Now that you’ve loved
it’s the end of your love and the
start of your loving career.
You’ll not love another;
you’ve gone from your mother for
real!
Stand to me now and make
sense of the things that you feel.
Danny
Black
I was asked to preside at a wedding this past weekend. I
always think that it’s kind of funny in the Catholic tradition that a celibate
man stands up in front of a young couple about to be married and gives them
advice. As if! But as I was thinking about what to say, I occurred to me that
there were a few lessons that I had learned from the monastic life that could
apply to the married life, so short of advice I thought I could share some
things I’ve learned from experience.
The first one is the main vow we monks take. It’s called conversatio
morum. Literally it translates something
like “conversion of ways.” Thomas Merton called it the “vow of conversation,”
and I think it applies well to the married state, too. What it means is that we
are always in conversation with our vocation, we are always asking our state in
life, what should a monk do? what should a husband do? what should a mother do?
But for a married couple I guess it always means that there is a vow of
conversation between them as well; from now on out they are not making
decisions just for themselves, but for their partner and eventually for their
children, their family.
When I made solemn vows I picked the gospel reading from
Matthew chapter 13 about the man who found the treasure buried in the field. But
he didn’t just grab the treasure and run––he bought the whole field! For me
that whole field is not just walking around in white robes or chanting the psalms
or sitting in meditation. It means whatever is going on with my monastic
community and congregation, as well as lots of personal ramifications of the
choice of lifestyle that I have made. And for the married couple the “whole
field” I guess means all that they each bring to the relationship, each of
their families, each of their background, each of their career choices, and
whatever the future holds. It’s like two ecosystems meeting; sometimes it could
lead to an environmental disaster! It’s like two weather systems meeting;
sometimes it feels like a perfect storm! Their love for each other is the treasure
buried in the field, but they find out that they have to buy the whole field.
It can come as a shock along the way when each of them starts to realize what
that whole field entails, but that treasure buried in the middle of it somehow
makes the whole field holy.
Another one of my favorite images of monasticism is what our
former prior general Emanuele said to me once. I was speaking to him about
monasticism as a container (this is part of a longer story, but I’ll spare
you…) and he said to me, “But, Cyprian, monasticism isn’t a container; it’s an
energy.” I disagree a little bit with that––I think it’s both a container and
an energy––but still his point is important, and the same applies to marriage.
Marriage can feel like a container, “settling down,” and to some extent that is
true. But, first of all, the couples’ love for each other is the energy inside
that container. Maybe the word “container” isn’t the best even; marriage holds
the energy and focuses the energy, but it’s not supposed to suppress the
energy. It’s important that that energy be always cared for and nourished. We
use the word “procreative” for married love; that word means even more than
having children. Love is creative, love gives birth to other things. That’s
just what love does. It gives birth to community, to art and beauty, to justice
and peace.
The last lesson is something I heard just the other day from
an 86 year-old monk. We were talking about how it is so hard for young people
to commit to monastic life, and I thought that this could apply again to any
vocation, including especially the married life. He said that the problem with
young and old is that they think of a vocation as an end. But really what we
commit to is a journey. Our vows are the beginning of a journey, and we have no
idea where the journey is going to take us! It’s a marvelous unfolding frightening mystery. And that
somehow ties in to the other three already mentioned. It is the energy of our
vocation that takes and sustains us on that journey. And on that journey we vow
to stay in conversation and constantly convert ourselves. In that journey we
discover the rest of the field that we have bought along with the treasure that
we found buried in it.
There’s a reason that a couple gets married in front of a
bunch of people, partly because all those people gathered there are a part of
that whole field! And also because those people are there to remind the couple,
when and if things get tough, that they have committed to the whole field, to
remind them that this is a journey they are on and to which they have committed
themselves.
I have found that the energy of my monastic life has led me
to live my life in a way I never would have imagined 20 years ago. It’s been an
amazing journey, especially these past ten years up in Santa Cruz and on the
road. And the same with the young families that I have been lucky enough to be
surrounded with these years; they have taught me so much as I watched them wade
through the surprises, disappointments and even great tragedies in their lives;
as well as I have watched older couples walk beside them, sometimes just being
gently present and supportive, at other times really holding their feet to the
fire, reminding them of the commitment that they made to the whole field, to
the journey, just as my elder brothers and sisters in religious life have both
encouraged me and challenged me to stay with it.
I especially wish Danny and Katy happiness, courage and
prosperity in the years ahead, as well as Claire and Nick, married just two
weeks ago. And I am feeling enormous gratitude for all the young couples and
their beautiful babies who have surrounded me these years with their joy and
life and courage and hope for the world.
