The Homily from My Wedding

I wonder how many people remember the Homily from their wedding? Because I do. And my Dad remembers the Homily from my wedding. I’m really lucky and blessed. I know that. Because the Priest that married Kathy and I was a family friend – her family. Not many people are so lucky that the Priest marrying them was in the Seminary with two of the bride’s brothers. And played golf and poker with the bride’s father. And as you’ll hear, tutored the bride in math when the bride was in high-school.

I’ve been to lots and lots of weddings and heard many Homilies and none of them are bad, but sometimes they’re forgettable. Not this one. It was personal … as you’ll hear.

You can skip this next part if you only want to hear the Homily and read along with the transcript …it’s a little tough to hear. This is audio ripped from a VHS tape that my friend Tim recorded as our volunteer videographer-slash-wedding guest using our other friend, Dave’s, camcorder.

I’ve heard for years that the single largest religious group in the United States are Catholics. And the second largest? Fallen-away Catholics. I can’t prove that’s true, but it makes sense just from the eyeball test and looking at my friends and family and those raised Catholic … and how Catholicky they are, now. And I can only imagine what my 82-year-old Dad and 86-year-old Father-in-Law see when they look around Church on Sunday and think about how Catholic Churches looked in the 50s and 60s compared to now.

I’m not saying I’m a perfect Catholic or even good at being Catholic. I think that’s why I say, “I’m a practicing Catholic.” I want to be better tomorrow than I was yesterday. But I’m proud to be Catholic. I know full well the knocks against Catholicism and the Church, but being Catholic, for me, is like being proud of my Polish heritage. My religion ties me to my family. To my parents. To my grandparents (especially my Grandma Kowalewski). And ties me to great grandparents and long distance relatives from generations ago, that I’ve never met, but the traditions bind us.

Growing up in Sterling Heights, Michigan . . . I’m not kidding. I didn’t realize that there were people who weren’t Catholic. Where I grew up, in the early ’80s, our Church had too many parishioners, in fact, so we had to build another Catholic Church 1 1/2 miles from our Church and if you lived north of a certain street, you had to change parishes simply by the geography of your home.

I should also be honest. I didn’t like being forced to go to Church. But I went. Because that’s what Catholics do.

Then, when I was in high-school, we moved from the Detroit area to the Grand Rapids area and we never found a Church we loved. We started skipping Mass. And skipping Mass was actually skipping family time .. the getting-ready-for-Church … the going to Church. The talking about Church, the Homily, and gossiping after Church and, usually, skipping Mass meant skipping breakfast as a familiy after Church. It’s not just about Church. It’s about setting aside time every week for family and faith.

My Mom would sometimes say, “my brothers would be so disappointed we’re mising Mass.” And my Dad would say nostalgically, “when I was a kid, we’d never miss Mass for any reason …not even if we were sick. And all the Holy Days of Obligation.”

See. When we moved, we just never found a Parish that made us feel at home, which is tough to do when your old Parish was the Church you grew up in, where all your neighbors went, or that you helped build.

So, the second blessing that came from Father Mark’s Homily was my parents saying, “let’s try Saint Stephens.” And they did. And they loved it. They loved Father Mark. When I would talk with them on the phone, they’d tell me about the Homily. Those two “fallen away Catholics” came all the way back.

I can’t explain why it made me so happy, but it did. I guess because I knew they were both very proud of their Catholic background and upbringing that I knew they weren’t proud of having fallen away.

For me, while I was not the best Catholic, I was marrying one of the best Catholics and so my fallen-away status was also fixed that day and I’m proud to say, 29-years-later, I’m a super Catholic and raised three great Catholics.

OK. Enough about Catholocism and onto the Homily. You’ll hear it for yourself, and it applies to more than algebra and marriages. It’s a lesson in what it takes to have antyhing great. It takes work. We hae to do the work. And Father Marks words echo in my ears often … which is why I wanted to share this May 10th, 1997 Homily on my Podcast.

HOMILY TRANSCRIPT

Well, Don, I must say … you have pretty good taste.

Now how do I say that, tho?

I say that because Kathy and I are soooo similar and I know I’m wonderful.

So you have … you have REALLY good taste.

You see, there’s so many things similar to the two of us

It’s that … she got teaching certificate. I got teaching certificate. She got her Major and Minor in math and history. I got my degrees in math and history. She got a job in Bloomfield Hills. I got a job teaching in Bloomfield Hills. Different schools. Same city.

So all these similarities. Except I’m smarter.

See, I tell that because of a story, right? Kathy knows this story. Back she was in high school, I was at the Bukowski house one night. And, um, she wanted to get some extra credit in math. So who did she ask? Her favorite math teacher. Me! To do the problems … so she could get the extra credit. .Soooo, I sat down with her at the table, and I showed her how to do these problems.

I talked to her a few days later, and she said she was never gonna ask me for help again cause she didn’t get one of the five problems right? How did I know what I was talking about?

And I said, “you finished the problems, didn’t you?”

I said, “I got you started. I showed you how to them. But I wasn’t about to do them for you.

She thought I did it all. I didn’t.

Ya know, I keep … when I was thinking, when I was thinking about preaching today… I always like to come up with some sort of example of what marriage is like. And that’s exactly what marriage is like. It’s that … you’ve got a lot of input into how this marriage is gonna be between the two of you. Your parents have shaped you. Your friends have given you advice. Your families have shown you what love is about. Other people that have been married have given you advice on what to do and what not to do and how to have a happy life.

But you’re the ones who have to put it together.

You’re the ones who have to do the work.

You’re the ones that have to bring it to fulfillment. In order to get that extra credit. In order to really experience the love that God gives you.

If you’re not willing to put in the work. You’re not going to get there.

You can have all the tools that second Reading, Second Corinthians, says if you have “the eloquence of Angels, and you have this and you have that and you have something else, and you have all these wonderful things. But if you don’t grow together in love. It’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna happen.

So you’re here today because you are in love with each other. You’re here today because you’re ready to to live together as husband and wife. You’re here today to pledge you love together. To be able to begin a new life together.

And that’s scary, But it’s also a great joy. Maybe it’s a happy time … because it’s something new that you’re gonna be doing, but it’s really scary too, because as you try to put all this together to try to work through this, this thing called married life, your love’s gonna change.

You talk to anybody here that’s been married for more than a day, they’re gonna tell you that their love is different today than it was when they got married. And that’s good. The worst wish anybody in this Church could wish you today is that you have the same love for each other on your 25th Wedding Anniversary that you do today.

If that’s the case, you haven’t worked

If that’s the case you never lived.

If that’s the case, you’re not gonna be together in 25 years.

And that’s scary because you’re really in love, today. They say, this is great. I’m really happy to be here. You look at each other and say, I really love this other person. This is what it’s all about.

And you say, I really don’t want it to be different. But it’s going to be.

You don’t want it to be, but it’s gonna be even better.

If you’re really, willing and ready and willing to put the work in. If you’re willing, really, and ready and willing … to move forward, it’s gonna be a better day after day. And it takes that work.And takes some love. And to face that you’re really happy.

So be ready. So be ready to move forward. Be ready for things to change, and accept that change. Accept the joy. And as all these people tell you different things? Don’t pay attention to those things. Because they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Only I know what I’m talking about. And what I’m saying to you is this. It’s that in working through this thing called marriage, they can tell you what worked in theirs, but because yours is yours, they don’t know what to tell you to do it. Only one can do that, and that’s God.

If we believe that God is that love that brings you together. And God is the one that brought you here today, And God’s the one that’ll sustain you. God’s the one who’ll let you celebrate the joys to a great extent.

And God’s gonna be the one that’s going to give you the solutions … to deal with hard times.

So call on God. God’s a great thing. Just invite God a little deeper. As you try to come to the conclusion of those problems. When you want to really work out the solution. And you want to get to that point, where everyone looks and says God made it better.

They did their work.

They’re experiencing that love at the greatest degree.

So on this, your wedding day, way, the greatest, the greatest you live,

It’s the greatest joy you can ever experience. And I pray for what comes to a life, ever changing.

Forever and ever. Now let’s exchange vows.