Date: Sunday, May 09, 2021
Years ago, I remember reading about an arranged marriage of two graduate students at the University at Buffalo. It caused a stir. The grandfather of the young man who attended the ceremony explained: “In the West, you marry the girl you love. In the East, you love the girl you marry.”
In the Gospel according to St. John, on the evening he is arrested and the day before he dies on the cross, Jesus gives his last wish to his disciples: “Love one another as I have loved you.” He gives the request as a command. How can the Lord command us to love? Doesn’t love just happen? Even our expression “falling in love” gives the impression that it is beyond our control. The command of Jesus is puzzling in a society that identifies love as a feeling, as an emotion. For many “to love” means “to like.” Real love, Christ’s kind of love, is not a feeling but an act of the will, a decision, a commitment to act for the benefit of another person no matter how we feel about individual at a given moment of time.
The confusion of loving and liking causes many problems when we identify married love with romance – a feeling. Can romance be the foundation of a lifelong marriage? Can mutual emotional attraction between two people be a guarantee of fidelity? Feelings change, ebb and flow. When our feelings start to change, does that mean the marriage is at an end? “I don’t love him anymore!” Or can the change of feeling signal the beginning of a new, more mature, and honest relationship. I caught a segment of “Victoria” on PBS when Queen Victoria asks Prince Albert if he still loves her? They have been married for nine years with seven children and with a host of challenges as a royal couple. Prince Albert says to Victoria: “My love for you has changed.”
Love entails a commitment to seek the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical wellbeing of another person. Jesus commands us to love others as he has loved us. We see this unfold in the relationship Jesus has with Simon Peter. In our first reading, Acts of the Apostles, Peter goes to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion. He would have preferred not to be there, but he has a sense of mission, of seeing his presence as a Jew in a Gentile household as part of God’s plan. He witnesses the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Jew and Gentile alike. In the Gospel according to John, the Risen Lord appears to Simon Peter at the Sea of Tiberias (Galilee) and asks him three times: “Do you love me?” After each affirmation of love, Jesus commissions Simon Peter to feed and tend my sheep. The office of Good Shepherd is entrusted to Simon Peter. Jesus predicts it will take Simon Peter to where he would choose not to go – except for Christ and the spiritual wellbeing/salvation of others. This is true love. This kind of love has the power to transform our world and great power to transform us.
On Wednesday, our adult confirmation class was studying the Sacrament of Marriage. There are three adult candidates desiring to be confirmed. Two are engaged to be married. Deb Keenan, our Pastoral Associate for Ministry, and Mary Ann Mercurio, our Catechist for Sacraments, guide the discussion. Mary Ann shared her understanding of her marriage vow. In her mind and heart, she was promising to help her husband get to heaven. Some in our society would smile or even laugh at her words. But I find them to be especially beautiful and profound. “Love is of God … God is love” (2nd reading, first Letter of John). Love is eternal.