One of the things you often get asked to do as a Jesuit scholastic is to participate in the weddings of friends and family. A few weeks ago, my friend asked me to read at his wedding in Philadelphia.  When we were talking about his wedding, what struck me is all of the details that go into a wedding: lists of stuff.  There are two ways to look at these details.  The first is to see them as a list of tasks, that if they are not completed the wedding is a failure.  Often this is how we look at life, not just weddings.  The fear of something going wrong is at the heart of this perspective, even in the preparation of such a joyous event.

But it seems to me that there is another way to look at a wedding, and also to approach the way we live our lives: by allowing our preparations, our vigilance to be a blessing to those we are preparing for.  As shocked as I was at all of the details needed for his wedding, my friend kept reminding me that he and his fiancée (now wife) prepared for their wedding so that they could celebrate more deeply with their loved ones.

Some of the happiest moments in the Gospels take place when Jesus is at a wedding.  Being at my friend’s wedding reminded me that I want to live my life with the same kind of blessed vigilance that he and his wife had, and that Jesus speaks about in today’s Gospel.

—Adam DeLeon, S.J. is a Jesuit scholastic studying theology in preparation for ordination at Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley CA.