God and faith important in marriage

 By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press 

 God and faith – but not necessarily the nuns’ advice – are important for a lasting marriage. 

Those messages came from folks involved in the diocese’s annual wedding anniversary Mass, held Oct. 31 at St. Paul Cathedral in Worcester. 

Thirty-four couples, with a total of 1,371 years of marriage, registered for the Mass, according to Allison LeDoux, director of the diocesan Office of Marriage and Family.  

Bishop McManus signed congratulatory certificates for them. As he had another commitment, Father Richard F. Reidy, diocesan vicar general, celebrated the Mass, congratulated the couples on the bishop’s behalf and blessed them. 

Most were celebrating significant anniversaries or many years of marriage. Mrs. LeDoux said the number of years married ranged from one year to 70, though the couple celebrating their 70th, who attend annually, were unable to come this year, she said.  

Richard and Theresa Burchstead, from St. Leo Parish in Leominster, came to celebrate their 60th. 

They’ve had their ups and downs – and differences – Mrs. Burchstead said. 

When he was young, if a neighbor wanted to take him and his sister to church, it was OK with his mother, she said. In contrast, she was taught by nuns throughout elementary and high school. 

“The sisters would say, being French, ‘You’ve got to marry your own kind,’” she recalled. But the man she chose to marry “wasn’t French and he wasn’t Catholic,” she said. His ethnic background was mixed. He joined the Catholic Church before their Sept. 30, 1961, wedding, went to church every week, and saw to it that their two daughters did. 

“We did have 60 years of happiness,” Mrs. Burchstead said. “I do think it was our faith that kept us going through the worst  times. If I had to do it over again, I would.  … He’s 91, I’m 86.” And now they have three grandchildren.  

Angel Rojas said he and his wife, Elizabeth, from St. Peter Parish in Worcester, have had 50 wonderful years of marriage, and have two sons and seven grandchildren. They were born in Puerto Rico and met in Connecticut, where they married on Oct. 30, 1971, before honeymooning in Jamaica.    

“We thank the Lord for our health and our marriage, for our family,” Mrs. Rojas said. They hope for many more years together, but “I can’t ask for 50 more,” she said. 

Asked what advice they would give for staying married for 50 years, she said, “communication.” Today couples “don’t work things out anymore,” she said. They just divorce. 

Mr. Rojas said it’s important to make decisions together. 

“I hope kids find women like my wife,” he said. “She’s a good cook. She takes care of me the best she can. I do the same for her.” 

Jean-Noel and Anne-Marie Bernard, of St. Cecilia Parish in Leominster, also attended the anniversary Mass, which their pastor, Msgr. James P. Moroney, concelebrated, along with Father Hugo A. Cano, the cathedral’s rector. 

“I tell everybody, ‘I have the most patient man in the world; that’s why we’ve been married 50 years,’” Mrs. Bernard said. 

“I say, ‘She’s been patient also,’” added her husband. 

Mrs. Bernard said they were both born in New Brunswick, Canada. They met in Massachusetts and married at St. Cecilia’s on Oct. 16, 1971. 

On Oct. 17 this year they renewed their vows at Sunday Mass at St. Cecilia’s, she said. 

“They live-streamed it on Facebook so our family in Canada was able to watch it,” she said. “I had booked the Mass a year prior, so it was said for us.”  

That day her 100-year-old mother came to witness a 50th anniversary celebration of one of her six children for the fourth time, she said. (Three of Mrs. Bernard’s siblings have already made it to 50 years.) At the other end of the age spectrum was the Bernard’s 5-year-old grandson, who was enthralled with the Mass. 

“We have been blessed – three boys, one grandson,” Mrs. Bernard said, adding that they also have daughters-in-law she would have picked if able to. 

Preaching at the anniversary Mass, Father Reidy acknowledged a little nervousness, noting that in the pews were people who had, collectively, lived more than 1,000 years of married life, and in the pulpit was one with zero years of such experience! 

When Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote that it takes three to get married, he didn’t mean the spouses and the mother-in-law, Father Reidy said. The third party is God, who doesn’t come between the couple, but gives them grace and holds them together. 

Love is more than an emotion or a celebration of compatibility, he said. Attraction and joy must be underscored daily by commitment, sacrifice and a fresh decision to love. He said St. Thomas Aquinas defined love as “doing what is good for the other.”  

Jesus exemplified that sacrificial love and commanded us to love one another as he has loved us, Father Reidy said. He gives us grace, enlightening our minds and strengthening our wills through matrimony and other sacraments. 

“Thank you for your openness to these graces,” Father Reidy told the couples. 

As society becomes more secular, commitment is harder to muster, he said. But when couples love God first, he will be the bond that holds them together, which is good for them, their children, the Church and the community. He said Pope Francis wrote that the family’s welfare is decisive for the world and the Church, and Pope John Paul II called the family the first church and school, where children learn love by their parents’ example. 

The couple at Cana included Jesus in their wedding and received the compliment that they’d saved the best wine for last, because of his miraculous intervention, Father Reidy noted. He expressed hope that his listeners too, with love that grows and never runs out, will be able to say, “We saved the best for now.”   

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