As I write this, I prepare to marry a young couple this very day. I know the couple well, as the father of the groom is my friend.

Yes, I have reached the age when children of my friends are getting married.

Granted I am on the outside edge of this phenomenon. My friend Roger is about ten years older than I, but nonetheless his oldest is getting married and I am officiating.

This day is bittersweet, for Roger’s lovely wife Regina died about six months ago, but as he said to me last night at the rehearsal dinner, “She’d kick our bleeps if we made Matt and Molly’s day sad.” He’s right.

So today this first Saturday in October I will drive to Hingham, celebrate a worthy Nuptial Mass and do my best t keep smiling because I know that’s what Regina would want. I will talk of happiness and I will talk of love. The very thought of anything sad I will push away, but I will mention her and she will be a part of this day, not in a sad way but a happy way. When we remember our mothers it should be all the times they hugged us, all the times they picked us up off the ground. It should be about the times they told us we did great, even if we had not, and it should be about unconditional love, a love that never ends.

These things will be spoken about because it is Regina and Roger’s love that brought Matt into the world and now with Molly, his high school sweetheart, Matt will continue this chain of love, for some day they will have children and they too will feel Regina’s love through their mother and father and through their grandfather who will dote on them and do all he can to remind them of where they came from.

We pithily call this the circle of life, and indeed it is, but it is more than that. The love that binds us together is God, the love these folks share and that we all share is the love that God has for the human person. We are created for love. I hope and pray that all people will have this understanding some day. Nothing is sadder than a person who feels left out of love. The mission of the Church, our mission, is to make sure that people feel that love from us, so they can encounter the God who loves them so very much.