two beings become one in union so close that it does not admit of separation. It is from this union that God wishes to produce other beings… God ordained it to be, … Jesus Christ confirmed and endorsed” it. “Hence, in the Message of Fatima, God calls on us to turn our eyes to the Holy Family of Nazareth, into which He chose to be born, and to grow in grace and stature, in order to present to us a model to imitate, as our footsteps tread the path of our pilgrimage to Heaven.” Sr. Lucia’s appreciation for the centrality and importance of marriage in the message of Our Lady of Fatima only deepened with time. Cardinal Carlo Caffarra in 2008 revealed the contents of a correspondence he had with Sr. Lucia back in the early 1980s when he had asked for her prayers as he, at Saint John Paul II’s request, was trying to establish the John Paul II Institute for the Study of Marriage and Family in Rome, where I attended and had the future Cardinal as a brilliant professor. He didn’t expect an answer from Sr. Lucia, but a few weeks later, she wrote back a lengthy, signed letter stating, “The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family. … This is the decisive issue.”
- Today, hand-in-hand, you take up together with Our Lady that sacred battle for marriage, for the family, for God. And spurred on by many prayers from above, your faith and love for each other has brought you here, to this beautiful Basilica of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, before this altar. There’s great meaning to the fact that over the altar in so many of the most historic Churches in Christianity, like the new St. Patrick’s in Midtown, 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, therefore, is the means by which Christ will regularly renew you, Anna and Andrew, 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, one that will be Salt of the Earth and Light of the World.
- Today — at long last! — around this marriage bed of Christ’s union with the Church and with you, your family, your friends, Our Lady of Fatima, Archbishops Auza and Caccia, numerous priests, 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 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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