6th Day of Simbang Gabi December 21 2014

One day, on my Facebook page, I saw a video clip of a certain Rowden and his wife Liezel posted. It was a wedding in the hospital. The groom, Rowden was sick and dying as he made a dying declaration that he wanted to marry Liezel. True in fact that he married Liezel while he was lying on his deathbed. After the wedding, he died. My dear friends, why enter into a marriage when you know you are going to lose your beloved either by death or by some other reasons? Well, there is in us that longs to make our commitment to love something solemn, serious and sacred. Even gays, lesbians or homosexuals cry out to allow them to enter into marriage though made in a civil court. They want to forge marriage with their same sex. Though no one prohibited them to have such relationship with their same sex, why do they wish to make it legal? In other words, though their cohabitation with their same sex partners is not rendered illegal, yet why do they still want to enter into marriage? What for? Well, as I have mentioned already, there is in us the longing to make our love sacred and it is what marriage does. In fact, it is what marriage is all about. In Luke 1: 26-38 even Mary herself considered marriage as sacred. When an angel announced to her that she was chosen to be the mother of Jesus, she said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” This means that being a mother which is a sacred duty, and bringing forth life to a child which is a sacred act shall be with the benefit of marriage. This is different from what we know these days that it is ok for a woman to be pregnant outside marriage. For some, it is ok to cohabitate or engage in a relationship with a semblance of marriage. While for others, it is ok to have a querida. My dear friends, if we are really a believer of God, there is in us the calling to make our commitment to love as something sacred. This is why it is often said that getting married is paglalagay sa tahimik. Our soul could not be silenced as long as we could not make a solemn commitment to love in marriage. (Note: This reflection is addressed to those who are called to the sacred vocation of marriage)