WRideout
11-26-2017, 09:05 AM
Why on earth would a wedding occupy such a prominent place in the gospel? For many years, this was a mystery to me. I am a protestant, through and through; I owe no allegiance to the Bishop of Rome. And yet, there are some ways in which our Roman Catholic brethren have gotten it right. It seems to me that when they listed marriage as a sacramental act, they really did understand something critical about the nature of marriage. But I don’t think it is possible to understand all this in words alone; one must see it lived out in daily life.
I first met Jim and Martha (not their real names) while I was volunteering at the Hospice Ward of the Veterans Hospital in Butler. Jim was a WWII veteran, an operating room technician who served in North Africa and Italy. A distinguished-looking man with a gray beard, he was confined to bed from a heart condition that was slowly draining his strength. Martha, his wife, was a small woman, perennially cheerful. They had seven children and thirteen grandchildren, who visited often. The room was decorated with mementos of Jim’s life, and their family.
Martha had spent much of the last year living at the hospital. She did leave about once a day to take care of herself, but returned every afternoon to sleep in Jim’s hospital room. When he first came to the hospice, Jim had been given a few weeks to live, but had surprised them all by making it almost a year. Martha had been keeping her vigil the entire time. As a volunteer chaplain I had been prepared for a flood of grief and pain when I went to Jim’s room to talk with Martha. It would be easy to think that she should be overcome by sorrow, but that would be wrong. In fact, I found quite the opposite to be true. Martha was cheerful and talkative, and told many stories about her growing up years, how they had met and married, and about Jim’s work as a Catholic layman in social justice ministries. While we sat and talked, we were surrounded by the odor from infections in Jim’s legs. “My parent’s didn’t want us to get married, because Jim was not a Catholic at that time,” she said, “But I knew that this was the right man.” And so they entered the covenant of marriage, perhaps too young to really understand what it would require of them. Decades later, she found herself keeping vigil in a hospital room while her husband slowly died. Did she suffer during this time? Most certainly she did. But it was not a senseless suffering; rather it was a sacred duty that she was glad to perform. When she talked about her time spent in the hospital with Jim, I was astonished to hear her say “I consider this to be a privilege.”
In the Gospel of John, the wedding at Cana was the first miraculous act of Jesus. In it we see foreshadowing of the sacramental acts of baptism and communion. If we follow the symbolism, water in jugs at the wedding becomes wine; and wine in communion becomes blood. In the celebration of marriage, we are not just celebrating the union of two people. It is an outward expression of faith that must end in sacrificial love. Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church, that is, with a sacrificial love. In marriage, two are joined by God, and give their lives for each other, one day at a time. Christ also lives for us and in us, one day at a time.
Amen
Wayne
I first met Jim and Martha (not their real names) while I was volunteering at the Hospice Ward of the Veterans Hospital in Butler. Jim was a WWII veteran, an operating room technician who served in North Africa and Italy. A distinguished-looking man with a gray beard, he was confined to bed from a heart condition that was slowly draining his strength. Martha, his wife, was a small woman, perennially cheerful. They had seven children and thirteen grandchildren, who visited often. The room was decorated with mementos of Jim’s life, and their family.
Martha had spent much of the last year living at the hospital. She did leave about once a day to take care of herself, but returned every afternoon to sleep in Jim’s hospital room. When he first came to the hospice, Jim had been given a few weeks to live, but had surprised them all by making it almost a year. Martha had been keeping her vigil the entire time. As a volunteer chaplain I had been prepared for a flood of grief and pain when I went to Jim’s room to talk with Martha. It would be easy to think that she should be overcome by sorrow, but that would be wrong. In fact, I found quite the opposite to be true. Martha was cheerful and talkative, and told many stories about her growing up years, how they had met and married, and about Jim’s work as a Catholic layman in social justice ministries. While we sat and talked, we were surrounded by the odor from infections in Jim’s legs. “My parent’s didn’t want us to get married, because Jim was not a Catholic at that time,” she said, “But I knew that this was the right man.” And so they entered the covenant of marriage, perhaps too young to really understand what it would require of them. Decades later, she found herself keeping vigil in a hospital room while her husband slowly died. Did she suffer during this time? Most certainly she did. But it was not a senseless suffering; rather it was a sacred duty that she was glad to perform. When she talked about her time spent in the hospital with Jim, I was astonished to hear her say “I consider this to be a privilege.”
In the Gospel of John, the wedding at Cana was the first miraculous act of Jesus. In it we see foreshadowing of the sacramental acts of baptism and communion. If we follow the symbolism, water in jugs at the wedding becomes wine; and wine in communion becomes blood. In the celebration of marriage, we are not just celebrating the union of two people. It is an outward expression of faith that must end in sacrificial love. Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church, that is, with a sacrificial love. In marriage, two are joined by God, and give their lives for each other, one day at a time. Christ also lives for us and in us, one day at a time.
Amen
Wayne