A covenant sustained by grace

This is Marriage Week, ending on St Valentine's Day, when the new Archbishop of Westminster will be installed. My friend Roger, Marriage & Family Life Coordinator for the Diocese, has written a lovely reflection to link the two vocations, via the reception of a ring. Religious sisters are not mentioned, but we too wear rings - received when making our perpetual vows - which also represent a gift of oneself in love... a gift that is permanent, faithful, life-shaping and not without its challenges.

I have already written a few times about receiving a ring, and thus, when I first the read the reflection, I did not imagine that I would find anything new to say. But as I re-read it, I was gently reminded that a wedding has an exchange of rings, as well as of vows: each word, each gesture, is mirrored, proclaiming a mutuality of commitment; of what is promised and of what is given, and received. And I remembered a mutuality of love I had glimpsed a while back, when a couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary during Sunday Mass. Holding hands, and looking directly at each other through their tears, they had renewed their vows, publicly and emotionally restating their love for each other, to each other, with these words:  

I ... in the presence of God, reaffirm my commitment to you ... as your husband/wife. I give thanks that you have shared my life. All that I am and all that I have, I continue to share with you. Whatever the future holds, I will love you and stand by you, as long as we both shall live. 

When I made my vows there was no single person to look at. There was the Superior General, standing opposite me, responsible for receiving our vows, with joy and with gratitude, and in the name of all our sisters... and there were my family, friends and sisters, part of a large congregation, to whom I turned as I said all of you who are here witnesses... and somewhere within and around, beyond and ever-present in all these, there was God, the One to whom I and my probation-sisters were each pledging our lives, in the Society of his Heart. But - I had never thought of this before! - if the wedding ring that is given is a sign of the love and fidelity of the one who gives it... then maybe the Society's lifelong pledge of fidelity to me was somehow woven into the moment when Clare (our Superior General) placed my ring on my finger with a tender, affectionate squeeze... 

There was no visible, spoken, mirrored exchange, as in a wedding... And yet; and yet.. With God there is always an exchange, although it is often quiet, unseen and can never be equal. God's return of love for love is always revealed in the generosity of a hundredfold. And thus, the One who delightedly receives my paltry gift of myself in love, has continually given himself to me in unlimited, unconditional love; in copious, transforming grace, unstinting patience and forgiveness, and unwavering fidelity. 

As in marriage and in priesthood, the vowed commitment of each religious is also lived as a covenant, expressed publicly, and sustained by grace. And that is something for which I will give thanks on Saturday, St Valentine's Day, as I watch our new Archbishop receiving his own ring.