the Lord be with you, a reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark. Jesus said, from the beginning of creation,
God made them male and female. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.
the gospel of the Lord. When a couple chooses to get married during the Christmas
It's almost impossible not to situate what's happening within the much larger picture of God's love for the human race manifested to us in Jesus' nativity. That's not just because the couple is married enveloped by poinsettias in a sanctuary containing an exquisite manger seat. It's not just because during this time of year we're obviously more focused on the Holy Family.
and necessarily ponder how when Jesus the eternal Son of God entered the human race, he did so as a little child entering the world the same way all of us do in a family so that his redeeming work would begin in the same place where original sin had entered and so that he could make every family a holy family. That is something that the church universal ponder in depth tomorrow on the feast of the holy family.
The spousal and familial context of a Catholic marriage celebrated during the Christmas octave, however, is way bigger than that. We get a glimpse of it at the Christmas vigil when the church meditates on Isaiah's words about God's love that would take flesh in Jesus, the word of God made man. God through Isaiah told us, as a young man marries a virgin
Your builder will marry you. As a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you." The prophet Hosea echoed that same foretelling when through him the Lord proclaimed, I will espouse you to me forever, or espouse you in right, in injustice, in love, and in mercy, or espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord.
The whole mystery of Christmas not only can be read, but has been read from the earliest ages of the church in a spousal key. The marriage of Christians, your marriage, Kevin and Kerry, is meant to shear in and reflect this great loving covenant between God and his people. That's why St. Paul wrote in his letter to Ephesians that the marriage of Christians participates in and flows from Christ's spousal covenant.
Commenting on the words you chose for today's first reading from the book of Genesis, that Jesus himself would cite in the gospel you wanted us to hear, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Saint Paul said, this is a great mystery, and I speak in reference to Christ in the church.
In other words, the marriage between Christians is an icon, a true image of Christ's marriage to the church, to us and not the other way around. Everything the church understands about the sacrament of marriage flows from Christ and the church's sacred bond because Jesus is faithful to the church. Husbands and wives are called to be always faithful to each other because Christ will never abandon us.
Christian marriage is indissoluble and therefore what God joins not even all the divorce courts on earth can separate because Christ's love for the church is fruitful. Christian's vows are called to be open to light, to be fruitful and multiply. Christian marriage is the setting where a husband and wife learn how to love each other just as Christ has loved them. That's what makes marriage a sacrament.
a sign and means of intimate communion with God, so that it brings a particular man and woman not just into one flesh communion with each other, but as a couple into a holy indeed one flesh eucharistic communion with Jesus the eternal bridegroom.
Ultimately, this profound Christocentric reality, the sacrament of marriage, is meant to lead to what we witness in the passage from the book of Revelation you wanted us all to contemplate today. It's a scene from heaven which Jesus' whole salvific life, beginning with his virginal conception in birth, made possible. Saint John heard a great cry. The wedding day of the Lamb has come
His bride has made herself ready. And the angel said to him, Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb. Heaven is depicted as an eternal wedding banquet. The Lamb, Jesus himself, the bridegroom, has invited all of us to his wedding feast. But he's called us not as guests, not even as cherished members of his wedding party.
He's called us as His eternal bride. This is the fulfillment of what Christ was born as a babe in Bethlehem to do. Our builder wants to marry us, to espouse us faithfully to Him forever. And that loving plan which begins in this world will be perfected in the next. That's the much larger context of your wedding today, Kerry and Kevin.
That's what we're all called to see, realize, and affirm in a particular way in every wedding celebrated during the Christmas octet. I'd like to return, however, from these inspiring thoughts about the end of the Christian journey in the heavenly Jerusalem, to the earthly Bethlehem in Nazareth, and the means God gives us to get to the eternal banquet. Specifically, I'd like to turn to the Holy Family
and the role Jesus has given them to prepare us for those eternal nuptials. Just as Miri and Joseph were essential to helping Jesus fulfill his mission as the bridegroom of the church, so they have likewise been at work helping you fulfill your vocation to enter into Jesus' spousal redeeming work. When Kevin talks about how his and Kerry's relationship began,
He name drops and says, we were introduced to each other by our Lady of Guadalupe. Even though they were admitted to the same 2022-23 class of the Leonine Forum in New York, for which I have the honor of being a chaplain, the Leonine Forum is a special program also in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles to form young adults in Catholic social teaching.
They actually, because of rear circumstances, didn't need each other in person during the first three classes. They were both inspired, however, to go on the Leonine Forum pilgrimage in January 2023 to the shrine of our Lady Guadalupe in Mexico. Kerry's mom, Tony, had been praying to our Lady Guadalupe for years for Kerry's future spouse.
And now it was going to become clear how attentive Kerry's other mother, and Tony's, and Harold's, in all of ours, was listening. Kevin and Kerry were, by God's providence, the only two Leonite fellows from New York on the pilgrimage. So Kerry sent Kevin a WhatsApp message out of the blue to ask if he knew about flight options. Even though Kerry, even though Kevin hadn't yet met Kerry yet, he did remember her name.
because she was, he told himself, the cute girl from the biography and photo sheet the program gives all fellows. So we shared his flight information with her. She got on the same flight, and they met for the first time at JFK Airport in New York, where Kevin treated her for breakfast at the Centurion Lounge, which they insist everybody was not their first date. In Mexico, they got to know each other much better.
Kevin kept trying to spend time with Kerry, saying he was drawn to the cute girl in her childlike joy at learning new things. They eventually discovered that they lived only 10 minutes from each other. Before leaving the shrine, Kerry wrote a note to herself saying that even though she clearly knew Kevin, she thought he was the gift from our lady to her many prayers for her husband and that one day she was going to marry Kevin.
On the return flight from Mexico City to JFK, Kevin saw that the seat next to him in the comfort plus section on Delta was unoccupied. So he asked the stewardess before anyone else was upgraded, whether he states, I could offer the seat to the girl I had a crush on from the back of the plane. The stewardess smiled, and with a big generous heart, gave Carrie the upgrade.
The two of them talked non-stop through the non-stop flight back. Before they landed, Kevin was similarly convinced Kerry was the one for whom he had been longing. Our Lady of Guadalupe had not only brought them together, but was helping them as the fruits of their pilgrimage to Hirschrein to desire to continue to journey together the distance on the pilgrimage
of life. That's when St. Joseph began to take the lead. Upon arriving back in New York, Kevin and Terry spent several weeks texting, talking, and giving each other rides for errands or back from Leonide meetings. During this time, Terry, with her roommate, Gerard Ona, was praying a 30-day novina to St. Joseph for their future husbands.
And Terry was hoping and praying that Kevin would finally get around officially to asking her out. He did, suggesting that they meet on March 19, the solemnity of St. Joseph, beginning with Mass in Bronzeville at the Church of St. Joseph. After Mass, they went out for another meal brunch at a local restaurant.
They hit it off so well that many other dates soon followed. It became increasingly clear not just to them but to everyone else that as we heard in today's first reading from the book of Genesis, they were the fitting helper God had intended for each of them from before the foundation of the world. Their proposal happened fittingly
by Kevin's foresight in the help of Kerry's family, at the healing chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 32 miles from here, in Kerry's hometown of Luelling, right next to the church of St. Anthony, where Kerry's parents, Harold and Tony, were married 37 years before. They visited the chapel, which opened just over three years ago, once before, and Kevin found it stunning and holy.
They were praying on Ovena together at the time, and Kevin suggested that they pray that day, and Ovena prayers there. And so before the image of our later Guadalupe, it would introduce them, and would have been interceding for them over the previous 445 days. Kevin reverentially dropped to a knee to propose. Kerry replied, of course.
And even though a photographer was somehow their hiding and wanted to take some official shots of the newly engaged couple, Kerry faithfully insisted that they do the novena prayers first. And so their first moments of engagement likewise featured praying to God through our Lady of Guadalupe's intercession for their future. Those prayers
have sustained them to this day, and today they and we add to them. Thus it's fitting because of the influence of our Lady Guadalupe and Saint Joseph in their relationship up until now. And particularly in view of the consecration their marriage will later make to Mary after they receive the blessed fruit of her womb in Holy Communion. It's fitting for us to focus a little bit
on the message of how our lady, especially through what she said in Guadalupe, nearly five centuries ago, wants to help not just all of us as individuals, but in particular married couples, live out their life on Earth in view of the spousal mission of her son. I'd like to focus on three lessons. Nuecesñora La Morinita teaches us in particular.
The first is about building a temple. When Miri appeared as a pregnant Nastizo Aztec princess to St. Juan Diego on December 9, 1531, she sent him on a mission to Bishop Juan de Zumaraga in Mexico City to have him build the Teokali, a temple at the spot where she was speaking, so that she could manifest Jesus, her son, in the Eucharist to everyone.
and so that she could hear their prayers and intercede for them before him like she did for the young couple of cana in Galilee. That temple was built and later a much larger one was constructed. And now 20 million pilgrims visit the shrine each year. Our lady similarly wants every married couple to build a sanctuary for the blessed fruit of her womb in their marriage.
where he can be better known, loved, adored, served, and sheared. From the earliest centuries of Christianity, the marriage of Christians has been called a domestic church in a cliciola in Latin for a church in miniature.
The Christian home is meant to be a house of prayer, where the Word of God resonates, where the love of Christ is received, reciprocated, and paid forward, where the faith is transmitted and grows. As she does in Guadalupe, as she did there for both of you, Sonuesta Vihan Sita wants to hear your prayers in your new home.
in East Chester, New York. Let her help you together to build the tale Kali for her son, and let her assist in accompanying you, especially through the Mass together and the continuation of the recitation of the Rosary as a new family, to enter far more deeply into and to symbolize for others the marriage between her son and the church you represent.
The second great lesson our lady teaches us in Guadalupe is about infleshing the mysteries of our faith. I've always been amazed by the great miracle that took place in December 12, 1531, which you've been secretly asked for by Bishop Sumarica for roses from his native Castilla in Spain. Those roses had not yet been planted in Mexico, but in December 12,
At the top of Tepayak Hill in Windtree, Mexico City, they were found wondrously in full bloom. Those roses were just the beginning of the miracle. When St. Juan Diego and our ladies' instruction cut many of them and took them in his Tumma to the bishop. As a secret sign, he had requested in confirmation of our ladies' message. He opened that Tumma before the bishop.
Some of those roses fell to the floor, but others melted into his toma, and formed the identical image of the woman who had been addressing Juan Diego on the mountain. Our lady in essence had come into the bishop's presence through Juan Diego's clothing, through his very life, through his humble, persevering obedience to her wishes. His mad way fiber cloak has since become
the most famous piece of clothing of all time. It's something that should have disintegrated in about 20 years, but has persevered with this miraculous image for nearly five centuries. What do we learn? We learn that our lady wishes to have us receive her into our life, into our hearts, into our minds,
even into our very clothing. St. John the evangelist whose feast the church celebrated yesterday. After Jesus from the cross, it said to him, Behold, your mother took Mary, he said, into his home. Mary desires to become just as much a part of a new couple's life as she was part of Jesus's life. St. Joseph's life. St. John's life. St. Juan Diego's life.
Kevin and Kerry, she wants your whole way of being, especially as Catholic spouses, to emulate her own relationship to Jesus, as you let your life like hers develop according to the Lord's Word. She wants to help you like her become in major servants of the Lord, to have you imitate her faith, hope, and love, to model your own discipleship on hers, your parenthood on hers, your intercession on hers.
and you're apostolate on hers. She desires to assist you to live in such a way that others in seeing you and in getting to know you might see something of her in you just as everyone could see something of her in Juan Diego's winter cloak. This is the second gift she wants to give you to help your married and familial life become truly Marian.
so that it can be truly and fully Christian. The third lesson is about admission. In Tepayak, our lady gave Saint Juan Diego a task to go to the bishop to ask him to build the house of worship right there. After his first failed attempt, Juan Diego, the simple 57-year-old widower who shuffled 15 miles each way to mass on Saturday and Sundays,
begged her to send someone of prominence so that the bishop would listen. Our lady said that she had many people she could send, but she wanted to send him. Little did he know at the time that she would accompany him on his third attempt in his very clothing. He would wear her not on her in his sleeve, but on his coat. And with her help, he fulfilled his mission.
Sometimes it's tempting for Christians like Saint Juan Diego to try to pass the buck of the mission of sharing the faith to others, to think it's the job of priests or religious or full-time lay evangelists to share the gospel, that the average Catholic's job is only to support the church quietly by fidelity, prayer, and sacrifice. But the vocation to marriage has built in it a mission
It's to convince the world of God's love. Saint John Paul II called marriage the primordial sacrament, the external sign of the loving communion of persons who is the blessed Trinity was God. It's also as Saint Paul tells us meant to be an efficacious sign of the loving spousal communion between Jesus and the Church. Catholic couples and families are supposed to radiate faith in and love of God.
They're supposed to live differently than the rest, respect to their priorities, in terms of their prayer, respect to their openness to life, in terms of taking responsibility as salt, light, and leaven, and in terms of passing on the faith to each other, to children, to grandchildren, to God children, and to everyone. As Kerry said to me in marriage preparation, marriage entails a God-given mission
a lifelong commitment before God and the church. The rest of the city of Guadalupe wants to help you in that mission, just like she helped Juan Diego. If you do, who can say, who can imagine what an impact that can have in the church? Perhaps like in Guadalupe in the 1530s,
10 million people can become Catholic in just a decade. Perhaps what happens in your marriage can be remembered 493 years from today and beyond. The only thing you can control is saying yes to our ladies work and your life just as Juan Diego did. And just wait.
We all rejoice, Kevin and Kerry, that you're already showing the influence of our Lady and your relationship with each other, that you're desirous of making your family a domestic church, that you're trying to enflash Mary's virtue, that you're taking seriously your mission to help the other grow in faith and resolving to try to gather to pass that faith on to any children with whom God will bless you, as well as to many others.
Kevin, you told me about the type of impact Carrie has already had in your life and how she's helping you to live these crucial Marian lessons. You said, I know I'm a good talker, conversationalist and storyteller. But when it comes to Carrie, I'm not able to find the words that describe her or what she means to me.
Sure, there are the easy things to say like I love her because she's kind and caring and so very, very pretty. But it's deeper than that. Kerry is more than just the answer to my prayers. It's like there was a part of me missing that left me incomplete and she is that part. Kerry is a gift I know I don't deserve. I've never felt so loved as I know I am by Kerry.
It's a love that encompasses my entire being from the smallest gesture of kindness like a pin you gave him before Mass. To the greatest displays of affection, she has a way of making you feel cherished, valued, and deeply loved. Her love has filled a void in my life that I didn't even know existed. In short, I love everything about Terry.
The way she loves God, the way she embraces life with curiosity and wonder, and the way she loves me with the depth and intensity that surpasses all understanding. She is a gift, a blessing, and the love of my life. And I'm so thankful to have her by my side. Carrie, you told me that Kevin has had a similar impact on you.
that he for you is a rock just like Saint Joseph. Kevin, who wrote to me during marriage preparation, has all the qualities and more that I was looking for in a future husband. He's strong and tough, but also at the same time sweet, thoughtful, and selfless. He's handsome, smart, kind, courageous, generous, virtuous, and humble.
From the very beginning, I felt protected and provided for by him. He eases my anxieties about life's demands, and I know he'll be an amazing husband, father, and leader of our future family. Kevin makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Chivalry lives in him. He's such a gentleman and goes above and beyond to make sure my needs are met before his own.
He's always striving to be better in his spiritual personal and professional life. His gesture didn't end in the courting phase. He continues to hold every door for me and pursues me as if we just met. He's the most courageous person I know and not just because he fought in a combat zone. He stands up for his faith when it's not the popular thing to do. He knows who he is.
and doesn't shy away from being Catholic anywhere, including in his professional life. His selflessness inspires me daily. He puts himself last and expects nothing in return. He's taught me not to worry about things that are out of my control. Having been in situations where his life has been in danger, he understands that God is in control of everything and that every day is a gift. He's taught me to be present.
and not rush through life. He accepts his crosses and brings them to God. When we face difficult situations in a relationship, he reminds us to bring these things before God first and prioritize praying together as a couple. Kevin's character, discipline, and selfless love have inspired me to become a more virtuous woman.
We all rejoice, Kevin and Kerry, that through our ladies in St. Joseph's prayers, God has brought you together to help inspire each other in the ways you have, and by the way you love each other, to inspire all of us to one last point. True devotion to our lady and to St. Joseph always inexorably leads to Jesus.
the same Jesus whom Mary gestated in her immaculate womb for nine months. The same Jesus whom St. Joseph held in his strong arms and calloused hands. The same Jesus whom the shepherds and the wise men, the angels and the animal adored in Bethlehem is about to come from heaven to this altar and then enter into us. He just looks different.
The eternal Son of God did not stop at emptying himself to take on our humanity to be born as a baby in a borrowed game. He went so far as to become our very food so that he could make us like he made our Lady his tail collie, his holy tabernacle. That's why there's great meaning to the fact that Catholic couples get married in the context of the mass.
because there's a profound intrinsic connection between the sacrament of marriage and the sacrament of the man. In the most historic churches in Christianity, like St. Peter's in the Vatican, there's an altar, there's an over-the-alter, an exquisite baldakin. The early Christians used to illustrate the reality between marriage and the whole Eucharist in architecture. Covering their altars with a canopy, just like ancient Jewish beds were covered with the hoopa,
or the Baldecan underneath which they previously exchanged their consent. The early Christians did this to communicate that the altar is the marriage that of the union between Christ the bridegroom and his bride, the church, that is here on this altar that we the bride of Christ and the supreme act of love receive within ourselves the body and blood of Jesus, the divine bridegroom, become one flesh with him in
are made capable of bearing fruit with Him in acts of love. Today, around this marriage, you've had a Christ's union with the church and with you, your family, your friends, the Blessed Mother, Saint Joseph, Saint Pio, Saint Tres, the Holy Innocence, and 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 mission
and bring it to completion in the eternal natural feast of heaven. Indeed, as we heard, the angels say at the end of the day's second reading, blessed are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb. Before adding, these words are true. They come from God. They're indeed true. Blessed are you.
Blessed are all of us to be called to the wedding feast of the Lamb. Blessed are you to be called to enter into this nuptial banquet. Every time you come to Mass together, Christ, the bridegroom renews his commitment to you and seeks to have you renew yours to him. He wants to fill you with his fouls of love to overflowing so that you may love each other with the love he has for you.
And so that that love may overflow too, we pray, children to the church and to the whole world. We ask the divine bridegroom who comes here to join you as one flesh for the rest of your life, never to stop blessing you both with this holy, spousal, cruciform love, to bring you to the eternal wedding feast and through the way you share his spousal love.
Never to stop blessing us and the world. These words are true. They come from God, who is happier for you today than all of us combine. Praise be Jesus Christ.
