You know that old saying about how there is nothing worse than a reformed so and so, well I still had all this emotion pent up from being a WS (dday 18 months ago-mariage and recovery doing great) and wanted to start preaching I guess so I could maybe "save" some other poor guy from the experience. I guess it wasn't enough just to let my WW hear how I felt and I was sitting in church listening to a sermon one day and all of a sudden got this wild notion to write an article which has now been accepted for publication! I am certainly not much of an author but I guess the feelings came through strong enough and I just had to share it with all my MB buddies! Talk about a sympathetic audience! Anyway here is the advance copy, I'll post agian when it hits the street. Thank you all for helping through my darkest hours.

Jack 218

On Marriage and its Reward

It is an interesting thing that our creation from its earliest point on earth resulted in the presence of two sexes and all reproduction from that point required the union of these two sexes. There is no particular reason why it had to be so. There are other organisms on the planet that reproduce differently and it was certainly within the power of our Creator to have human beings reproduce in a limitless number of ways. Since childhood we have learned of the conception and birth of Jesus merely at the will of God without anything more. If He had wanted, presumably we all could have been given life in the same manner.

So our creation itself comes from a union designed and favored by our creator Himself. We can only speculate as to why, but there must have been some advantages. All we can know is that it was our Creator’s first and only choice for humanity, and in addition to our religion most all religions and cultures revere the union we call marriage. In our church it is a sacrament, but we are not the only ones by any means to hold it sacred, even though it’s very essence entails considerable sacrifice.

I have found it interesting that in the biblical story of the wedding of Cana, it was Jesus who supplied the wine. It is the only example of a miracle performed at a wedding and according to an eyewitness, John, as well as biblical scholars, it was the first miracle Jesus performed on earth. What powerful evidence this is of God’s love for marriage that Jesus would employ this power in this way at this event for first time ever. I have wondered if, at that ceremony, He drank from His own cup as He invited all to join with Him in celebration of the unselfish sacrifices the two marrying people would make as result of their love for each other, just as He would one day drank from His own cup and invite His disciples to join Him in celebration of the sacrifice He would make as a result of His love for humanity. Perhaps He contemplated his mother Mary as well, who also attended this wedding and who requested Him to do something about the absence of wine. Maybe in granting her request in such spectacular fashion He considered her sacrifice in giving birth to a son who she would raise to see crucified before her own eyes.

In each of these sacrifices there is a giving up of one’s self. But why celebrate that? Who wants to sacrifice his own selfish interests much less his own life? The answer can only lie in the good that comes of it. Let’s take the sacrifice of Jesus first and the sacrament that celebrates it. We can all go to the finest restaurant, drink a whole bottle of the most expensive wine and eat a delicious loaf of fresh baked bread to go with it. No doubt that is a pleasurable experience. But does it compare to the pleasures gained from the small sip of consecrated wine and the tiny wafer of tasteless dough given to us as the Eucharist? In the restaurant you dine alone, at the Eucharist you’re invited as a special guest at a very different kind of table. Which would you gladly give up forever in order to have the other forever? In this case we are not asked to choose, but we all know the good that came from the sacrifice of Jesus.

But in the sacrament of marriage there is a choice. We are told that to enjoy this sacrament we must forsake the pleasures of sexual union outside the marriage, and this is a sacrifice indeed. But like the choice above, it is a sacrifice worth making for the good that comes of it. How much better is the union sanctioned by God’s choosing and made in His presence than the one that we can only sanction ourselves and from which He has been excluded? How profound is the joy obtained by a lifetime of permanent commitment compared to that of temporal relationships? How much do we value the family that results from this union? Which would you gladly give up forever in order to have the other forever?

In Mary’s case there was a choice as well. She could have fled, aborted her child or abandoned it at birth, all of which were common options in cases of out of wedlock pregnancies, even in ancient times. Surely every parent can appreciate her sacrifice.

Marriage requires many sacrifices but its central tenet is fidelity, true loyalty above all. This notion of fidelity as required in marriage seems to have been a favorite of God’s also. His first commandment to His people was to have no other God. He further commanded fidelity to one’s parents in requiring us to honor “thy mother and father,” to one’s neighbors in not “bearing false witness,” and to one’s spouse, “thou shalt not commit adultery.” That covers just about everyone doesn’t it? Jesus commanded it also, “no man cometh to the Father but by Me.” Needless to say, He knew also the consequences of the betrayal of loyalty. There seems to be a very clear understanding in all of this guidance that for the relationships we need and want to have with God, with Jesus, with our spouses, with our children, and with our neighbors, to flourish or even to work at all, faithfulness will be a prerequisite.

So we have a compelling instruction to live in a sanctified marriage of fidelity regardless of the sacrifice that may entail and we should not make the mistake of thinking that no sacrifice is necessary. Like all of the seven sacraments some form of sacrifice is present, baptism and the raising of children, confirmation and the sacrifice of commitment, penance and the sacrifice of sinfulness, selfishness, and pride, the Eucharist and the sacrifice of Jesus, extreme unction and the recognition of the sacrifices made in one’s life, holy orders and the sacrifice of devotion, and marriage and the sacrifice of one’s self to become one flesh with another. But in the end it is not the sacrifices that we will remember, only the product of these life-giving sacrifices, the greater good that will come of them and sustain us like nothing else.

Sacred Heart Parishoner
Copyright 2003 Jack Dugan