Mass for Marriage and the Family

Celebrated By Archbishop Denis Hart
at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne
on Sunday, 10th September at 11.00am

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This morning’s Gospel centres on Jesus healing a deaf mute.  His words, ‘be opened’, are a challenge to all of us to be open to God’s Word, that we may hear and proclaim it.

Today we celebrate the great gift of marriage and family in the Church and we gather into our prayers at this Mass those who will renew their marriage vows in thanksgiving for 25, 40, 50 or more years of faithful love, being open to each other.

In a society where 40% of recent marriages seem to fail it is vital that we recognise the importance of personal commitment to ongoing love and openness to the power of God to sustain that love in people who give themselves completely to it in a love that is unitive, fruitful and ongoing.

As we call to mind our sins, let us join with the prayers of thanksgiving uttered today.

Homily

“He has done all things well.  He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”  (Mark 7:37)

Dear Friends,

As children in Christ with true freedom, open to his inheritance, the words of Scripture echo in our hearts.  “Courage!  Do not be afraid!  Look, your God is coming!  Vengeance is coming!  The retribution of God; he is coming to save you.”  (Isaiah 35:4-7)  God’s support is because he keeps faith forever.  Whether we are oppressed, hungry, bowed down or suffering; it is the Lord who loves us and will do great things through the healing that he brings.

Every human being has their origin in a family and it is well, as we think of the call of God and the healing he provides, of the vocation, which he gives to all.  The Holy Father said on 8th July at the World Meeting of Families, “The family is a necessary good for peoples, an indispensable foundation for society and a great and lifelong treasure for couples.  It is a unique good for children, who are meant to be the fruit of the love … of their parents.  To proclaim the whole truth about the family, based on marriage as a domestic church and as a sanctuary of life, is a great responsibility incumbent on all.”
 
In her Catechism the Church reminds us that “God, who is love and who created man and woman for love, has called them to love.  By creating man and woman he called them to an intimate communion of life and love in marriage so they are no longer two but one flesh.”  What the married couples here today know is that there is no love without the cross.  The suffering, which comes from putting aside my own individual will and taking up what is for the good of the whole family, and the suffering of walking with one whom we love, who is burdened and in pain, is something which in itself draws us to the deeper purposes that God intended to enable a married couple always to be there, not for self, but for each other.  Parents for each other and for children, children for parents, looking beyond the individual events into the fact that God has given me these parents, these children as the ones in whom his love is made present in my part of the world at this time.

Indeed, Pope John Paul II said in 1979, “Man has been made in the image and likeness of God, not only by his being human, but by the communion of the persons that man and woman have formed since the beginning.  They become the image of God, not so much in their aloneness as in their communion.”

As we thank God for the faithfulness and the special gifts of those who are with us today, let us remember that the family is an intermediate institution between individuals and society and nothing can completely take its place.  The family is based on a deep interpersonal relationship between husband and wife, sustained by affection and mutual understanding.  To enable this, it receives abundant help from God in the Sacrament of Marriage, which brings with it a true vocation to holiness. 

It is important that our children experience the harmony and affection between their parents, rather than discord.  Since the love between father and mother is a source of great security for children and it teaches them the beauty of a fruitful and lasting love.

Dear friends, we pray for the family as a domestic church and a sanctuary of life.  Father and mother have said a complete “yes” in the sight of God, which constitutes the basis of the Sacrament, which joins them together. 

Likewise, for the inner relationship of the family to be complete, they also need to say a yes of acceptance to the children whom they have given birth to or adopted and each of which has their own personality and character.  The climate of acceptance and love is absolutely vital.  When Jesus said this is my commandment, “Love one another, as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13); we remember that God is the source and author of all good. 

Together with passing on the faith and the love of God one of the great responsibilities of families is that of training free and responsible persons and for that reason parents need to give their children greater freedom, while remaining for some times the guardians of that freedom.  If children see that their parents and more generally all adults around them live life with joy and enthusiasm, despite all the difficulties, they will develop that profound joy of life which can help them to overcome wisely the inevitable obstacles and problems which are part of life. 

In the midst of the challenges of life, marriage is a grace-filled institution founded upon prayer, upon self-sacrifice, and upon the mutual interdependence of parents, one for another, and parents and children for each other.

May this great gift, healing as it is, as we have seen in the Gospel, bring parents and children to the fullness of life, which God has intended.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne