Conversion Starts Here

Dear Friend,

Two weddings on one Saturday is a rare occurrence in the Mission Church, but that’s what’s happening this weekend. Donovan and Susie will be married at 1pm and Gianna and Beck at 4pm, during our regularly scheduled Saturday Vigil Mass. For these two amazing couples, Saturday will be, as a friend of mine likes to say, the first day of the rest of their lives.

Turns out, the same could be said of Peter in this Sunday’s Gospel. In his answer to Jesus’s question “Who do you say that I am?” Peter resets the course of his lifetime. Slowly (dramatically), two-steps-forward-one-step-back, the rest of Peter’s life will take a new and decisive direction. The rest of his life will change the world.   

Probably like you, I’ve never heard this Gospel proclaimed at a wedding, and the usual interpretation, quite legitimately, would make a connection with Peter as the first Pope – “Upon this Rock I will build my church,” says Jesus. In the context of a marriage this Gospel passage invites us to consider the vital importance of what great church teachers call the “domestic church”; that is, ordinary family life. This “church” is where we experience the primary cultural and psychological influences of our lives. For Christians “family of origin” goes a long way in shaping an individual’s discipleship, and one’s day-to-day relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Conversion starts here.

Marriage is rightly called a sacrament of service, for it makes present the humble, faithful love of Jesus Christ who welcomed children, widened a circle of mercy, healed the sick, forgave sinners. As Susie and Donovan, Gianna and Beck become Christ for each other and for the world, they challenge all of us: What doors will we open with our own keys to the Kingdom?   

Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm