Married couples reflect Christ’s ‘enduring love,’ says Bishop at anniversary vespers

Maura Baker

Staff Writer

Married couples celebrating significant anniversaries — their 1st, 25th, 50th, 60th and beyond — all came together under the roof of the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, Covington, for Vespers, Sept. 13. This annual celebration of married couples in the Diocese of Covington includes a renewal of vows and a special blessing from Bishop John Iffert.

This year, the diocese celebrated more than 80 such couples — each in different stages of their married life, from first-year couples with babies to those having spent more than 70 years by each other’s side. (For a full list of couples recognized at this year’s anniversary vespers, see page #.)

Isaak A. Isaak, director of the Office of Catechesis and Evangelization who organizes the Vespers service, greeted couples as they gathered in the church.

“I extend a heartfelt welcome to all of you,” he said. “Today we gather in gratitude to honor the witness of your love and fidelity. Marriage is a unique and sacred covenant, a lifelong commitment that unites a man and a woman in faithful love … it reflects Christ’s enduring love for his Church and serves as a powerful sign of hope to the world.”

Bishop John Iffert, in his homily to the couples gathered, elaborated more on this concept.

He shared a story of a married couple where, in a dispute, the husband struck his wife — the result of which had the wife carrying resentment for 20 years, even after outwardly accepting her husband’s apology.

“Can you imagine any other relationship or friendship that would have the weightiness to convince that woman to stay with it through 20 years of nurturing that grudge, through 20 years of inability to find freedom,” he asked those gathered, “and to stay with that relationship long enough to develop the capacity to begin to let go of the thing that had really wounded her heart?”

“This capacity of marriage is the reason that Jesus surrounds matrimony with sacramental grace,” Bishop Iffert said, “and this is why the Church is so grateful to you for your married witness.”

Together, married couples “reveal to us an icon of the face of God,” said Bishop Iffert. “The God who empties himself out because of love, who suffers wounds of rejection and who selflessly endures in love.”

“Each year, I celebrate these vessels with couples like you, and when I greet the couples and ask you all the secret to your successful marriage … over 50 percent of the time, they will say patience,” Bishop Iffert said, stating that the place we learn to prioritize the needs of others and maintain peace and speak with kindness is in the home and with family.

“This is why the Church teaches that her children must be married according to the laws of the Church,” Bishop Iffert said. “It’s because the families you form are the first unit of the Church, the first structure, the first building block of the community of God’s people … Each one of your families is a fundamental unit of civilization, so that the kingdom of God and the civilization of love grow in the families you form.”

“So today,” he concluded, “I thank you for your good witness, and we join you in praying for your continued progress together in the way of love.”