wedding
Facets
Fr. Peter Robinson
Preached: January 19, 2025
- In fact, many people here right now are wearing a piece of jewellery of some sort a gem in it
- Facets are the tiny, little faces that have been cut into the gem
- The facets allow the stone to reflect light better
- And each of the different types of facets has its own function
- As a gem with multiple facets
- To shine out for us — 2000 years later
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- Betrothal — formally, the couple was considered legally married but did not live together
- Marriage Contract — this legally binding document outlined the groom’s responsibilities towards the bride
- Bridal Price — the groom’s family paid a sum of money (or its equivalent) to the bride’s family (which was returned to her if the marriage failed)
- Wedding Feast — this could last up to seven days
- Procession — the bride would be escorted to the groom’s home on the final evening of the feast, with torches and great fanfare
- Consummation — the couple would then live together as husband and wife
- The family of the bride is horrified, and someone tells Mary
- She brings their problem to Jesus — who solves it (with a miracle)
- “Do whatever he tells you”
- We see her again, but she never speaks again
– Her last words in the Bible? “Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you”
III. Facet 3 > that ancient wedding serves as a sign (as St. John calls it) of that final wedding feast of God and his people
- It will mean joy, belonging, delight … beyond imagination
- In an arid land, water was the sign of life and was precious
– Just so, the Law of God is precious to us, and it gives life
- (Bear in mind, there would have been over 400 litres of wine in Jesus’ miracle)
- We will dine upon Christ himself
- Rather than wine, he will offer us his very blood
How Is Jesus The “Bridegroom”?
32nd Sunday Ordinary Time
Fr. Peter Robinson
Preached: November 12, 2023
We are all familiar with weddings in our Western culture. We begin observing weddings as children. I still remember my younger sisters in our living room, pretending that they were in a wedding. And many here have been married. As a former Anglican minister, I am married myself.
That said, we need some help from anthropologists to understand the wedding Jesus talks about in Matthew 13. Weddings in the Jewish culture of 1st century Palestine were different.
You see, the principal moment of a wedding (in that age) was not when the bride comes down the aisle. (A priest shared with me a few years ago that he was preparing a couple for their wedding, and the young woman kept referring to the aisle as the “runway.”) In Jesus’ day, the principle moment was when the groom went to fetch the bride from her parents’ house — to take her to his own house; which he may have built himself, by the way. The torches Jesus speaks of would have been olive-oil-soaked rags, flaming on the end of a stick. The torches ushered the groom to the bride’s residence, and later, the couple back to their new home.
In his story, St Matthew (who loves clear, black-and-white details), is not pointing out that all the bridesmaids went to sleep. Rather, he’s claiming that only some had brought oil with which to soak the rags. Only some were prepared to wait for the bridegroom, coming for his bride.
Now what do we make of this, in our culture 2000 years later? For Matthew, the flaming torches and olive oil can be understood as a stock of good works … with which we await Jesus’ Second Coming some day. Matthew’s main point is about due preparation, an appropriate making ready. In Jesus’ parable, it’s not that half of the girls did not have enough oil. Rather, half of them simply did not have any oil. No wonder the rags went out. In fact, without oil the rags would not even light properly.
So Matthew, who’s referencing Jesus, makes a single-point parable. That point? We need to be preparing for the final wedding day. In Jesus’ teaching, remember, a wedding feast was the metaphor of the joys of our Lord’s “eternal kingdom.” It is the joyful moment of the wedding of the Lord to his bride (the Church) at the end of this age. So, we need to be prepared for the glorious return of our Lord, filling the skies with his light.
As I close, then, let’s briefly think about good works. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (¶ 2516) teaches us that morally good works are the result of submission to the will of God. Good works are the spiritual fruits that grow from our relationship with God, through Jesus — they are NOT due to our effort alone.
In other words, good works are the virtues that grow in our lives as we trust our Lord; as we receive the sacraments; as we obey God’s will. Good works are the saving action of the Holy Spirit in your life, and mine. Bad works, on the other hand, are the vices, the result of resisting God’s will. Bad works are the rejection of the saving action of the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, in just a few minutes while the altar is prepared for the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and still later as you come to Jesus in the communion line, let me encourage you to do a brief examination of the quality of the good works in your life. Are you preparing, day by year by decade, to welcome Jesus, the bridegroom? When the skies split open, and he comes for you and his beloved bride, the Church, will you be watching?