What an inspiring experience it was last Saturday for my wife and I and all gathered to celebrate Koffi and Essi Tete's sacramental marriage at St. Anthony's. These relatively new parishioners are natives of the African country of Togo. Their daughter Audriana received first reconciliation, holy communion, and confirmation at Easter. Her brother Wisdom was baptized and received his first communion. Koffi and Essi who have been civilly married for 22 years also have a 21 year old daughter who was born in Togo before they immigrated to the United States.
Koffi has a masters degree in economics and works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has taught business classes as an adjunct professor. He says that he'd like to someday get his doctorate. Essi is employed at Tyson Foods. They live just a few blocks from our church. Audriana and Wisdom just recently became Altar servers at the 10 a.m. Mass.
Watching this couple meet with Father Apo over a period of weeks to be prepared for a sacramental marriage was in itself inspiring. They had been married for 22 years with a happy family - wasn't that enough? No. They knew that there was something more.
Koffi and Essi reminded Kate and I, as well as all their family and friends gathered last Saturday that sacramental marriage offers couples
"sanctifying grace
which helps each spouse to help the other advance in holiness with the ultimate goal of supporting each other in getting into Heaven. In this way, sacramental marriage is more than a natural union of a man and a woman which Koffi and Essi had experienced for the past 22 years as civilly married partners. What they did last Saturday with Father Apo officiating and all of us gathered was to become a "super natural" sign of the divine union between Christ, the Bridegroom, and His Church, the Bride.
They are now sacramentally married Catholics, committed to their mutual salvation, and now more fully able to participate in the redemptive act of Christ. If you had walked into St. Anthony's, just off the street without knowing that these two had been married for 22 years, you would have thought that this wedding Mass was day-one of their life together.
Pardon my being fired up about this couple! A marriage counselor recently told me that he tells his clients that the real focus in marriage shouldn't be how good of a husband or wife that I am (that actually leads to a lot of discord). Rather, the focus should be on building up the institution of marriage that together, we participate in as a married couple. In other words, like anything in life from the church's sacramental perspective, its never about us, its always about something more than ourselves. Koffi and Essi thanks for reminding us that it's ultimately about building up the Kingdom of God!
