Homily, Mass for Celebration of Wedding Anniversaries
Saturday After Ash Wednesday
February 21, 2026
Introduction
In the church of St. Louis of France in the heart of the city of Rome, one can behold three prized paintings by the renowned Renaissance artist Caravaggio all in one side chapel. They depict different key moments in the life of St. Matthew: his calling, him writing his Gospel, and his martyrdom. We hear about the calling of St. Matthew in the Gospel for today’s Mass of the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, as described by Matthew’s fellow disciple St. Luke. St. Luke gives us the impression that Matthew responded immediately: “And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him.”
Curiously for Caravaggio, though, he does not depict it that way. Instead, he has Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s table with his head looking down and his hand on his money bag, as Jesus stands to the side pointing to him. Caravaggio conveys the sense that Matthew had some hesitation to follow Jesus, at least at first.
From Self-Denial to Virtue
We don’t know how it actually happened, but if that were the case, perhaps we can project forward to understand why there would be such hesitation. The last of the three paintings, after all, depicts Matthew’s martyrdom. But we know that death is not the end for those who respond to the Lord’s call with such generosity. For them, the eternal glory of the Resurrection awaits them after death.
Aren’t we all like that, though? We all at times feel some hesitation to follow the Lord’s call, because we know that it will involve self-denial, much sacrifice. That is the point of Lent: to freely choose acts of self-denial so that we will be purified and strengthened to follow the Lord’s call in our life more faithfully and generously. So we take on the practices of the three pillars of Lent: fasting, prayer and almsgiving (also lived by showing other acts of charity). While certain forms of prayer are particularly suited to Lent, such as praying the Stations of the Cross, and we need to focus more intentionally on works of charity during Lent, prayer and charity are a regular part of the Christian life and so must be lived all throughout the year, whereas fasting is a uniquely penitential practice and so is observed only on penitential days, most especially throughout these forty days of Lent.
Why is fasting and other such acts of self-denial so important, so worthwhile doing? The Church teaches us through her liturgy, and so gives us the answer to this question in the Preface for Mass during Lent (this is the prayer the priest prays right before we sing the Holy, Holy, Holy): “through bodily fasting you restrain our faults, raise up our minds and bestow both virtue and its rewards.” Freely denying ourselves food, comforts and other innocent and legitimate pleasures raises us out of a life of mediocrity and trains us in the school of virtue, such that we can reap the “rewards of virtue.” And just what are those rewards?
Importance of the Sabbath
Here is how the prophet Isaiah describes them in the first reading for Mass today: renewed strength, being a life-giving “watered garden,” being like “a spring whose water never fails.” And Isaiah is very clear here that such a life of virtue is demonstrated most of all by fidelity to the Sabbath: calling “the sabbath a delight, and Lord’s holy day honorable.” It means “not following your [own] ways [and] seeking your own interests,” but seeking only to give delight to the Lord.
Proper observance of the Lord’s holy Sabbath provides the guardrails that keep us on a path to “virtue and its rewards.” It is Sabbath rest, not rest in the secular sense, as if it were simply another holiday; rather, rest in the Lord. Pope St. John Paul II wrote an Apostolic Letter on this topic, titled, appropriately enough, “The Day of the Lord” (Dies Domini). And he makes this very point, where he says: “All of this responds not only to the need for rest, but also to the need for celebration which is inherent in our humanity. Unfortunately, when Sunday loses its fundamental meaning and becomes merely part of a ‘weekend’, it can happen that people stay locked within a horizon so limited that they can no longer see ‘the heavens’. Hence, though ready to celebrate, they are really incapable of doing so.” This is the life of mediocrity – ultimately, banality and boredom. And he goes onto to say later in the Letter: “If Sunday is a day of joy, Christians should declare by their actual behavior that we cannot be happy ‘on our own’. They look around to find people who may need their help …”.
You all who are married, and especially those of you who have persevered through many years and decades of marriage, understand that we cannot be happy on our own, and the only way to find that happiness with the other is precisely through acts of self-denial that train one in the school of virtue so as to eventually reap the rewards of a life of virtue. St. John Paul II was also well known for referring to marriage as a “school of self-perfection.” When lived according to God’s plan, persevering “in good times and in bad, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health,” it eventually delivers on its promises.
Conclusion
The rewards of virtue are rewards that God gives to us, but they are also our gift to God. For St. Matthew that reward and gift was the writing of his Gospel, to recount our Lord’s words and deeds, his sacrifice and his triumph over death, so that all generations of Christians can learn and understand the truth that he teaches and live in his grace until he returns as judge of the living and the dead at the end of all time.
We all, however, write our own gospel in our own way, too. And in the covenantal union of husband and wife in marriage, serving as the foundation of the family, we see not only the gospel of love written anew in each marital commitment, but also the rewards of marital virtue incarnated through the children God deems fit to have them bring into the world. May God lavish upon you His grace for walking the path of marital virtue, so that you may reap its reward: the happiness of communion with each other and, in the end, perfect communion with Him forever in heaven. Amen.
RESUMEN EN ESPAÑOL
En la iglesia de San Luis de los Franceses en Roma uno puede admirar tres pinturas del famoso pintor renacentista Caravaggio que representan tres momentos claves en la vida de San Mateo: su vocación, la redacción de su Evangelio y su martirio. El Evangelio de nuestra Misa de hoy nos dice que Mateo, al escuchar la llamada de Jesús, “dejándolo todo, se levantó y lo siguió”. Sin embargo, Caravaggio lo pinta aún sentado ante su despacho de recaudador de impuestos, como si hubiera un momento de duda antes de responder. Esa imagen nos ayuda a reconocer que también nosotros, muchas veces, sentimos vacilación cuando el Señor nos llama.
Seguir a Cristo implica sacrificio y negación de uno mismo. Por eso existe la Cuaresma: es un tiempo en el que la Iglesia nos invita a practicar el ayuno, la oración y la limosna para que seamos purificados y fortalecidos para seguir con más fidelidad y generosidad el llamado del Señor en nuestra vida. Estas prácticas no son fines en sí mismas, sino medios para purificar el corazón y fortalecernos en la virtud. El ayuno, en particular, ocupa un lugar especial en este tiempo penitencial. Esto nos enseña el Prefacio para este tiempo de Cuaresma: el ayuno corporal refrena nuestros vicios, eleva nuestro espíritu y nos concede la virtud junto con su recompensa.
Al renunciar libremente a ciertos bienes o comodidades, salimos de la mediocridad espiritual y entramos en una verdadera escuela de virtud. El profeta Isaías describe las recompensas de esta vida virtuosa como “un huerto bien regado” y “un manantial cuyas aguas no se agotan”. Pero subraya que esta vida transformada se manifiesta especialmente en la fidelidad al día del Señor. No se trata simplemente de un día de descanso cualquier, sino de descanso en Dios, de poner a Dios en el centro de nuestra vida y no buscar nuestros propios intereses.
San Juan Pablo II enseñó que cuando el domingo pierde su sentido sagrado y se convierte en un simple “fin de semana”, el ser humano pierde la capacidad de celebrar verdaderamente. La alegría cristiana no es individualista: no podemos ser felices solos. El día del Señor nos recuerda que estamos llamados a la comunión con Dios y con los demás, especialmente con quienes necesitan nuestra ayuda.
Esta enseñanza se aplica de manera especial al matrimonio. Los esposos que han perseverado durante años saben que la felicidad no se encuentra buscando el propio interés, sino a través de la entrega y el sacrificio mutuo. El matrimonio es una escuela de autoperfección – como decía frecuentemente el mismo San Juan Pablo II – donde la fidelidad en todas las circunstancias da frutos duraderos. Así como San Mateo respondió a la llamada escribiendo su Evangelio, cada uno de nosotros escribe su propio “evangelio” con su vida. En el matrimonio, ese evangelio del amor se hace visible en la entrega diaria y en los hijos, fruto de la virtud conyugal. Que Dios les colme a ustedes de Su gracia para que sigan el camino de la virtud conyugal, para que cosechen su recompensa: la felicidad de la comunión mutua y, al final, la perfecta comunión con Él para siempre en el cielo. Amén.
