June: Time to Reflect on Commitments

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

Traditionally, Americans have celebrated June for weddings and graduations, both of which inspire joy and celebrate achievement. Having attended the wedding of my godson and nephew recently to his wonderful bride, and having read several graduation speeches, I got to thinking about commitment and its power to encourage others who witness how it is rooted deeply in a spiritual call.

Most Christian couples select two scriptural readings for their weddings: the miracle at Cana (John 2:11-12) and Paul’s letter to the Corinthians on the meaning of love (1Corinthihans 13:4-8). But the significance of the Cana story is not the wedding! I have heard far too many sermons on the meaning of marriage based on that miracle of changing water into wine. The miracle has nothing to do with marriage. John, the Evangelist, is the only gospel writer to include the story in his gospel. John was focused mostly on signs in Jesus’ ministry and how they are the substance of this new faith and how they nourished the new faith and helped its believers to understand what was happening as the nascent Church was growing in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Marriage is never mentioned in this story except to describe the reason for the gathering of the people. And, in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, which is a compendium of scholarship of major theologians, the wedding is not even mentioned in their instructions on the miracle at Cana.  

So, what to make of this? 

First of all, the primary reason for the miracle at the beginning of John’s Gospel is to direct us to John’s use of signs and in this case, the sign of the Eucharist. Not marriage. This is the first miracle of Jesus recorded in John as if to say these signs and symbols will factor in a major way toward the end of Jesus’ ministry. The signs are water and wine, the two elements used in the consecration at Mass—water indicating its necessity for life, and wine, demonstrating the food, along with bread, that brings the community together and sustains it. John constantly inserted the metaphors of signs in his gospel. In this story, the wine is depleted like the Old Teachings that have merged into the New; Jesus fills the water jars and changes the water to wine because his message is new. And life-giving. Remember this, John seems to say, you will see it at our Last Supper.

So, how is marriage included in this story?  

First, there is an assembly. It is made of happy, mostly related people. They are gathered to witness a bonding of two people who will raise children and help other members of the community in their farming, their shops, their cooking, their care of each other’s children, whatever is needed among their members. They will help the bride in childbirth and support the groom in work and success. They are the beloved community.

The reason why the wedding is so important is precisely that: An assembly of believers is blest by the commitment they have come to witness through a couple, simple and in love, who profess it before this assembly. The element of commitment is offered in front of an assembly. Water, wine, and feasting are offered. All of the parts of a Eucharistic celebration, the ordinary Mass you and I attend, are there: gathering, commitment, water and wine and bread. We make the commitment of faith, we partake of the bread and wine, we are made whole by this and the presence of our beloved community. 

Reflection 

June is also Gay Pride Month. I spent many years in higher education and, later, in retreat ministry where I was blest to know some outstanding believers who just happened to be gay. I did not know some to be gay until they told me, mostly through tears and gut-wrenching perceived guilt. I am happy to know some of these people have found true love and have made commitments just as strong and stable as the best of heterosexual relationships. 

In his document, Fiducia Supplicans (Dec. 2023), Pope Francis has made an earth-shattering confirmation of the commitment of such couples by allowing them to be blest by a priest or deacon. It is a hair-splitting permission, if you will, not the optimal goal of (heaven forbid,) allowing the consecrating of the commitment as a marriage, an endeavor that would take much theological scholarship and debate. But it is a huge step forward hailed by many and assailed by many as well. African bishops are openly opposing the statement by not allowing such blessings in their dioceses and some American bishops have registered the same opposition. It appears Francis is surfing in a tsunami on this issue. The document, however, allows for the blessings of couples in other ‘irregular’ relationships as well, not just gay couples.

It seems to me that all love deserves to be blest and acknowledged. At its source, Love is God. People who commit to each other accept the demands as well as the joys that a life together will generate. When we actively work in love, we have to give up something almost everyday of the commitment; thus, we water, weed, nurture the growth of our love. 

Let’s pray for and encourage newly married couples and those, too, who are              

committed in unconventional ways but committed, nonetheless. God is in that love, too.

This week maybe we could read and reflect on Paul’s letter 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Take each line and reflect on it for quite a while. Ask yourself where you need to grow in loving this way.

You might want to read Jesuit James Martin’s book, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter Into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity.