The Day I Preached at the Wedding of Two Friends

In January 2004, Stonehill College Chapel Choir embarked on its first European singing tour to Rome, Italy. Throughout the tour, we experienced the ubiquitous displays of this ancient metropolis that arouses all of the senses and stirs the imagination. During a visit to Nicola Salvi’s wondrous creation the Trevi Fountain, I stood near a senior on the tour and remarked on the historical romance of this extraordinary combination of art and aqueduct. We both became aware of several young couples star gaze into each other’s eyes as they sat on the wall in front of this most theatrical masterpiece. The senior, contemplating what the future held in store for her, as all seniors do, mused as we stood and gazed at the various Tritons, “This is where I want my future husband to propose to me.” (I will give you three guesses on the identity of that senior, who I will call, for the sake of this reflection, Tiara.)
Deemed a complete success, the Chapel Choir once again embarked on a second singing tour of Italy in January 2008. By this time, Tiara, now in love with one of those salt-of-the-earth guys who any woman would be privileged and fortunate to claim as ‘the one’, traveled once again with the singing tour as a chapel choir alum, and accompanied by salt-of-the-earth guy, who turned out, as it happens, to be quite a decent tenor. In a conversation prior to the tour, Tiara pondered the possibility of a marriage proposal. “I wonder if it will happen in Italy.” Remembering her remark at the Trevi Fountain several years earlier, I wondered the same thing and became caught up in the great theater that this possibility would create on our tour. (I am, after all, a woman and not made of stone.) After being reassured in a very hush-hush conversation at Christmas time with Salt-of-the-Earth Guy, I knew that the blessed moment would indeed take place on our singing tour in January.
Salt-of-the-Earth-Guy, however, did not reveal the day, time or place that the proposal would occur. Despite this small detail, I shared the exciting news with some members of the tour, and so from the beginning of our excursion, we lived, to coin a phrase, on pins and needles, waiting with bated breath for what seemed to be more eternal than the eternal city.
We contemplated marriage as we toured the Vatican museums and Michaelangelo’s magnanimous art in the Sistine Chapel. We contemplated marriage while studying the incredible beauty of the Pieta and looking intently at Pope John’s immortal remains in St. Peter’s Basilica. We contemplated marriage in the Piazza Navona eating gelato, Tiara’s favorite food, and we continued to contemplate marriage at the wall of the Trevi Fountain (I actually prayed at the feet of Neptune for this), and we contemplated marriage while gazing up at the oculus in the Pantheon. Surely it would here! What opulent drama – a proposal of marriage surrounded by the tomb of the artist Raphael and several kings! And just like Yukon Cornelius in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as he continued his quest for gold in the frozen North, we got nothin’. We wondered if everything was alright with Tiara and Salt-of-the-Earth Guy, but I managed to reassure everyone that Salt-of-the-Earth Guy knew what he was about and to expect the unexpected at any time. Stay alert, be watchful, pay attention, I told them. Good generals plan strategies and secret them away until the moment of attack. Clever bridegrooms are no different. I promptly forgot my words in Assisi, the home of several saints that include St. Francis and St. Clare.
Assisi looks very much like a tiny medieval town that time forgot. The narrow lanes, massive gates, Etruscan stone buildings, churches and olive groves set high on a hill capture the imagination, like something out of an Umbrian story land village in a Tommy DePaolo children’s book. Assisi claims Italy’s patron saint, Francis, as its own. Called the Little Poor One because he lived and preached a life of simplicity and poverty, the spirit of Francis permeates Assisi, in the lifestyle of the people who live there, and in the shops of the village and the homes that line the town’s winding roads and lanes. Along with Francis, the town also lays claim to Clare, the founder of the Poor Clares, who followed Frances and began an order of women who espoused the life that Francis led.
After a tour of the Basilica of St. Francis, the choir sang for Mass in one of the small chapels and then went on to visit the Basilica Santa Chiara, which houses St. Clare’s artifacts and the famed Cross of San Damiano. The Basilica of Santa Chiara is fronted by a terrace-like piazza with views over which overlooks a stunning vista of village and valley. The beauty of both the interior and exterior of this Gothic church can literally take your breath away. I suggested to my husband that we visit a small gift shop across the piazza and purchase a Christmas ornament so that we could remember this timeless place of gentle spirituality and peace. A marriage proposal was the last thing on my mind. We could not have been in that little shop for more than five minutes and just paying for our little purchase when a student came to find us and said, “Quick! Come out now! It’s happening now, right now!” We rushed out of the shop to see Salt-of-the-Earth Guy on one knee, proposing marriage to his Tiara at the edge of the terrace, while the rest of the choir gathered to witness the blessed event. That settles it; when you’re looking left, the oncoming train is approaching from the right. Keep your eyes on the road; you never know what's coming down the pike. (Salt of the Earth Guy told me later that he really did look for me before deciding to pop the question, but when I was nowhere to be found, he decided to move forward - thanks be to God.)
And here we are.
When Jess and Paul asked me to offer this reflection, my musings produced several truisms and I offer them today as food for thought for the next 50 years, because this wedding comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Relationships,like recipes, contain principle ingredients that everything else builds upon.
Essential to life and good health, salt is critical to metabolism. It may also be used to cleanse wounds, banish a sore throat in a pinch (remember those famous salt water gargles your mother used when you were la sick little kid? Take that, H1N1.), and keeps us afloat when we swim in the ocean. Salt seasons food and has the potential to make ordinary fruit and vegetables (like tomatoes and popcorn) into gastronomical fare. In a word, salt changes things.
Today, Jesus tells us, his disciples, that we are the salt of the earth. What does that mean for us here today, celebrating a wedding? Just this: that marriage, when lived within a cooperative spirit with the grace of God, changes us. Jess and Paul, with your consent to love, honor and commit to life with each other throughout good times, bad times, sickness and health, you open yourselves to be changed by something bigger than yourselves – to see things in a different way, to live your lives within grace as it constantly unfolds within your daily living. This change goes to the heart of how you'll see yourselves, not only today, but throughout the years, until one day, you'll realize that you've become the other, while retaining those wonderful characteristics that made you fall in love with each other in the first place. As you become salt for each other, your relationship becomes stronger, more seasoned, healthy, vibrant and becomes a vital sign of grace for all of us, and for everyone who will encounter you over the years. Like salt, you have the power to effect all who will come to know you because you have allowed yourselves to be transformed by grace. That's what Jesus meant when he described his followers as the salt of the earth. Sacraments, like salt, change us. Jess and Paul, this life-giving grace that you celebrate today through the gracious love of God will cleanse and heal you when you hurt, keep you afloat when you feel that you may be sinking with the ship, carry you in the joys and sorrows ahead of you, and act as the primary building block of your relationship for you and for your children and your children's children.
The verb 'to be' pretty much sums up Christian marriage.
In the opening song of this liturgy, we sang about the key ingredients necessary for any successful relationship, particularly between a man and woman who fall in love and dare to risk their hearts in this all- encompassing lifetime work of marriage. In his beloved and well -known prayer, St. Francis of Assisi doesn't ask God for peace, or faith, or pardon or understanding. Francis prays to be a channel of peace, a conduit of the grace of God. Francis asks God to grant him the simple faith necessary to be the hope in the midst of someone's despair, like when the bills seems to add up faster than the paychecks and the boiler lets go unexpectedly. Francis doesn't ask to be understood; rather, he knows that we require the grace of God to be consolation during the times when an aging parent seems to be getting far more attention than your wife, or that vacation that you were planning needs to take a back seat because your husband came down with the flu just when you were about to pick up your bags and head out the door. Francis doesn't ask God for love. Instead, Francis prays to be the ardor in the face of someone's rejection, like the job promotion that you were counting on to help pay for the new addition on the house that went instead to the boss's niece. Grant that I may be, Lord, the joy in the midst of someone's sorrow, like when you gain twenty five pounds instead of losing them. Francis petitions God to allow him to be the light for someone living in the darkness of grief when a loved one dies, or when kids break your heart over one thing or another. Francis knew that the greatest dramas are rarely found on stage or screen but discovered in the ordinary events of everyday life. Francis knew that we need the grace of God to become the compassion and love that sustains and nurtures us through the living and the dying and the rising again, Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is indeed love. To be the love you've promised today, Jess and Paul, is to be that joy and compassion for each other, a light that shines before others, as Jesus indicates today in Matthew's gospel, so that we, the people in this church today who love you, can always see your light, so that it can shine for us, too, in our all of our relationships, as we strive to live holy lives, the call of all Christians. And what better way than to partner with that person who makes you laugh, holds you when you weep, gives you hope when you feel there's no hope left in the world, and understands you better than you know yourself. Francis said, “Preach the gospel; when necessary, use words.” He got it right. And Paul, you got it right, proposing in Assisi. And Jess got it right when she gave up her tiara and her dream of a marriage proposal at the foot of a glorious fountain and told Salt of the Earth guy that she embraced his decision to ask for her hand on the Piazza Chiara, not the Piazza Tiara. Wise people know that the unexpected turns in the road often lead to the most beautiful views. I think that you, my dear bride and groom, will be salt and light for us all for many years to come. God bless you both.