Fr. Alan's homily for Sunday October 8th 2006
Imagine, writes James of Serugh, an early Christian writer, a wedding reception. Bride and Groom are wed, the reception is ready. Here are the guests, awaiting the happy couple. But this is a wedding breakfast with a difference. On the invitation cards these words appear: Happy are those invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.
From the beginning of time this wedding had been prepared, from the moment when it was not good that man should be alone. Adam woke up from sleep and found beside him his mate, Eve: Here is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. He recognised himself, his equal, in her. At last he was grown up. A man leaves father and mother and becomes one flesh with his wife.
But at this wedding, the happy couple are different. The Groom has wounds in his hands and heart. He lives as one who has been slain. James of Serugh continues: What husband but our Lord ever died for his wife? What husband ever poured out his blood for his bride. And this reception is different. Here it's not wedding cake and champagne. James goes on At what other wedding is the Bridegroom distributed to the guests in the form of bread and wine?
"Till death do us part" are the words we use. But in this wedding, death does not part the Bride and Groom, quite the opposite. It joins them together. Indeed it is as it were the marriage service itself. The Paschal Mystery of the Bridegroom, the dying and rising, is itself the wedding, as we sing in the Easter Vigil service, this is the night When heaven is wedded to earth and man is reconciled with God.
In the beginning says Jesus. In the beginning God created. In the beginning was the Word. "In the beginning" means that the "one flesh," the mystery of marriage, is something that flows directly from the Creator, and predates the falling from grace. The prayer of Blessing in the wedding service says that Marriage is The one blessing not forfeited by original sin, nor washed away in the Flood.
Jesus' marriage vows to the Church, his Bride, are his words inaugurating the Mystery of his dying and rising which we offer in the Eucharist: Take this, all of you and eat it; drink this, all of you. This is my Body; this is the cup of my blood. And the Church, the Bride, accepts this promise and in her turn replies with just the one word that says it all. Amen.
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