(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Mass-Blog-for-the-Fifth-Sunday-of-Easter-2025.mp3)
Marriage is the gift that keeps giving—especially for comedians. Gag writers have drawn from this bottomless well of material since well before last century’s “King of the One-Liners” Henny Youngman said, “Now take my wife. Please!”
Comedians couldn’t get away with that kind of misogyny today—unless maybe it took a Christian perspective. This Sunday’s Mass readings pull from rich source material showing why a spouse (God) might once have been justified for giving up on His Bride (us, His Church).
So, we are God’s wife? The Book of Revelation from which we take Sunday’s second reading (Revelation 21:1-5a) shows where our love story goes—to a new beginning for a new Jerusalem. This holy hometown was prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Then the author tells us:
“I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.’”
The OLD Jerusalem gave its bridegroom every reason to abandon his people, considering the way they treated him. All take and no give leads a lover to feel a sense of abandonment—even betrayal.
Sunday’s gospel reading begins with Judas taking leave of the new spiritual home Jesus was building for him. He handed his Master over to the protectors of the old way of worshipping. That entails praying for everything they could take from a God they thought they knew.
That continued even after the aspiring widow thought it killed the demanding bridegroom. But Sunday’s first reading from Acts (Acts 14:21-27) shows Paul and Barnabas continuing to build the home their church’s bridegroom started. They did this by preparing God’s loved ones to enter and live in it:
“It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” Paul told everyone who would listen. And some of his listeners were only too happy to accommodate him with hardships of their own making. The section of Acts preceding this Sunday’s reading tells us Paul was nearly stoned to death in Lystra. After Paul cures a cripple, the Gentile witnesses mistook him and Barnabas for THEIR old gods, Zeus and Hermes, and proceeded to worship them so they’d keep the miracles flowing.
“Take, take, TAKE my wife, PLEASE,” any disgusted bridegroom of such a bridezilla might pray. But we conclude this story where it started—with a vision of the threshold over which our bridegroom wants his bride to cross. One that leads to a new world in which love is freely given, and instead of taken, received.
Sunday’s gospel reading (John 13:31-33a, 34-35) ends with our bridegroom giving us the key to that home:
“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Love must be given as well as it is received, fellow Bridezillas. It’s not just for the taking.
–Tom Andel
Marriage is hard work. Really hard work as it often goes to trial on a regular basis, struggling against our human tendency of self-interest. We are selfish people and generally want things our way. Marriage on the other hand is far more about giving than receiving. At least the good ones are.
It often amuses me how many couples focus so intently on the wedding, giving little thought at least initially to the marriage. Wedding days are great, but also very short compared to the long and oftentimes challenging work of making a good marriage.
The best marriages I have seen are the ones centered on Christ, who typically blesses these unions because he is invited to the party. With Christ all things are possible, especially a good marriage!
The two shall be made one flesh. That makes living the marriage vows easier–for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. Living those vows requires each person in a marriage to have the strength of two, guided by one God with the strength of three.