I was lost.
Struggling and wandering and lonely. Knowing God was real and that He was everything and yet I didn’t want Him. I wanted what I wanted and yet in the midst of that wandering I knew that only He could satisfy.
I met someone. Someone that was different and pure and lovely.
Jenna.
She was nice and she was kind and she was other.
I thought that maybe we could be friends and yet I started having feelings and she could never like me and she could never have these same feelings for me.
So we hung out and we spent time together as friends and then she was all I could think about and yet she couldn’t feel the same, could she?
I prayed and I wrote in journals and then one night as we hung out as friends I told her that I liked her and somehow SOMEHOW she reciprocated and we started dating.
09/18/2004.
The date that would change my life forever.
Out first date.
In Pasadena and we ate and we sat on a bench and we shared our feelings for each other.
And then we loved each other and later I asked for her hand in marriage (also in Pasadena) and then we got married in Pasadena and all of a sudden these dates and this city became bigger than either of us and bigger that both of us.
09/18/2004
01/02/2009
Dates that would live in infamy.
Dates and places that would become bigger than both of us.
God brought us together then and brought us together in that place. And then on that fateful day in January we exchanged vows and we promised to love and to cherish and till death to us part.
A first date and a second date and countless dates in that city followed by a marriage in that city.
Fifteen years ago today we first exchanged words of love and ten years ago we exchanged vows and we loved and promised to love and today by the grace of God we still love.
Marriage is hard and we face challenges and difficulties and obstacles and yet somehow we continue to love.
Grace.
Sacramental grace.
His love lived (loved) out through our flaws.
His promise lived (loved) out in the midst of our frailty.
Fifteen years ago today I went on a first date with a woman that would become my wife.
Today, after innumerable amounts of pain, we renewed our love.
After meeting and loving as Protestants then, today we renewed our vows as Catholics.
God was present on our first date and He was present that day that we wed and today He was present body, blood, soul and divinity as we renewed our vows, renewed our love.
My life is drastically different today.
So different than it was that first date and different than it was on that date that I bound myself to Jenna in matrimony.
It’s different because He is present differently.
He is more real. And He is more present. And He is more tangible than ever.
He is the Real Presence.
He is the Bread of Life.
He is the manna from Heaven and the deepest of loves.
Do you want to know why I can say that I love my wife more today than I did on that first date and more than I did on that day we wed?
It’s because He lives and He loves, really and truly.
He comes down from Heaven and resides in the Bread and the Wine on the altar of sacrifice.
And where He lives is the only place I long to live.
He lives (loves) in the mass and in communion and in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
He lives (loves) in the Tabernacle.
He lives (loves) on my tongue and in the monstrance and in the very midst of His people the Church.
He lives (loves) in my marriage because He lives forever in His people.
If you want Him, He is here.
If you want Him He is Present.
He is Presence. Waiting and calling out to you.
He is scanning the horizon for you as the father scanned the horizon for the prodigal son.
He longs to embrace you and put a ring on your finger and sandals on your feet and He longs to kill the fatted calf and to place you on His shoulders and bring you into His family, into His presence.
He longs to take your life of longing and loneliness and blow your mind.
Jesus is real, friends.
He is real and He is love and He is the Real Presence.
So abandon your struggling and wandering and surrender yourself to Him.
He will swallow you up and you will be undone.
He will welcome you into His family and into His arms and into Himself.
Fall.
Say yes to Him and no to yourself and yes to His embrace and yes to His Church.
Accept Him into your life and into your tongue.
He alone has the words of eternal life and He alone is the Holy One of God.
Run to Him.
Because it is only in Him that we live (love) and move and have our being.
Loveinthefield 