Couples lauded at anniversary Mass
“Today, we have as many as 185 married couples present here, representing a combined and staggering 7,580 years of married life and love,” began Bishop Carl Kemme’s homily at the Catholic Diocese of Wichita’s 54th Annual Wedding Anniversary Mass.
The Mass, which honored couples celebrating anniversaries ending in a zero or five during 2025 and 2026 – as well as all couples married 50 years and longer – began at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 1 at Wichita’s Church of the Magdalen.
Bishop Kemme pointed out that when the assembled couples stood before the altar on their wedding days, they did something countercultural by vowing permanence in a world that prefers transient options, and fidelity in a culture that often celebrates self-interest. “And you promised to do this in good times and in bad without fully realizing what those words would entail,” he said. “More than likely, many of you – if not all of you – now know what those words mean.”
The bishop went on to observe that, as a lifelong decision, marriage is more than a feeling. “Love is deeper than romance; it is the fundamental choice you make to love and serve the Lord in each other, no matter what, or how it may or may not feel,” he said.
That day’s gospel reading centered on the Beatitudes, Bishop Kemme noted, which have numerous and constant applications in married life. “A person poor in spirit is one who understands his or her dependence,” he said. “Husbands and wives choose to depend on each other. Marriage will flourish when this dependency is on full display; it will disintegrate when one or the other in the marriage exercises independence or self-sufficiency.”
As he considered ways in which couples might live the Beatitudes, Bishop Kemme also cited peacemakers. “Marriages and families are realities that are built over time, and nothing builds them stronger than the desire to live in peace, which means a spirit and willingness to listen, to compromise,and to let go,” he said. “I trust the married couples who are with us today have learned that peace is not the absence of conflict, but the presence of love that refuses to give up.”
Bishop Kemme noted his mother passed away in March 2025, and said none of her survivors felt her absence as acutely as his father. “My brothers and sister and I miss her very much, but not nearly as much as our dad,” he said. “Dad is not a very expressive man, but I know he misses her company, her calming presence, the warmth of her love. And he longs to be with her again.
“Their marriage was not a perfect marriage,” he said. “No marriage is. They each made their share of mistakes and missteps, but what they built together with lots of hard work, dedication, tolerance, forgiveness, and true and real love, gave me and my siblings an incredible example and a stable foundation for our lives. They, like so many of you, who are here today, fulfilled the Lord’s plan for them and their lifelong vocation.”
