One of the joys of being a priest or a bishop is celebrating weddings and the renewal of wedding vows of couples who have been married for many years.
There can be a kind of radiance to these couples; it’s as if the love of God and the love of the husband and the wife is shining through them. Sometimes when I’m with these couples I think: This is what love looks like when you give yourself to someone else for a lifetime. It is truly beautiful.
We’re calling it “Radiate Love” and our purpose is to inspire a new reflection on the joy and beauty of marriage, on the blessings of children and family, and on the importance of marriage and family for the health of individuals and the well-being of society.
We have created a website, and there you will find resources you can use in your homes and in your parishes and ministries, including practical advice for strengthening marriages and families and spiritual reflections from my brother bishops. The site will be updated often, so I encourage you to sign up for the latest resources.
My hope is that this new initiative will help all of us in the church to grow in wonder and awe at this mystery. We need to realize again that when a man and a woman are married their lives become part of something greater, part of God’s mysterious plan of love for creation.
The sacred scriptures begin with the marriage of Adam and Eve in the garden and end with the wedding of Jesus Christ and his bride, the church.
From the beginning of creation until the end of history, God’s plan is to create, from out of all the peoples of the earth, a single family, the family of God.
The mystery of marriage is the key to that plan, and marriage reveals the meaning and destiny of the human person.
The Catechism says, “The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator.”
We are made for love, each of us created in the image of God who is love. And in the love of husband and wife, we are given a glimpse of the love that is in the heart of the Blessed Trinity.
Marriage is a human institution, but in the Lord, marriage is much more than that.
Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding, turning water into wine. Now every marriage is something sacred, something holy, a human love that shares in a love divine.
When a man and a woman become husband and wife, Jesus joins their two lives together and makes them one in a friendship of love that he intends to last forever.
The separate roads that this man and woman have been walking now become a single path that they walk following Jesus, one road that will lead them to heaven.
Marriage is truly a great mystery. It is also a vocation, a calling from the Lord.
Walking with Jesus, the couple’s love grows and deepens day by day, and their lives are called to enter into the mystery of God’s plan of love for creation and for his human family.
Jesus calls the married couple to live their love until parted by death. He calls them to give themselves in love and to renew the face of the earth with children, who are the fruits of their love and the precious love of our Creator.
Love is always fruitful, always life-giving. And married love is always open to the beautiful possibility of bringing new life into the world.
“They are no longer two, but one flesh,” the acriptures tell us. In this bond of love, the couple participates in the mystery of the creator’s love, with God they bring forth sons and daughters made in his image and likeness.
Every child comes as a gift and a responsibility. God entrusts parents with the duty to raise their children up to know Jesus and to follow his path for their life, so that they, too, can play their part in God’s beautiful plan for creation.
Pray for me and I will pray for you.
And let us ask our Blessed Mother Mary to help us to raise up a new generation in the church that will radiate love, that will know that being married and having children is a great adventure and a mission of love! And a beautiful way to live your life.
Most Rev. José H. Gomez is the archbishop of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest Catholic community. He served as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2019- to 2022.
