Kindle In Us The Fire of Your Love ...and You Shall Renew the Face of the Earth
Sermon
ROSES, RINGS & REJOICING
The world in which we live
is a fragmented and broken world.
The world created by God to be a beautiful garden,
a paradise for man and woman has become,
for many people,
a place of hunger and pain,
a place of war and oppression.
But today,
whatever brokenness lies in the world,
whatever pain discolors our pasts,
begins to fade and dim
in the light of this wedding.
For today, in the marriage of ____ and ____,
we see an image of what the world was meant to be.
Today we celebrate a new beginning,
a new harmony,
a new bond of love
as ____ and ____ vow to live,
for the rest of their lives,
as husband and wife.
We are happy for them,
but we can also be happy for ourselves
because their marriage is a reminder to us
that God's love does indeed reach into our broken world,
healing it,
binding up its wounds,
bringing it new life.
We all know how love needs to be expressed
if it is to be real.
A gift of flowers,
the words, "I love you"
are simple ways in which
this invisible thing called love
enters into the world of sight and sound.
So it is with God's love.
The sacrament of marriage brings into our world
an image of the otherwise invisible love of God.
In face, ____ and ____ marriage
is, for all who have eyes to see,
a beautiful stained glass window
into which we can gaze
and be reminded of the presence of God who is love.
Today, their love becomes a window
into the very heart of God.
This is how God picks up the broken pieces of the world
and welds them together like chunks of glass
to form an image of "the love beyond all imagining."
____ and ____ , may the colors of your love
be always bright and clear so that God's
light may shine through,
giving beauty and hope
to an otherwise grey and cloudy world.
When we, your family and friends and parish
look at you, we will see more than you realize.
As you honor and adore each other's
beauty and talents and strengths,
we will be reminded
that such is the reverence with which
we reverence the Lord
and the Lord reverences us.
As you encourage and support each other
in being all that God calls you to be,
as you discover depths of love and patience
within yourselves,
the rest of us will recall
the nurturing love of the Spirit
who lives in all of us.
As you forgive each other, as you pray together,
as you share your goods with the needy,
in whose faces you find the face of Christ,
we shall
in turn see him in you as well ...
a face of light and beauty and peace,
much like your faces today,
the day on which you unite your love
with the love of Christ,
a love with strength and beauty
shining forth from your faces of joy,
a love with the power
to renew the face of the earth.
— James M. Schmitmeyer
Mt. St. Mary's Seminary of the West
Cincinnati, Ohio
is a fragmented and broken world.
The world created by God to be a beautiful garden,
a paradise for man and woman has become,
for many people,
a place of hunger and pain,
a place of war and oppression.
But today,
whatever brokenness lies in the world,
whatever pain discolors our pasts,
begins to fade and dim
in the light of this wedding.
For today, in the marriage of ____ and ____,
we see an image of what the world was meant to be.
Today we celebrate a new beginning,
a new harmony,
a new bond of love
as ____ and ____ vow to live,
for the rest of their lives,
as husband and wife.
We are happy for them,
but we can also be happy for ourselves
because their marriage is a reminder to us
that God's love does indeed reach into our broken world,
healing it,
binding up its wounds,
bringing it new life.
We all know how love needs to be expressed
if it is to be real.
A gift of flowers,
the words, "I love you"
are simple ways in which
this invisible thing called love
enters into the world of sight and sound.
So it is with God's love.
The sacrament of marriage brings into our world
an image of the otherwise invisible love of God.
In face, ____ and ____ marriage
is, for all who have eyes to see,
a beautiful stained glass window
into which we can gaze
and be reminded of the presence of God who is love.
Today, their love becomes a window
into the very heart of God.
This is how God picks up the broken pieces of the world
and welds them together like chunks of glass
to form an image of "the love beyond all imagining."
____ and ____ , may the colors of your love
be always bright and clear so that God's
light may shine through,
giving beauty and hope
to an otherwise grey and cloudy world.
When we, your family and friends and parish
look at you, we will see more than you realize.
As you honor and adore each other's
beauty and talents and strengths,
we will be reminded
that such is the reverence with which
we reverence the Lord
and the Lord reverences us.
As you encourage and support each other
in being all that God calls you to be,
as you discover depths of love and patience
within yourselves,
the rest of us will recall
the nurturing love of the Spirit
who lives in all of us.
As you forgive each other, as you pray together,
as you share your goods with the needy,
in whose faces you find the face of Christ,
we shall
in turn see him in you as well ...
a face of light and beauty and peace,
much like your faces today,
the day on which you unite your love
with the love of Christ,
a love with strength and beauty
shining forth from your faces of joy,
a love with the power
to renew the face of the earth.
— James M. Schmitmeyer
Mt. St. Mary's Seminary of the West
Cincinnati, Ohio
