Dear Friends,

I have been a priest for 28 years. In that time I have seen a number of changes. Some of those changes have been for the better, many changes have not. One of the bigger changes has been the number of weddings that I celebrate during any given year. The first year that I was a priest I witnessed over 40 weddings.  Last year, by comparison, Saint Joseph had 6 weddings and Saint Mary had 13. That is less than half of what I did in one parish. This is one of the changes that have not been for the better. 
 
 There are a number of reasons for the sharp drop in numbers. We, as a society, have continued to become more secularized. Many weddings will now take place in banquet halls, on beaches, or at fancy destinations. There no longer is that sense of obligation that once virtually required people to come to the Church. Therefore, when a couple approaches me to witness their marriage in the Church, I believe that it means that they are saying something about what they want their marriage to be; what they hope for their marriage to become. 
 
 We believe that a Christian marriage is a covenant. Covenant is a word that is used in the JudeoChristian Tradition to describe a special relationship. It is the word that is used to describe the relationship that God has chosen to have with us.  We see covenants throughout the Scriptures. There is the covenant made with Abraham where God forms a relationship with the Hebrews. There is the renewal of that covenant with Moses when God frees his people from slavery and leads them, eventually, into their own land. There is the greatest covenant of all, the incarnation. Here God does more than call us into relationship or free us from slavery. In the incarnation God becomes one of us, transforming our very nature so that we can become like Him. So we see that, in a covenant, God does something great: He calls us into relationship, He frees us, and He gives us the gift of eternal life. God doesn’t do these things because we have earned them, because we can’t, they are priceless. God does what he does because God loves us and wants us to be more than we can ever be on our own. 
 
 When a couple, then, comes to me for marriage, this is what I think they are saying. They want their marriage to be a covenant. They want their marriage to remind everyone they meet of who our God is and how much God loves us. A couple that chooses to come into the Church to celebrate their marriage is asking for God’s grace to help them live a covenant relationship. They are deciding to make their marriage a gift to the rest of us; allowing God to use their love as a way of bringing his grace, his presence into the world. Let us pray for all those couples who have made this choice, and let us pray that more couples will do the same. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
God Bless, 
Fr. Jack  Graham