Another Sermon by our good Polish Bishop:



Today we celebrate the second Sunday after Epiphany, and on this Sunday, the celebration of the liturgical mystery of the Epiphany of the Lord in a way closes. Today, we become witnesses to the first miracle of the Lord Jesus, when at the wedding in Cana of Galilee He transforms water into wine and, in this way, reveals His divine power to the whole world. He reveals Himself as the Lord of all creation.


My dear ones, as we all remember so recently, on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, we commemorated the three kings who came to pay homage to the Word that became flesh—to the divine Child. And they offered Him triple gifts: Gold, incense, and myrrh. Saint Augustine, writing about the sacrament of marriage, indicated that God, in turn, endows spouses with three gifts: Fides, sacramentum, et proles [Fidelity, sacrament, and offspring]. Allow me today, as we hear the description of the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee in the Gospel, to say a few words on the subject of marriage. On the subject of marriage, in which many of you remain; on the subject of marriage, about which some of you are thinking seriously, and there are probably those who are not yet thinking about it, but perhaps already should be.

So, it is good that at least once a year a sermon is devoted precisely to the sacrament of marriage. Dear faithful, the first among the graces associated with the sacramental bond of marriage is fidelity. Fidelity, which we could compare to gold. Or perhaps rather, it should be said that marital fidelity is a treasure more precious than the gold of the entire world. For, after all, the mutual devotion and trust of spouses constitute the key to peace and the stability of the family; they constitute the source of happiness, and where the radiance of fidelity is lacking, there appear suspicion, distrust, aversion, and misfortune, which can lead the spouses to great evil.

And take note in Holy Scripture, when we read the description of the building of the Jerusalem temple by King Solomon. We find information there that all the metal parts, so that they would be protected from rust, were gilded. And it is similar with the gold of fidelity. On the day when the spouses vow fidelity and marital honesty to each other until death, on that very day, God, in a way, covers their union with gold. Gold that they should preserve, which they should guard, because this gold of fidelity prevents the corruption of the marriage. This gold of fidelity should be guarded like a great treasure. A great treasure.

Furthermore, dear faithful, the second grace, the second gift that God offers to spouses is the gift of sanctification—the participation of the spouses and the family they have founded in the life of the Most Holy Trinity itself. We could compare this gift of sanctification to the gift of incense, because, after all, the spouses are called to consume themselves out of love for the Lord God and for each other, like incense on a glowing coal.

The great misfortune of contemporary young people is that when they think about marriage, they forget that marriage, which is meant to serve sanctification, is inseparably linked to the Cross. If someone enters into a marriage and expects it to be one big, never-ending honeymoon, they will experience a painful disappointment. Marriage, my dear ones, since it is to serve the sanctification of the spouses and the family they have founded, must be inseparably linked to the Cross, to difficulties, to trials, and to experiences.

But in all these trials, crosses, and difficult experiences, the spouses are not, after all, alone. Through the sacrament of marriage, they receive the grace that helps carry this cross of married life—to carry it together, because that is what the spouses commit to. And they should constantly remind themselves of the oath they took on their wedding day. In taking the marriage oath, they called upon God, One in the Holy Trinity, and all the saints to help them in its fulfillment. And Catholic spouses must never forget this. They are obliged to constantly strive for this divine support, to live by sanctifying grace. For where divine grace is lacking, my dear ones, the devil will appear in a moment. The devil, who will do everything possible to break such a marriage. A marriage in which there is nothing supernatural, in which the flame of true love is therefore extinguished, becomes a marriage living on mutual grievances, spitefulness, and resentments.
And finally, the third grace, the third gift that God gives to spouses, is the vocation to transmit life. And this corresponds to the gift of myrrh, a resin obtained by the ancients from trees and shrubs and used at funerals to prevent and stop the decomposition of a dead body. And although we may have never thought about it, the joy of parents and grandparents on the wedding day also stems from the fact that they hope to see in the faces of grandchildren and great-grandchildren the image of those who have passed away, and who, through this relay of generations, are in a way preserved from decay, from oblivion.

As the Catholic Church teaches, the primary purpose of the marriage union is to produce offspring. On their wedding day, spouses take an even greater responsibility upon their shoulders, because they commit to raising the offspring with whom God endows them in the Catholic faith. Thus, the task of spouses is not only to populate this earth, but above all to populate the Kingdom of Heaven. Catholic parents are obliged to raise their daughters and sons Catholically, and in this way gain great merit and be able to rejoice in their own salvation and that of their descendants.

Dear faithful, on this second Sunday after the Epiphany of the Lord, it is necessary for us to thank from the depths of our hearts for the institution of the sacrament of marriage; for the fact that the Lord Jesus decided to raise this natural union of man and woman to the dignity of a sacrament—a sacrament through which divine grace is granted to the spouses and the family they have founded.

And we must, my dear ones, pray today in a special way not only for Catholic spouses already persevering in the sacramental bond of marriage. We must not only ask that they never forget that marriage serves sanctification, and therefore must involve sacrifices, must involve crosses, trials, experiences, and perhaps tears. But we must, my dear ones, also pray for the entire crowd, the growing crowd of young people who have no intention of entering into a marriage union; who live like godless people, fearing neither God nor men; who, my dear ones, disregard the salvation of their own souls. For if they persist in sin, if they live in sin, they bring upon themselves, my dear ones, God's punishment. If they do not come to their senses in time, if they die in this sin—in the sin of impurity—they will go to eternal damnation.

We must also pray for the growing number, the growing group of young marriages that despise the vocation to transmit life. We see, my dear ones, around us more and more young marriages that do not have and do not want to have children, who despise the vocation to parenthood. A child, my dear ones, in increasingly numerous homes, is replaced today by a dog and a kitten. What a demonic perversion, what a demonic turning upside down of God’s order.

Dear faithful, we must realize that this clash of evil and good in our times takes place largely on the field of the family. The devil does everything possible to destroy the normal family—to destroy the normal family living according to God's order and God's will—so that it disappears from the face of the earth; so that normal marriage is replaced by its parodies with "Partner Number 1" and "Partner Number 2"; so that normal parenthood is replaced by a parody with "Parental Person Number 1" and "Parental Person Number 2."

We must, my dear ones, stand today in defense of Catholic marriage, because without Catholic marriage, without healthy Catholic marriage, there will be no Catholic children, there will be no Catholic families, there will be no Catholic vocations. The future of the Church, the future of our nations, depends, my dear ones, on what our families look like, on what the marriages entered into today look like. Will the spouses want to use those gifts with which God desires to endow them? Fides, sacramentum, et proles, as Saint Augustine wrote: fidelity, sanctification, transmission of life. If we reject these divine gifts, then there is no longer any future before us. And may contemporary Catholics come to their senses and return to God's path before it is too late. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.



AI translation and AI read text. Original Polish on the Bishops Channel.