9 19, July, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP with mar- ried couples Reah and Raymond Ramir (left) and Amal and Lour- demary Arulswamy. PHOTO:ALPHONSUS FOK ‘There but for the grace of God go we’, we should say – because in the end marriage is a super-human endeavour and it’s precisely because it is a mysterium or sacrament that it has worked for those celebrating today. Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP sometimes birds consume or hard soil resists or sun scorch- es or thorns choke germinat- ing plants. Paul, too, describes creation as “groaning in one great act of giving birth”, as it awaits its fulfilment (Rom 8:18-23). Here in Australia we know both drought and plenty, and the groaning of farmers, as well as relief. But of course the Scriptures are using these as analogies for the spiritu- al farming of God and His Church, and that promising but often challenging ground that is the human heart. Which brings us back to marriage and family, the com- plex seed-ground for so much of human life and love. Last year the renowned filmmaker Noah Baumbach released his film Marriage Story , starring AdamDriver and Scarlett Jo- hansson. It received six Academy Award nominations and six Golden Globes. The title is de- liberately ironic, as the film centres around the break- down of a family, as a couple divorce and fight for custo- dy of their son, visiting enor- mous hurt upon each other in the process. A lawyer observes that in the divorce battle one side might start reasonable and one crazy, but both will end up “somewhere between rea- sonable and crazy” by the end. Perhaps many a mar- riage is like that … Now you might think that a strange story to recall on Mar- riage Sunday. But the recog- nition that so many marriages today fail does serve to high- light today’s couples whose marriages have survived. Why is that? In the film our couple’s relationship is originally af- fectionate, but increasingly becomes complacent, un- appreciative, even resent- ful. ‘There but for the grace of God go I’, we might say – in other words, we’re not so dif- ferent to many couples who didn’t make it to their jubilee, and there’s a mystery in that. ‘There but for the grace of God go we’, we should say – because in the end marriage is a super-human endeavour and it’s precisely because it is a mysterium or sacrament that it has worked for those celebrating today. Without Mary and Jo- seph’s Boy who was King and Priest but also sower of Gos- pel seeds, without that Boy full-grown witnessing to re- demptive love even from the Cross, without Him shar- ing that grace with the ‘roy- al priesthood’ of His disci- ples, our couples could never have done it. And without the example of the saints, from Mary and Joseph through Louis and Zélie and beyond, showing what is possible, they might never have tried. The film Marriage Sto- ry captures with sympathy and insight the breakdown of many marriages in modernity and the sad effects upon the spouses and their children. Ours is, in fact, the least successful civilisation in his- tory when it comes to find- ing a spouse at all or sticking to them once we have. And here the wedding window of St Mary’s and the couple whose story it tells, the lives of St Thérèse’s family and our own, can offer an alternative possibility: that of the triumph of grace over the hard soil of human selfishness, over the scorching heat that modern culture visits upon any rela- tionship, over the choking thorns of the modern econo- my, over the birds of moder- nity that eat up the seeds of idealism and self-sacrifice. In the trusting, beautiful and strong young Mary, in the righteous and blooming Joseph, in their union made before God and lived by God’s grace, we see that godly souls united by God’s grace, can in- deed “germinate like the lily and flourish forever before the Lord”. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pray for us. Louis, Zélie and Thérèse, pray for us. This is the edited text of the homily by Archbishop An- thony Fisher OP for Mass for 15th Sunday Ordinary Time Year A and Annual Arch- diocesan Marriage Mass given at St Mary’s Basilica, Sydney, on 12 July 2020. Enquiries:
[email protected] www.michaelgalovic.com Prophet Jonah, an artwork by Michael Galovic FROM THE ARCHBISHOP