Andrea and Sandro, I am so pleased to be here at your wedding today. Over the past eight years, I have watched your relationship grow and deepen despite all that life has thrown at you. The two of you have made it through school, and more school, personal family loss, long- distance commuting to see each other, and through it all you have been an incredible support for one another. Your love and commitment for one another has continued to grow.
Which is, after all, the point of today - to celebrate your love and commitment - surrounded by your family and friends, and most importantly, to do so before God. As much as today is about the two of you, and your love for one another, the church ceremony part is also about God's love for the two of you, and God's commitment to you.
You see, God is at the root of your love for each other, whether you recognize it or not. You love because God first loved you. You are able to love intensely and passionately because that is how God loves you. You are able to stand here today before your family and friends and before God and make a life-long commitment to one another because God has already made that commitment to you. God brought the two of you together, and will stand by you as you go forward in marriage, strengthening and upholding your relationship, because of God's incredible love for you.
Which is a good thing because the love that you are called to in marriage, the love that you are committing to always having for one another, can be a challenge. Carlo read that "love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." That's a lot! And although today I know you feel like it is a piece of cake, and you will have no problem promising to love each other that way forever, there will one day be a time when you'll be arguing over who does more housework, or where to spend the holidays, and this kind of love will seem far away. But, because God's love for you is the root of your love for each other, you will be able to overcome those differences and continue to fulfill your promises to each other.
You see, your love for each other is a reflection and conduit of God's love for you, and being open to each other's love opens you up to God's love for you, and vice versa. The best analogy I could come up with for how your love in marriage and God's love for you works together is to say that it is a positive feed-back loop. Now, forgive me if I get the feedback idea wrong, since I'm not the engineer here, but it's a little like this: the more open you are to God's love for you, the more you love each other. And the more you love each other, the more open you become to God's love for you. It is a cycle where the love between the two of you and God continues to increase and build each time around.
And in the end, what happens is that all of this love spills out into the world around you. A marriage blessed by God not only increases the love between the two of you, but it also increases the love you have for the rest of the world, for your family, your friends, your neighbours. And that's what counts, in the long run. Not how successful you are, how much money you make, or how great your jobs are, but how much you share your love with those around you. And that's how I know that God is already blessing you, because you're already doing this. The feedback loop has already started.
Sandro and Andrea, I know that I am only one of many who is thrilled and proud to be celebrating this day with you. Today you are committing to a life-long partnership of love, and you are receiving God's blessing on that partnership. You are already off to a great start. So I have just one wish for you, as you start your new life together: May your love in every way become more and more a reflection of God's love for you, passionate, committed, and without end. Amen.
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