In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Christ is risen!
Our world, dear brothers and sisters, sees marriage as an inward act: “I will marry someone who completes me, who helps in my journey of self-discovery, whom I find attractive, who will be there for me and help me through life.” And those who follow this system will go out, or gaze into their phones as if they were crystal balls, with a list, a set of requirements, which have to be met. “He must be good looking, earn well, be funny … she must be beautiful, reliable, a good cook, …” But this is all self-centred, egotistical, narcissistic: it is all about lust, covetousness and fulfilling erotic and other desires yet is far from what love is, true love, what Christian love is.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
— First Corinthians 13:4–8
And we hear from the Lord what it is to love.
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
— John 15:13
For a marriage to be Christian and not according to the standards of this world, it is not an inward act—to complete myself—but an act of giving, of sacrifice, of loving in the Christian sense: here is a person whom I can honour and serve daily, whom I can raise up when he is down, with whom I can rejoice when she is joyful, whom I can learn to love as Christ has loved me and so as we together grow in love we may, together, conform ourselves to Christ and enter the Kingdom as one. This is the meaning of our identity, it is not an inward self-discovery: our identity is only truly found when we look outwards and form relationships based on giving, sharing, serving. Marriage is “learning to stop being so self-centred,” which is the path of all Christians whether married or single.
Our world is seeking identity and purpose, it has married itself to whatever religion or ideology it thinks will provide meaning. But everything it has attached itself to has died, has gone away, has proved itself to lack the purpose of marriage because the religions and ideologies were centred on themselves and not on the human race. And now our world has attached itself to secularism, but is so unsure of it that it is not truly attached to it, married to it: “You are right,” says the Lord to the world, “in saying, ‘I have no husband;’ for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.” And this He says to you and he says to me. Because the Lord has come into the world—and has come to us—not to justify us, not to count us as already worthy, but to offer Himself to us despite our many failings: “I am the living Bread which came down from Heaven,” Christ tells us,
If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever; and the Bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the Life of the world.
— John 6:51
Our religions to which we have joined ourselves, our ideologies which we have proclaimed, are dying because they all lead to death: yet, Behold, Christ the Bridegroom comes and espouses Himself to the Church, to us, “for the Life of the world.” And we—who are faithful to His Name, (John 1:12) who have been drawn to Him (John 12:32)—are called to love Him through His Church because we are ourselves His Body, His Church, His Bride, His Beloved. And in our love for Him, our service to Him, we leave aside our own water jar, which is to say our cares of this life, and
[go] away into the city and [say] to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord completes and perfects His union with us on the Cross—“Τετέλεσται, consummatum est, it is completed”(John 19:30)—and in so doing we are joined to Him,
[D]o you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death?
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of Life.
— Romans 6:3–4
Let us then, dear brothers and sisters, love as He has taught us to love, serve as He has served us, that our marriage bonds may be preserved and we may present ourselves to Him on the Last Day, in purity and in love.
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’
All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
saying: ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom,
Thanksgiving and honour and power and might,
Be to our God forever and ever.
Amen.’
— Revelation 7:9–12
In those days, those apostles who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number that believed turned to the Lord. News of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a large company was added to the Lord. So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church, and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians. Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabos stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world; and this took place in the days of Claudius. And the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brethren who lived in Judea, and they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
— Acts 11:19–30
At that time, Jesus came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was with his journey, sat down beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink, ‘ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal Life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and Truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ); when he comes, he will show us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he. Just then his disciples came. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but none said, “What do you wish?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar, and went away into the city and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him food?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal Life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour; others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour. Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of your words that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that this is indeed Christ the Saviour of the world.
— John 4:5–42