
Today, I’d like to talk about not only about Marriage, the Sacrament of Marriage, but also the Spiritual Marriage. The Spiritual Marriage is us being married to God, and how God desires that for each and every one of us.
In the first reading, he talks about this beautiful image of a bride and a groom. He says, “as a young man marries a virgin, so your builder shall marry you, and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” First of all, Marriage is the original Sacrament, all the way back from Adam and Eve. In the marriage rite, it says it’s the one sacrament that was not washed away from the flood and was a time that is something permanent in our lives. From the very beginning of time, marriage existed.
I want you to think about your wedding day, or your children’s wedding day, somebody’s wedding day that was special for you. As a priest it’s pretty cool because I get to stand up here when the wedding starts with the groom and the best man. Every time a wedding happens, I get to watch the groom as the doors open at the back of the church and the bride walks in with her wedding dress. The groom sees her for the first time and as they walk together up the aisle; the father and the daughter walk together up the aisle. The groom, for the first time, greets his wife in her wedding dress, and the two of them come together just at the beginning of the wedding.
It really is a sight to behold. You see the Joy within them, you see that they have been waiting all their lives for this one moment where they are brought together with their spouse, that perfect person they have always longed for. You see, marriage is something that reveals the beauty of God to us. All sacraments reveal God to us, and marriage does this in a special way. When we see that bride and groom come together and the love that they have for each other, the excitement that they have for each other and the Joy that they have for each other, it’s a reflection and an image of the love that God has for us. He looks at us like that. God is so wild about you, so in love with you that he can’t wait for this nuptial marriage, this spiritual marriage with our souls.
This happens after our time of conversion and so we hear in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah, he says, “No longer shall people call you forsaken, or your land desolate,” So, probably in all of our lives, as we look back, there were probably time in our lives where either we felt forsaken by God or we felt times where we were really desolate, really dry, maybe very lonely and sad. And I think many of us long for that marriage.
When I was in the seminary, I had a huge conversion because I had really told God no all of my life. So, when I was very young, I felt the call to priesthood and I always said, “No God, I want to be married.” I really remember praying that I would not be a priest and begging God not to make be a priest because I wanted to be married. I longed for that fulfillment, for that one woman.
There was a really neat moment in the seminary. I was actually best man for one of my high school and college friends’ wedding. After giving the best man’s speech and all of that, the dancing began and that’s usually when I exited the wedding, but because I was the best man, I stayed there. It was funny because I danced even with some of the girlfriends that I had from the past and had a wonderful time at the reception. I’ll never forget walking out. I was watching all these couples leave, walking hand-in-hand, and I was alone. But when I got to my truck and I was buckling up, I realized that it was okay because I was so happy. I was so fulfilled with the love of God that I realized, ‘Oh! It’s okay that I am not getting married.’ From that moment on I began to discover this love that God the Father wants to have with our souls individually.
Marriage is a reflection of that, a sacrament of that, but we realize that not all marriages are perfect, right? You marry your spouse and they are perfect on that wedding day and then you discover after some years, ‘Oh my gosh you duped me’(laughter). One of the phrases that you have for when a guy that’s not such a great guy, likes the perfect woman. People will say that he’s really ‘marrying up.’ I kind of feel like that with God, right? I married up. He’s perfect, I’m not.
There’s many of us that find ourselves either in an imperfect marriage or single for some reason. Maybe we could be divorced or maybe widowed. Maybe we never found that right person in our lives. Maybe like myself, a religious or a priest, maybe someone who didn’t have that attraction or orientation, there’s many reasons why some us may not be married.
Well, for times in our lives we may feel forsaken; we can feel desolate. But once we discover the way that God loves us, once we have that conversion and stop saying no to him, but start saying yes to him, we discover that we can be fulfilled beyond anything. Every time we come to celebrate the Eucharist, and we receive our Lord Jesus into us, we are entering into that spiritual union. Because He alone can fill that original emptiness, he alone is the only one that can fill that void and it’s out of that, that we begin to love each other as God desires.
As we celebrate this Mass, reflect on Marriage. Think of some of the beautiful experiences that you had on your wedding day, or you watched your children, or you watched your nieces or nephews or friends, but also realize, all of us, that God wants to marry our souls. And when we marry him, when we say yes to him, he does fulfill that longing and no longer will we feel forsaken, no longer will we feel desolate. We will feel nothing but Joy and Love because we are married to our Maker.
Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called “mystical” because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments – “the holy mysteries” – and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all. (Catechism #2014)