One and Only

The Wedding in Cana

Make, Don't Find, Your One and Only
Homily Delivered at Wedding of Kenny Lee and Lilian Yu
Twin Villas, 976 Huaihai Road, Shanghai, China
October 11, 2009

Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (translation by the homilist)

What is love? When you love someone, you are patient and kind with that person. You are not jealous of those you love, and you don't try to show them up. You don't talk down to them or act rudely toward them. You don't try to have your own way at their expense, nor do you get annoyed or resentful at them. You don't get pleasure at any injustice done to them or by them, but rather you rejoice when truth prevails. When you love someone, you put up with whatever they do, you trust whatever they say, you hold every hope for them, and you are willing to endure anything for them. When you love, you never stop loving. Not so with prophecies, languages, or knowledge--these will all cease one day. For our knowledge and our prophecy are partial only. And when wholeness arrives, partial things will come to an end. When I was a child, I used to talk, think, and reason as a child does. When I became an adult, I put aside a child's ways of doing things. At present, we see things indistinctly, as if through a clouded mirror, but then it will be face to face. At present, I know things only in part, but then, I shall have a knowledge of others just as I also will have been fully known. But as matters are now, only these three things really last-- faith, hope, and love. And of these, the greatest is love.

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Amen

In Chinese, when we talk about someone who is a soul-mate, a true friend—we say we share yuanfen. The idea is that we have a link that goes back to some kind of previous life, back to a whole set of good deeds we may have done one another from before we remember. In Western romantic literature, this idea is expressed by the phrase, finding your “one and only” true love. It certainly describes the kind of love my parents had—they met in second grade, were best friends, and fell in love as soon as they were in high school. They secretly married when they were seventeen years old, much to the chagrin of their parents. But they remained faithful and true to each other for sixty-some years, until they died.

I never saw them argue, though I often saw them work out differences between themselves.

I once asked my father how it was that you could tell if you had found your one true love, your “one and only.” He looked pained at the question, as if I had missed the point. He said, “it doesn’t really matter if you think you have found your one and only. Many people think they have their one true love, only to discover as they age and change that it was a short-lived emotion, a passing attraction. And their marriages didn’t last. So you shouldn’t ask whether you have found your one and only. You should ask what you need to do today to make the one you love your one and only. Because you don’t find a true soul-mate—you make one through actions each day.”

I thought my father was being terribly un-romantic. But I knew he was deeply and hopelessly in love with my mother. And that, after nearly fifty years.

I have come to realize that he was describing the only kind of romance that lasts-- one that is strengthened and renewed each day, through thick and thin, by the actions that show and built mutual respect, love, and passion.



Today Lilian and Kenny you are making each other promises in the presence of family, friends, and colleagues. Be sure to take time each day to listen to each other. Be sure to allow each other space. And most of all, be sure to be honest with each other and be willing to admit fault and forgive it.

In the name of God, Amen.