Moved me to tears. As I struggle on with difficulties in marriage, this sermon was exactly the thing to hear.
It also chimes with what I observed in 20 years in warzones: that much evil is done out of loneliness deep seated in the heart.
I haven't met you, and might never do, but wish you well and felt close to you and your purpose after reading the sermon and your foreword. Less alone, put differently.
I hope you are happy together. You evidently very much are. But as we are reminded, that's nice to have, but not the greatest purpose. Bon chance to you both and you children.
I was reminded reading the homily of what my wife did a few weeks ago. She was clearing out old files and sent me quite out of the blue a copy of our wedding vows. By the time I finished them, I was in tears. We were married in the Episcopal church and our vows were from the 1928 prayer book. We were both 21-years-old when we were married. My wife stayed in school. I dropped out and got a job hauling and packing sheet rock. Anyway, the tears came from many places and sorrow was one of them. In our vows, I had promised to not just love this woman who saw something in me worthy of her love but cherish her. Cherish. It was like a knife to my heart. As I read that word, I realized, that more often than not over the years that was a vow I had broken. I had not cherished her. Love AND cherish! That night, I asked her to forgive me. And of course she did. Like love, cherish isn't just an emotion, but lived out in attitude and action. So, I am trying to show her that I cherish her. More touching, more holding hands, more just sitting chatting about this and that, more looking for opportunities to do things together. By the way, we've been married nearly 47 years. My wife's name is Sandy. Best wishes and longs lives for you, your lovely wife, and your lovely family!
Thank you for this powerful reflection, Michael. I once listened to a lecture on love in the Hebrew Bible and the line that stuck with me was “Love isn’t something you feel. It’s something you do.” (But the doing can cultivate the feeling as well — observing the forms, keeping the rituals of affection.) As a veteran of a failed marriage, I know that this is easier said than done. 47 years! Congratulations to you and your wife.
Matthew is not one to hold back when joy is on the line. The first time he took me for a motorcycle ride was thrilling, and terrifying, and beautiful. After a few nervous clutches from me I found the rhythm of his movements. I knew he wanted to show me what his bike could do. I could feel his eagerness to share his joy with me. To feel what he wanted me to, I had to attend to the road and the corners and the other drivers just as he did. I had to learn to see and move as one with him so that I could feel his joy, and feel his joy as my own. We had to attend to the world around us together, to see as one and move as one. I quickly came to feel what he wanted me to, the elation of kissing a long curving stretch of asphalt with my thigh and shoulder. Sometimes after he would take us through an exquisite corner, I would let out a spontaneous “Wooohoooo!” from the inside of my full faced helmet. To let me know he could hear me, Matthew would reach down one hand and squeeze my leg affectionately. Each time he did this I would smile, but he really didn’t have to. I knew that he could sense my joy, and he knew that I knew his happiness.
I am so grateful now to be, in the eyes of God and man, one flesh with Matthew. Attending to the world together. Seeing and moving as one. Most of all to feel our joy together grow.
Dearest Matt and Marilyn, with joy I read that you are married; Konstanze and I's marriage at the end of next month will reach its 32nd year. We wish you much good and God's blessing, which is closeness, tenderness and mercy. Yours Roberto
Congratulations. Thanks to both Mathew and Marilyn for the wisdom and thoughtfulness they bring to all of us through their publications. My wife and I are in our fiftieth year now and I hate to think of what path I might have taken without her. She's the anchor for our whole family and network of friends.
There is a passage in the homily that strikes me as particularly brilliant not only because of the hypothesis of a female writer of the sacred text (and not a male writer), but also because by now polygamy, at least in its latent form, is the nihilistic form that is present in all of us; emphasizing monogamy as a value is a powerful reminder, like Ernst Jünger's hypothesis that the nihilism within us is surmountable.
Congratulations, Matthew and Marilyn and thank you for sharing your sermon. Forty-five years ago next month I wed the love of my life. We raised two wonderful children together and continue to love life to the fullest. I wish you similar happiness and fulfillment. God bless.
I'm unspeakably happy for Marilyn and Matthew and their children. Saw/heard Matthew for the first time (after reading virtually everything he'd ever written in addition to watching several YouTube videos of him speaking) at the Portsmouth Institute just a week after the wedding. Wish I had known and could have personally expressed my happiness and given my blessing there and then. Watched the interview of Matthew and Marilyn about their "Battle of the Sexes" program at the University of Austin and couldn't help but notice a wonderful spark between them. Praised be to God and may their love and life radiate out to all the earth and heavens. And thanks for sharing this wonderful wedding homily.
Congratulations Matthew to you and Marilyn! I wish you much happiness, joy and peace and many decades of even greater literary achievement as creative partners. I am sure your marriage will be a great blessing to enormous numbers of people, but firstly I wish you and your charming daughters all the goodness that our loving creator God can pour out onto your lives and union.
I've left a detailed response on the homily itself as a comment on Marilyn's Substack. In her two recent Substack comments to your posts, Marilyn did a wonderful job depicting you as the extraordinary man you are, and a man of not only exceptional talent but great character, a task which seems to have not been addressed by Reverend Widdicombe.
As a native Winnipegger, allow me to commend you on your excellent choice of venue!
First of all, congratulations: I hope you have many happy years together, and I wish you and your family all the best.
Second, what a wonderful homily! I'll be home visiting my parents in August, and perhaps Rev. Widdicombe won't mind if I attend liturgy in the hopes of hearing him speak, even though I'm not an Anglican. Looking at a map, I see that St. Margaret's is just a few blocks away from St. Demetrios, where the priest at my own parish church used to work.
For some reason, perhaps because of my training in literature, I was most struck by Rev. Widdicombe's discussion of Harold Bloom's very provocative theses. I've never read this book—I'll have to put it on my list.
Moved me to tears. As I struggle on with difficulties in marriage, this sermon was exactly the thing to hear.
It also chimes with what I observed in 20 years in warzones: that much evil is done out of loneliness deep seated in the heart.
I haven't met you, and might never do, but wish you well and felt close to you and your purpose after reading the sermon and your foreword. Less alone, put differently.
Thank you, Christopher! What a great response to a great sermon. It deserves to be passed around.
I hope you are happy together. You evidently very much are. But as we are reminded, that's nice to have, but not the greatest purpose. Bon chance to you both and you children.
I love everything about this.
That Marilyn is Ukrainian-Canadian (my maternal line).
That Hannah Arendt makes a casual appearance in a wedding homily.
That Matthew was baptized on All Saints (such a banger of a feast, for which I’m slotted to deliver the homily this year).
That Matthew was baptized in an Anglican church (not biased at all 👀).
That you are positively swimming, dear brother, in the estrogen ocean, and apparently happily so!! What a gorgeous family God has knit together.
God is so unspeakably kind. May He grant to you, Marilyn and Matthew, many happy, holy years, sustaining your love through His sacrament of matrimony.
Thank you, Nate! Yes, there are girls everywhere! And grace everywhere.
Congratulations!!! How fantastic.
I was reminded reading the homily of what my wife did a few weeks ago. She was clearing out old files and sent me quite out of the blue a copy of our wedding vows. By the time I finished them, I was in tears. We were married in the Episcopal church and our vows were from the 1928 prayer book. We were both 21-years-old when we were married. My wife stayed in school. I dropped out and got a job hauling and packing sheet rock. Anyway, the tears came from many places and sorrow was one of them. In our vows, I had promised to not just love this woman who saw something in me worthy of her love but cherish her. Cherish. It was like a knife to my heart. As I read that word, I realized, that more often than not over the years that was a vow I had broken. I had not cherished her. Love AND cherish! That night, I asked her to forgive me. And of course she did. Like love, cherish isn't just an emotion, but lived out in attitude and action. So, I am trying to show her that I cherish her. More touching, more holding hands, more just sitting chatting about this and that, more looking for opportunities to do things together. By the way, we've been married nearly 47 years. My wife's name is Sandy. Best wishes and longs lives for you, your lovely wife, and your lovely family!
Thank you for this powerful reflection, Michael. I once listened to a lecture on love in the Hebrew Bible and the line that stuck with me was “Love isn’t something you feel. It’s something you do.” (But the doing can cultivate the feeling as well — observing the forms, keeping the rituals of affection.) As a veteran of a failed marriage, I know that this is easier said than done. 47 years! Congratulations to you and your wife.
Matthew is not one to hold back when joy is on the line. The first time he took me for a motorcycle ride was thrilling, and terrifying, and beautiful. After a few nervous clutches from me I found the rhythm of his movements. I knew he wanted to show me what his bike could do. I could feel his eagerness to share his joy with me. To feel what he wanted me to, I had to attend to the road and the corners and the other drivers just as he did. I had to learn to see and move as one with him so that I could feel his joy, and feel his joy as my own. We had to attend to the world around us together, to see as one and move as one. I quickly came to feel what he wanted me to, the elation of kissing a long curving stretch of asphalt with my thigh and shoulder. Sometimes after he would take us through an exquisite corner, I would let out a spontaneous “Wooohoooo!” from the inside of my full faced helmet. To let me know he could hear me, Matthew would reach down one hand and squeeze my leg affectionately. Each time he did this I would smile, but he really didn’t have to. I knew that he could sense my joy, and he knew that I knew his happiness.
I am so grateful now to be, in the eyes of God and man, one flesh with Matthew. Attending to the world together. Seeing and moving as one. Most of all to feel our joy together grow.
What a stark contrast to today's antagonism between men and women and toward marriage and family!
Congratulations Matthew! May you have a long loving marriage! So happy for you!
Dearest Matt and Marilyn, with joy I read that you are married; Konstanze and I's marriage at the end of next month will reach its 32nd year. We wish you much good and God's blessing, which is closeness, tenderness and mercy. Yours Roberto
Congratulations. Thanks to both Mathew and Marilyn for the wisdom and thoughtfulness they bring to all of us through their publications. My wife and I are in our fiftieth year now and I hate to think of what path I might have taken without her. She's the anchor for our whole family and network of friends.
My heartiest congratulations to you both! I wish you all the happiness in your new life together!
There is a passage in the homily that strikes me as particularly brilliant not only because of the hypothesis of a female writer of the sacred text (and not a male writer), but also because by now polygamy, at least in its latent form, is the nihilistic form that is present in all of us; emphasizing monogamy as a value is a powerful reminder, like Ernst Jünger's hypothesis that the nihilism within us is surmountable.
Congratulations, Matthew and Marilyn and thank you for sharing your sermon. Forty-five years ago next month I wed the love of my life. We raised two wonderful children together and continue to love life to the fullest. I wish you similar happiness and fulfillment. God bless.
I'm unspeakably happy for Marilyn and Matthew and their children. Saw/heard Matthew for the first time (after reading virtually everything he'd ever written in addition to watching several YouTube videos of him speaking) at the Portsmouth Institute just a week after the wedding. Wish I had known and could have personally expressed my happiness and given my blessing there and then. Watched the interview of Matthew and Marilyn about their "Battle of the Sexes" program at the University of Austin and couldn't help but notice a wonderful spark between them. Praised be to God and may their love and life radiate out to all the earth and heavens. And thanks for sharing this wonderful wedding homily.
You guys are like rum and coke. Both great by themselves ….but ten times better together. Congratulations and much love from me and Ally.
God bless you both! And thank you for sharing a part of your special day with us.
Congratulations Matthew to you and Marilyn! I wish you much happiness, joy and peace and many decades of even greater literary achievement as creative partners. I am sure your marriage will be a great blessing to enormous numbers of people, but firstly I wish you and your charming daughters all the goodness that our loving creator God can pour out onto your lives and union.
I've left a detailed response on the homily itself as a comment on Marilyn's Substack. In her two recent Substack comments to your posts, Marilyn did a wonderful job depicting you as the extraordinary man you are, and a man of not only exceptional talent but great character, a task which seems to have not been addressed by Reverend Widdicombe.
https://open.substack.com/pub/marilynsimon/p/it-is-not-good-that-man-should-be?r=exi3h&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=60976588
As a native Winnipegger, allow me to commend you on your excellent choice of venue!
First of all, congratulations: I hope you have many happy years together, and I wish you and your family all the best.
Second, what a wonderful homily! I'll be home visiting my parents in August, and perhaps Rev. Widdicombe won't mind if I attend liturgy in the hopes of hearing him speak, even though I'm not an Anglican. Looking at a map, I see that St. Margaret's is just a few blocks away from St. Demetrios, where the priest at my own parish church used to work.
For some reason, perhaps because of my training in literature, I was most struck by Rev. Widdicombe's discussion of Harold Bloom's very provocative theses. I've never read this book—I'll have to put it on my list.
Heartfelt congratulations from my wife and me.
Cory