Today at the 10:30 AM Mass, we will celebrate our Silver and Golden Wedding Jubilarians. It is a wonderful testament to the promises they made to each other all those years ago.
The custom of associating silver with the 25th wedding anniversary and gold with the 50th wedding anniversary appear to have originated in the German region of Europe during the 15th century. The silver anniversary included a husband giving his wife a silver garland when they had been married 25 years. Also after 25 years of service to the king, a knight would be awarded silver coins.
Gold of course is reserved for a 50th wedding anniversary. The gold color symbolizes a “wealth” of the couple's experiences in their marriage, and with the “refining” of their years.
By the early 1900s, a comprehensive list of anniversary gifts had been created, which we still use today. Each gift symbolizes the relationship's beauty, durability, and strength. Longer and more lasting marriages traditionally have gifts with more precious materials: e.g.: 60th anniversary=diamond, if you survive to 70th anniversary, then it is a Platinum anniversary!
It is important to celebrate an anniversary. Celebrating an anniversary shows that marriage is a priority in life and gives the couple a chance to relive a moment that changed their lives forever. A wedding anniversary is a beautiful opportunity to reflect on the importance of marriage as the foundation to the many years together as husband and wife and to the importance of children and then grandchildren. A wedding anniversary is a chance to celebrate family life.
For baptized Christians, the promises given in a natural marriage are strengthened by the grace given through the Sacrament of Matrimony. Christ gave the Church this sacrament because He knew the difficulty for a man and woman to live a perpetual and exclusive union.
Even though living out the Sacrament of Matrimony has its struggles, authentic sacrificial love is at the heart of Christian marriage. God created man and woman for love, since they are created in the image and likeness of God, Who is love. Marriage is God’s idea and His gift to humanity. God designed man and woman in an equal and complementary way so that those called to this vocation may enter into a total, faithful, fruitful and life-long union. “The mutual love of spouses becomes an image of the absolute and unfailing love with which God loves man.” (CCC #1604)
It saddens me to see young Catholic couples forgo the graces of the Sacrament of Marriage to be “married” outside the Church; they miss the sacredness of the Marriage. We have to teach them about the sacredness of Marriage.
It takes three persons to make a good marriage: the husband, the wife and most importantly, the Lord. When Christ is part of a marriage working in, through and with the couple, it brings a foretaste of the joy of heaven.
We congratulate the following couples who are celebrating their wedding anniversaries with us this year:
Martin and Una Dempsey, Patrick and Lori Finnegan, Martin and Christina Foley, Gregory and Barbara McElroy, Craig and Judy Miller, Richard and Susan Oertel, John and Dale Shields
Our prayer is for many more years, until the Platinum!