HOMILY

We just heard the biblical story of Noah. He and his household, with the birds and the animals, were saved by God from the flood. And when the waters withdrew, God set his rainbow in the sky. And he established an everlasting covenant with humanity. For God loves his creation, his people and animals.

A Covenant

Human beings can make life difficult for each other. Again and again their history is bathed in the floodwaters of violence. Up until our day. People enjoy fighting.

God is different. He is a God who brings together and reconciles, a God of the covenant: in the midst of all the deluges of divisions between people and of harshness and exploitation of his creation, God calls us into his ark to save us. Yes, God is different: he does not divide, he brings together; he sets a rainbow in the clouds, the arms of which reach from heaven to earth and back. So it was with Noah, and so it still is today. God binds us to each other: people and things.

God goes further than the rainbow in the sky. He also brings together on earth. Noah gathered a couple from each species, the Bible says, so that they would live. They go two by two, in order to keep alive. Even in brute creation, the birds and animals go two by two. They carry the covenant within themselves: written in their nature by God's creative power. And so the whole of creation is full of signs of the covenant.

A Covenant of love between a man and woman

And God does more. He also writes his covenant in the hearts of people. He creates them man and woman and makes them go: two by two. The real rainbow exists between man and woman, even more than between heaven and earth. It is the rainbow of love, not just an urge driven by nature, but a free choice. Love between people is much more than an instinctive attraction. To love is to take pleasure in the other's presence. That love is freely given and received, unmerited, faithful, and patient. It has everything of God.

For even before two people love each other, God first loved them. 'If we love, it is because God first loved us,' John says in his first letter (1 Jn 4,19). The going together of man and woman in this world is the reflection of what happens in God. There first is love, through Father, Son, and Spirit. Love between people is like the moon: all of its shine comes from the sun. Each fire of love between man and woman is taken from the hearth of God's love and brought among us.

If we realize that God first loved us, and without our deserving it, we cannot but love the other as well. How can you experience God's love and not be driven to imitate Him and love others as well. 'And whoever loves God, loves his brother also' (1 Jn 4,21). Each marriage is the image of how things should be between all people and between all nations; an everlasting covenant, established by love and lived faithfully. Rainbows should stretch all over the world, like that between God and people, between man and woman.

This is how God wanted it already in Noah's times. And when Jesus arrives centuries later, he will say nothing else: he establishes the New Covenant in his blood, between God and human beings, between man and woman, and between all people. He says, 'God loves you.' To man and woman he says: 'Remain with each other in love; what God has joined together, let no one separate'; and to all people: 'Love one another as I have loved you.' But this New Covenant cost him pain: beneath all the rainbows stood a cross.

Growing in love

Marital love and fidelity are given into our hands like a mustard seed. For on the wedding day love is given, not as a full-grown tree, but as a very small seed. Indeed the smallest, Jesus says, among all the seeds. It must grow so much. But it can grow. It carries within itself a generative power: hidden, but irresistible. It even becomes a great tree, says Jesus. And, he says, there is room on its branches for many birds. Every good marriage is a welcoming tree, offering shade and bearing fruit for so many other couples. This is certainly so when that tree, as it is today, is seen by so many people.

For Prince Laurent and Princess Claire we wish today that deep faith in the power of the small seed of love planted in their hearts. May it grow into a great tree, visible from afar and admired by many. Then many birds will desire to come and live in their shade, to be encouraged and strengthened by their example. God will grant it to them.

Cardinal Godfried Danneels
Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel