Sunday, March 18, 2001

'Til death do us part

By FATHER KEVIN PEEK

I met her at seminary, five years ago, in what we Catholics call a holy hour an hour spent in prayer, adoring, thanking and praising God for all his great and glorious gifts, not the least of which is our life and our salvation, Jesus Christ.

Being far from home, just three miles below the Mason-Dixon Line, it was just as comforting to be in the presence of my God as it was to hear her beautiful Southern lilt warming up the worship hymns filling the homely chapel where we gathered. She was young, beautiful and full of the life and joy of the Holy Spirit, and her voice and mannerisms brought to mind all that I missed and longed for in my Southern roots.

Soon enough we had become close friends.

She was from Sumter, S.C., a town spared the ravages of the Union armies, rich in the traditions of stately homes with large porches and tree-lined streets. Her boyfriend had followed her from there to Mount Saint Mary's College, which shared campus and facilities with Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, where I was enrolled.

They were a wonderful pair, longtime sweethearts who knew each other's every thought, and shared a common faith and vision in life. They were famous on campus not only for their frequent attendance at holy hours, but also for the talks on chastity and virginity they would give to high school youth in the area.

But something happened on the way to heaven, so the song goes, and they went their separate ways, aching in their hearts, knowing how difficult it would be to discover again so special, so holy a companion in this sexually disordered world.

Last fall I got a call from Hilary. "I've met this guy ... and I think he's the one! We're coming to town and I'd like you to meet him. Can you make some time?"

Could I make some time? I love this girl like a sister, for I see Christ in her every thought, word and action. One of God's most innocent creatures, and now, having just completed her healing from this painful chapter, she's ready to settle on the first thing that comes along and wants me to validate this?!

The news got worse; he was a West Point graduate, helicopter pilot, finishing training at Ft. Rucker, Ala. Being the son of a Navy pilot and knowing what the
training atmosphere at most bases is, I thought with Nathaniel, can anything good come out of Rucker? Needless to say, a follow-up call by her mother, full of her concerns that a lifetime of love and nurturing and protection was about to be undone by some upstart serviceman, had me in full prime to head this guy off at the pass.

But I had plenty of reason to pause. First, Hilary is still a level-headed, Christ-centered woman. After graduating last May, she took a job teaching an abstinence-based chastity program to inner city high schools in Philadelphia, not the easiest thing for a petite Southern young lady to do. Secondly, a Godly friend of mine at seminary, another West Point graduate who was called by God to the chaplain corps from the mine detonation corps, had introduced them. Finally, she still respected and desired my opinion before allowing herself to be fully given over to him.

So we arranged to meet, and had dinner in the Newnan Applebee's. She was more bubbly and alive than I had ever remembered; he was quiet and studious, while given to break out spontaneously in warm, slow smiles. There was a definite peace there, as we bowed our heads to pray. In a few minutes, he excused himself to the restroom (it had been a long, three-hour drive), and she took the opportunity to share a beautiful moment with me.

It had happened a few days before. They were on a date when they began to discuss and then read the Bible. As time passed he grew silent, and she looked up to find tears in his eyes. Asking him what was the matter, he responded with a gentle kiss on the lips. Stunned, she sat back as he quietly informed her that she was the first girl he had ever kissed. "Then why did you?" she asked. "Because you are the one I've been waiting for," he replied.

An Army pilot, rough and tough, athletic virgin to the point he had never even kissed a girl before, and a girl who was as pure and alive as the first day of spring; this was truly something glorious to behold. Here was no ordinary couple, distracted by the false idols of passion and emotion, caught up in the lies and emptiness found in extramarital sex and self-gratification. This relationship was founded upon the rock of truth, the truth of what it means to be human, and to be in relation
with one another; and was being developed by the principles of love, as set forth by Jesus Christ. No, it was no ordinary couple, and it would be no ordinary marriage.

Marriage, in the Catholic Church, is seen as an institution so close to the heart of God as to have been elevated to the level of sacrament by Jesus Christ. A sacrament is most simply defined as a physical sign, or symbol, pointing to or representing a spiritual reality. Water is used at baptism, not because God has to have water to wash away our sins and make us his sons and daughters, but because we need to have a physical sign through which we can grasp and understand what is happening spiritually, as well as have a verifiable instant in which we can be sure that this essential moment in our salvation has indeed occurred.

Marriage is a sacrament, therefore, precisely because as it seeks to achieve its ideal, it points to and reveals the union between Christ and his church. What we see in Ephesians 5 concerning marriage is termed a mystery, a mysterion, something holy, because it refers to Christ and the church.

This is born out when we take a simple survey of the Scriptures. Beginning in Genesis we find God creating Adam and Eve, and instantaneously upon creating them, he marries them, using the time worn formula: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." For God and his love are often invisible and hard to comprehend, and so it was not good that man should be alone but should rather have someone with whom to be wholly given and to wholly receive in imitation and reflection of the love of God never to replace or supercede it.

Thus our Lord reminds us that marriage is simply a sign for this life, for when we get to heaven and see the source and summit of all love, there will be no need for the sign or symbol and therefore "no giving and taking in marriage." But in the meantime he gets a lot of mileage out of the closely related symbol.

Throughout the Old Testament, he pursues his people Israel as a suitor would his beloved, wooing her with gifts and calling her with gentle words. Hence when she goes astray, he responds like a spurned lover, calling her not only idolatrous, but unfaithful and

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