On behalf of the Church, family, and friends – we offer you a blessing during this happy honoring your twentieth wedding anniversary.

In gratitude for God blessing you all these years, we turn to Him in humble gratitude and thanksgiving.
Thankful for the gift of love that unites this mutual life. Thankful for when the two of you met and that one of you took the initiative to make this union real and lifelong.

In joyful times, we hope that you both savored them and kept pieces of that joy tucked away in a safe place for future memories. We hope that your marriage strengthened the personal commitments of those around you. (For whether we like it or not, we witness commitment, dedication and perseverance for all to see and believe.)

God created marriage as a sacrament to unite man and woman together in a union that is similar to the relationship between Christ and the Church – in other words, it is inseparable, it is one and it lasts a lifetime.

I hope that you are now able to finish each other’s sentences (even if the other person doesn’t like it), I hope you have likes and dislikes figured out after twenty years of shared life. I hope that in retelling stories to friends and you change things around that the other doesn’t correct you but simply smiles at how one story can have so many different endings.

Happy times? Get real. Anyone can enjoy times that are “happy.” There’s no maturity or faith in being “happy.” If there’s a virtue that permeates all times of life especially in marriage (of which I am an expert, I have two cats), it is joy. Regardless of what happens to you in life or what you throw at life, joy will see you through. Why? Because it comes not from ourselves but it is divinely available for its largess in appreciation, gratitude, patience, acceptance, and even resignation. It is not grounded in the “here and now” but experienced with your Tri-partners – Father, Son, and Spirit. And, like golf, we make it a foursome adding Mary who treasured all things in her heart, good or bad, that joy may “proclaim the goodness of the Lord” to see us through all of life. You two have chosen to do it together. Or, was there also a dollop of Divine intervention?

We pray that in troubling and difficult times that you sought God’s advice as well as the advice of each other. If the troubles were individual, we hope that you experienced them together and solved or treated them together. We pray that during troubling times you two were able to find that joy that you tucked away and kept safe.

Life is full of ups and downs, twists and turns. We pray that life’s road was made a little easier and smoother because you had a shoulder to lean upon, a friend who told you that “It’s okay” even when it wasn’t, a confidant who helped you carry your burdens and worries, doubts, and anxieties.

Twenty years ago you turned to each other and said “I do” without knowing what “I do” did. Now you know. You’ve lived it and now again witness that commitment to the Church. And we pray that what you both said twenty years ago that that echo may lead you through all your years ahead. And even better than that, that your years may resonate into the eternal kingdom promised us by Jesus Christ.