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Marriage and Motherhood | The Monday After
00:20:36
The natural communion of marriage and motherhood remains the basis of all society in this world, but the Holy Communion of the Church, which is a holy marriage and holy motherhood, is the new and eternal basis for life in the world to come.
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Hello again, everyone. I think the way this one started was with the first Holy Communions. This weekend's reflection. We had first communions, and I was asking what was the first communion back in the beginning, like of the world beginning? And I thought about Adam and Eve as marriage. So I thought marriage was the first communion. And I thought, you know, well, the Mother's Day this weekend, too. So I had that in my mind and thinking about how the child and the mother are also a kind of first communion. So these are first communions in history, the relationship between man and woman as marriage, and then very much united to that, the relationship between the child and the mother. So I saw a relationship between these two communions, which really make one marriage, and then the child and the mother. I mean, the first place you and I experienced communion with someone, union with them is in the womb. There's this being united, so two distinct persons, but the two really one flesh in that sense. And this weekend we also have celebrated some weddings and are also remembering Jack and Ann Malone at the golf outing tomorrow. So they are a married couple who have had six children, 18 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren. That's 36 souls because of these two people who have been fruitful and have multiplied. So it led me to think then, and this is what I'm sharing with you here again. And I hope by revisiting this, if you were in the church on today or last night, this would help you, or if you're sharing this with a friend. In the beginning, there's a natural communion. I mean, the human experience is natural communion as God designed it. That comes from family, so marriage, and then the child from the marriage. And it's marriage and motherhood. It's the very stuff of life, marriage and motherhood. We could talk about the father or the husband in a moment, but just beginning with that natural communion. And I say natural because when we talk about the communion that the church offers us, we're saying it's holy Communion. And you receive holy Communion. No wonder, then we speak about the church as a marriage between heaven and earth. And we think about that baptismal font as the very womb of Holy Mother Church. And they're the same church. So that's the thing about connecting this marriage between Adam and Eve and then the command to be fruitful and multiply in this relationship of child and mother, just as the church is both mother and also marriage. You know, this is the stuff of life. Now, naturally, in this world, it's natural marriage and natural conception, if you will. But then there was A fall, a rupture between Adam and Eve and God, between Adam and Eve themselves and their own children. And look at the first sin, fratricide. You know, Cain kills Abel, these sons of Eve, and it's down through the ages, sin as separation. Then Christ is sent into the world, born of the Virgin Mary, so conceived by the Holy Spirit. And he's sent from the Father to redeem the world, to restore the world. And where does he begin his public ministry? Well, he begins with the baptism in the Jordan. But his first sign to the world that he was sent from the Father to redeem the world is at the wedding feast of Cana. It's a wedding. There's a marriage taking place. The Father must have put it on the Lord's heart to go there. And we know what happens at the wedding, right? The wine runs out. So that's the fruit of the vine. Remember the command, be fruitful and multiply. So now Jesus is at a marriage, a wedding, and the wine runs out. Well, that's exactly what happened to humanity. The wine had run out of our marriage, meaning our communion or our union with God and one another. So Christ then has the servants put water in the jars, and he turns the water into wine. So he restores marriage. And then when we look at the woman who's there participating in this miracle, we see she has a very special relationship with Jesus. Indeed, it is his mother. So at the wedding feast of Cana, we have Christ beginning to redeem the world, starting as the Father did when he created Adam and Eve in the beginning, starting with marriage and to be fruitful. And he's there in relationship with his mother. And it's very much a kind of mysterious union, because between the Blessed Mother and Jesus, she says to him, they have no wine. And he says, woman, like Eva. He says, woman, what concern is this to me? What is your concern to me? My hour has not yet come, referring to the cross, if I begin to work. But she must have communicated something to him as mysteriously as a mother can communicate life to her child in her womb. And then Jesus does indeed tell the servants, put water in the jars and turns the water into wine. So we have at that wedding feast at Cana the image of the new Eve and the new Adam beginning to restore the world. As in the beginning, Adam and Eve be fruitful and multiply. The two mysteries of marriage and motherhood are the first natural communion. Now, Holy Communion begins with Jesus turning water into wine, and there again with his mother. So the church as marriage, as the bride of Christ or as heaven married to earth, and then the church as Mother, Holy Mother Church, with the Father giving her life. Now, here's why I don't think this is a stretch to speak about this this weekend. Not only does this speak to the first Communions, the weddings, the Mother's Day today, and Jack and Ann Malone and their family, but because we heard about the Holy Spirit a lot in the readings this weekend. And that is the Spirit that was sent to us from the Father to give life now through the church to the world. It's the very love that unites the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, you know. So the church is marriage because by the Holy Spirit we are wed to Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, Christ unites us to the Father. It's this incredible two becoming one flesh. You know, like the male priesthood, for example. You see how God wants his church to have a husband so that all of God's children can have a father. That's why we call the priest's Father. I said at Mass this weekend, anyone who has a hard time understanding the male priesthood probably also has a hard time thinking about the church as bride. In the readings today, the Gospel, Jesus says to us, I will not leave you orphans. You will be loved by my Father. This is intimate, but it's also like marital and familial in the sense of, like family language. This is marriage with children language, orphans, you know, the Father will come to us, will stay with us, because the Holy Spirit will come to us. There's a little more to what Jesus is saying in the Gospel. It's a very powerful Gospel passage where he's saying that the world. When I go back to the Father, because we're getting ready for the Ascension on Thursday, the world, he says, will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I will be in you and you will be in me. This is marital intimacy that we enjoy with Christ because of the Holy Spirit. This is union where the two become one flesh. And this is how we see him, as he says, it's by faith, and a faith that is enriched, nourished by the sacraments of the Church, especially the Eucharist. And what is the Eucharist? It's the bridegroom saying to us, this is my body given up for you, my blood poured out for you. The way John the Baptist, when he says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And we say, john, who is this who's coming to us? He's like your bridegroom. He says, and you will become his bride as the church. And blessed are you. He is greater than I am. John the Baptist would say, I am not worthy to untie his sandals. But he said, my joy is simply to be the best man of the bridegroom, you see, to speak about him and to sing his praises, and then to say to the bride, I am happy that you have him in the way that you have him. That was John the Baptist's joy. And those are the words we hear right before receiving Jesus in the Eucharist of Mass. In the first reading at Mass this weekend, we mentioned that when the church in Jerusalem hears that some people in Samaria were accepting the word of God or the Gospel, they asked to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And that was awesome. I want this Jesus to be a new Adam for me, to be the very love of the Father in my life so that I can enter into this new and eternal covenant. And then the church in Jerusalem hears about this, and they send Peter and Paul to Samaria to lay hands on those new Christians and to say to them, receive the Holy Spirit. Why? Why Peter and John? Well, to give those people of Samaria, to give them a husband, to give them, to send the fathers to them. Remember the apostles. These are like the first fathers and husbands of the Church sent out in Christ's name, who is the bridegroom with the Father's love and the very husband of the church. And they lay hands on these new Christians and say, receive the Holy Spirit. In other words, be fruitful and multiply, you know. So they hear about the beginning of faith in Samaria, and then they go there to give them the Holy Spirit so that that faith can bear fruit. And then in the psalm we heard, we prayed, tremendous deeds were done among the children of Adam. The children of Adam. What an interesting expression. And, of course, it's the way that the psalmist is reminding us that Christ has come, that God is working powerfully through Christ, that the Messiah will come. When these psalms are being written to do something wonderful for all humanity, like a restoration of the initial and the first communion between Adam and Eve and God, and between the husband and the wife, and between the parents and the child. So I thought it was a fitting psalm for us to hear this week, too. And then in the second reading this past week or Today, we heard St. Peter call us to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. And that might seem a little bit tougher to fit in, but he's saying, your thoughts may be Pulled this way, and that your passions and appetites may be held captive by the culture and things like that, you might even become ensnared. But if he lives in your heart, dwells in your heart, you will have his love, and you will be loved by him, as he says to us in the Gospel, and he will reveal himself to you, and you will have the joy of. Of knowing Him. I think it's time for us to see that the church is the perfect marriage, where all of our imperfect marriages can be and can still be for us a way where the water is changed into wine, where we come to him and say, we ran out of wine, we got divorced, or, I have no wine. I can't marry. I'm homosexual. I can't marry. I don't want to force it, you know, I don't want to do that, be treacherous to try to marry, because I'm not attracted to the opposite sex. So I offer. I give myself to you as one who is baptized, consecrated to you. And so I'm going to live a single consecrated life of virginity. That water will be changed into wine. And it is for those who are meek and humble before God, who love God so as to keep his commandments, and through obedience become saints. I like to think about the church as not the place where the perfect go to celebrate how perfect they are, but where something perfect is being offered to us by God. And he simply says to us, just as when he was baptized in the Jordan, this is really the first time when Christ is seen as beginning his public ministry. He's being baptized in the Jordan. And we were like, what are you doing? John the Baptist on our behalf was like, what are you doing? We need to be baptized by you. But Jesus is entering into the waters with us, associating himself with sinners, like kneeling down next to the woman caught in adultery, you know, or drawing near to the woman at the well. You've had five husbands, and the man you live with now is not your husband, drawing near to the Roman soldier whose servant at home is like a son to him. But anyway, Christ as the one who enters into the waters with us, this church, this is like it's the River Jordan, where Christ comes to us to say, I am here with you, and I will be your justification. But this is what I said in the church this week and want you to hear as well here. This will make us very unpopular with the world. But you know what? As I think St. Peter said in the second reading, I would rather suffer for doing good than suffer for doing evil. I would rather suffer for belonging to a church that defends that God created marriage between one man and one woman and suffer for belonging to a church that says the relationship between the child and the mother is so sacred that if you intend to come between them, you have to get through me first. I would rather suffer for belonging to this church in defense of marriage and life in the womb, than to suffer for betraying it or denying it. Like the prodigal son who went away from the family, he learns very quickly and painfully that there is no life outside of this family. His relationship with his father, he returns to his father who runs out to embrace him. I mean, that's what's going on here. We say as Catholics, there's no salvation outside the church. And that's true. It sounds 16th century esque, right? But it's still true. There's no salvation outside the church. This is the praise that I would sing of Jack and Anne malone. They've had six children, 18 grandchildren, 12 grandchildren. But they're not just born into this world. That family has been brought to the church, to the baptismal font, and to the sacraments. And it's possible that 36 souls plus, you know, would be in heaven because Jack and Anne Malone brought their children to the church. And I think all young people would do well to remember that this church has only ever been handed on from one loved one to another. Although the world says that, that we impose it upon people, but that's not what it is. It's been handed on from one loved one to another, most often between the mother and the child. And I would say that most children who these days say, I can't wait to grow up so I can get away from this church, when they have children, they're very likely to say, I think I want to have the child baptized. Because the miracle of childbirth touches the heart in such a profound way that I think it brings even people who find themselves thinking with the world that the church is not holy communion, but mere cold law and rule. I think the warmth and the love that comes through the experience of childbirth can soften their hearts to see the beauty of the church as a marriage with Christ, a very merciful and good husband, and also as a mother who loves all her children and only wants what's best for us. You know? You know, they say that the word mother or mama is the first word that most children say. Mami, Mama. And the word mama, the name for the mother, is very similar in many languages of the world. Mama, mami, and then they say also that most people's last word is mommy. Certainly like men on the battlefield, you know, mommy, Mommy, you think about Christ on the cross. Behold your mother. And we heard him say, abba Dada from the cross too. But he also says, mama, Mama. And then he says to us, and he says to John, and as he says to St. Mary Magdalene or Mary, wife of Clopas, or Joseph of Arimathea, who was there, or Nicodemus or anyone else who was there, behold your mother. Look, Mama, the new Adam on the cross giving us the new Eve. Remember when we say Eve was born from the side of Adam from his rib cage. When they pierced Christ's side with the lance, his rib cage, water and blood came forth and Mary was there to receive it. The Blessed Mother was there on behalf of the Church and the Church was born. And the other occasion which is right around the corner now, the feast of Pentecost, we speak about the Church being born. The Blessed Mother is there again in the upper room with the twelve apostles, the husbands of the Church, the fathers, where Jesus celebrated the Last Supper, where he gave us his body and his blood. This is my body given up for you, my blood poured out for you. And then the Holy Spirit again falls upon them there to confirm that, to embolden them and send them forth into the world to be fruitful and multiply. Yeah. So this is Holy Communion, and I wanted you to hear today that is not merely natural communion. There's lots of people and lots of religions in the world that do marriage between a man and a woman and they have children. That's still just natural communion, though, in this church, the Holy Catholic Church, this is Holy Communion. So this weekend, the first communions, the weddings, Mother's Day, Jack and Ann Malone, 36 souls for heaven from their marriage. Be fruitful, multiply, who gave their children not only to the world, but to the Church, and so to heaven. I wanted to thank God that he gave us a place where we can bring our broken relationships and still be in some mysterious holy communion with one another. And to accept and to acknowledge that this does correspond to our humanity. Because we're still looking all these years later for the same thing we were looking for in the beginning. We're looking for love. We can say to this world, you know, you're not looking. We're not looking just for worldly success or power. We're not just looking for pleasure. We're looking for love. And love and truth are wed in Christ. They're married to him. Married in him. The law and the love, justice and mercy have kissed. The scriptures say so. I think everyone, no matter what disposition, no matter what temperament, no matter what orientation, what circumstance in life, what, whatever cross we carry, we can find a home in this church. You know, in the celibate priesthood. It's just a reminder that this whole thing leads to the kingdom. It's not merely to conquer the nations. It is preparation for the world to come. As life in the womb of a mother is preparation for being born into this world, so too life in this church, as in the womb of a holy mother, is preparation for being born into eternal life.