September 2020 - First Friday Holy Hour - The wedding Feast and Eucharistic Adoration

Weddings are a recurring theme in the Gospel. The Lord’s first miracle recorded in the Gospel of John takes place at a wedding—the wedding at Cana—where the Lord transforms water into an abundance of wine. And, as we heard in this evening, the Lord compares his ministry—his dining with tax collectors and sinners—to a wedding feast. He is the bridegroom—and can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?

The Lord’s original audience would no doubt have picked up on the messianic undertones of the all of this wedding language. The age of the Messiah, the long awaited for final stage of human history, when the Lord’s Messiah would usher in the definitive kingdom of God—is scripturally linked to the wedding feast. Through the work of the Messiah, the Lord God would provide for his people rich food and choice new wines—juicy rich food and pure choice wines.

So, the Gospel reading certainly helped the early church understand their place in history. This is the age of fasting. In the words of the Lord, “the bridegroom has been taken away”—he has ascended to the Father’s right hand. And so, we fast and do penance and prepare our souls for the bridegroom’s return. We are to be like those wise virgins who await the bridegroom with lighted lamps, waiting to be welcomed in the wedding feast. 

And yet, at the same time, the bridegroom is already here, isn’t he? We are already fed with the rich food and choice wine, of the Eucharist. At holy Mass. This is why the Church fathers speak of the Mass as a foretaste of heaven. Already we sit at the banquet table of the lamb. Already we are fed with the rich food from heaven—the Eucharist. And already we are able to mystically experience and celebrate the joining of the bridegroom to his bride—the Church—when we participate at Mass.

And when we come to Holy Hour, and adore the Blessed Sacrament—we are able to glimpse the Bridegroom—with joyful anticipation—like the Bride in the Song of Songs—who rejoices at the sight of her lover right standing at her window. “Here he stands behind the wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattices. My lover speaks; he says to me, Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one, and come!” The bridegroom of the Song of Songs says, “the flames of true devotion are a blazing fire. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor floods sweep it away.”

This night, we gaze upon the bridegroom. May he set our hearts afire with the flames of true devotion—flames that cannot be drowned by worldliness or selfishness or the floods of worldly anxiety. We kneel, and adore, and await his return where he will arrive, not simply under sacramental signs—but in the fullness of his glory…for the glory of God and salvation of souls.