Bishop thanks married couples for living their ‘marathons’

Bishop Carl A. Kemme thanked the 90 couples attending the annual diocesan Wedding Anniversary Mass for the hard work it takes to sustain their marriages and to make them flourish.
“When the honeymoon stage ends, then begins the daily work of growing in love, a love that seeks the good of the other, a love that goes well beyond what may have originally attracted you to your spouse, the day-to-day living of married life – not as a sprint but as a marathon, a long-distance run, keeping a pace that looks not to immediate pleasures and accomplishments, but to the finish line at the end of earthly life,” he said.
Nearly full church
The bishop addressed the nearly full church from his cathedra Sunday afternoon, Oct. 20, in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita. The longest-married couple attending was celebrating their 64th wedding anniversary.
For marriages to strengthen and flourish couples need the help of the sacraments, Bishop Kemme said, especially the Eucharist and confession.
“You need the help of good preaching on Sundays by your parish priests and your bishop to meet the many demands of your marriage. You will need to surround yourselves with like-minded fellow believers and friends who will walk with you along the way and encourage you, challenge you, and love you in both the good and the difficult times. And you need your parish and your diocese to invest in you by offering opportunities to enrich your married lives and heal your hearts when either one or both of you has taken the other for granted or said or did something that has caused you to question whether you really love this person anymore.”
The church’s foundation
Bishop Kemme told the couples they are the church’s foundation because they beget children for God. “Heirs to the kingdom, priests, religious and married persons, who see their vocations as a mission. Yes, so much of what happens or doesn’t in the church and in the world that God loves, depends on the health of Christian marriage in our times.”
The bishop talked about how the diocesan family goes to great lengths to encourage and support priestly and religious vocations. “One of the very first things I noticed when I arrived here just ten years ago now was how much this diocese appreciates our priests and religious and how honored it is to have a son or daughter discern a vocation to service in the church.”
The diocese has four Serra clubs, Bishop Kemme said, who encourage young men and women to consider such vocations. He added that the diocese also has the St. Joseph House of Formation for our seminarians, Fiat Ministries, vocation fairs, and appreciation dinners – all designed to foster religious and priestly vocations.
“For all of this I am more grateful than I could ever express,” he said. “But in all fairness and truth, do we do enough for the vocation to marriage in our diocese and indeed throughout the entire church?”
We must encourage marriage
The diocese has the wedding anniversary Mass and a marriage preparation program second to none, Bishop Kemme said. “But do we have a culture in our diocese that goes to greater and greater lengths to encourage young people to enter into Christian marriage?
“We know there are more and more of our young people forgoing such a lifelong commitment. And when they do marry, how can we help them meet the incredible demands of married life by helping them to enrich their marriages and heal them when they become wounded or fractured?”
This is fundamental for the whole church, he said, adding that he would like to give it more focus in the future with the help of diocesan ministries and the support of the parish priests. “I am convinced that the life and health of the church so much depends on healthy marriages. As the marriage goes, so goes the family. As the family goes, so goes the parish. And as the parish goes, so goes the diocese, and so on.”
Bishop Kemme closed his homily by saying that the secular worldview of marriage is seen as a mere convenience, abandoned when it doesn’t give the pleasure and happiness the couple thinks they deserve.
Marriage: sacrificial love
“This is sadly the state of marriage in our world today,” he said. “But the Christian worldview of marriage is much different. It encompasses what Jesus spoke of in today’s Gospel, it begs those who seek it to drink from the chalice of sacrificial love, it is choosing to be last and not first in all things, to serve and not to be served. This is the essence of the marriage you began however many years ago and we thank God that you are here still giving all of us this powerful and important witness in our world today.”
The couples and their families were invited to a reception after the Mass in Good Shepherd Hall.