Lisa Hendey
This Sunday started like any other one… but the fact that I was home for Mass at my parish for the first time in over a month was cause for a mini celebration. And I don’t say that lightly! I’m in love with my parish, my pastor is amazing, and very few things in life are more joy-filled for me than the opportunity to receive the Eucharist with my husband.
I never take that last thing for granted. Although Greg and I were married in 1986 in a Catholic wedding at the University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Greg was not yet Catholic. It’s been almost twelve years since he came into full communion with the Church via RCIA. But the joy of my husband not only being at Mass–but also witnessing him fully participating–is never something I take for granted. Ironically, we sit separately each Sunday since Greg is a part of our music ministry.
So this morning, when our pastor surprised us by inviting all of the married couples in the parish to stand and renew our vows, I panicked a little bit. I was in my usual spot in the fourth row. Greg was up on the altar. As we looked across the distance at each other and smiled, Msgr. Rob looked over at Greg and said, “Go ahead, get down there!” Then he called out to me, “But you have to send him back up here when we’re done, Lisa!” The parish giggled with us as I climbed over bodies to make my way to the side aisle.
Standing facing my husband, our hands clasped, we spoke the words we’d first recited on May 31, 1986. I felt my hand shaking, tears flowed freely down my face, and my smile mirrored the one I wore so many years ago. Twenty-nine years later, after so many amazing experiences, I love this man more than ever. Our bodies have changed. Our hearts have too. And while we may have taken our vows way back then with very little sense of what we were getting ourselves into, today we said, “I do” fully cognizant of some of what “for better or worse” really means.
When the moment was over, we kissed and Greg went back to his spot. I returned to the pew, wishing I’d had some tissue to wipe away the happy tears that kept spilling all the way through the offertory. I wished for a moment that our boys could have been there too, or my parents or Greg’s mom. And then I prayed for my husband–in thanksgiving for the amazing man he is and for his continued health and well-being in whatever years are ahead of us. God has blessed us so very greatly. I’m more aware of that with every passing day.
Instead of a reception and cake, we came home to hot coffee and household errands to be done. And perhaps that’s fitting as we remember what it truly means to be sacramentally married. It’s not about photos or gifts. It’s about a lifetime of growing towards one another and mutually towards God.
The Church celebrates today World Marriage Sunday–showing the fundamental importance of marriage and the family to the life of Christianity. The communion of persons that is formed by a baptized husband and wife is a Sacrament, an icon, and a reflection of the communion of Persons that is the Holy Trinity. Marriage is fundamentally about a life of communion, sacramental communion in the case of baptized spouses. Not that any married couples have achieved perfect communion. Rather, marriage is the training ground, the discipline, and the school for growing toward that communion. This is a key attitude for a successful marriage.
This week, we are all invited to participate in a weeklong “National Marriage Week Retreat”. Learn more here and find great resources to support your vocation to marriage at ForYourMarriage.org.
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