Saturday Vows, Round Two

Continuing my series of vow celebrations on successive Saturdays, I attended the wedding of a cousin five days ago. If memory serves, this was the first wedding that I've attended on this side of the family since my mom's youngest brother was married more than twenty years ago, and the first time in many years that I can recall assembling with all of my mom's extended family (sometimes a cousin or two would be absent at Thanksgiving or Christmas).

My newly married cousin, flanked by her husband
and surrounded by our relatives.

During the ceremony, as well as at the reception, I found myself reflecting on the theme of family. The Christian minister who officiated at the wedding described the graced manner in which a strong marriage not only unites husband and wife, but also draws together two families as a new family comes into being. Siblings of the groom and the bride each used their toasts at the reception to tell a brief story about their newly wedded brother and sister, respectively, not only to highlight an idiosyncratic trait or famous episode cementing their place in family lore, but also to welcome the other family into these ongoing narratives.

While entering the Society of Jesus eight years ago did not entail severing all ties with my parents, younger sister, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, it did bring about a decided shift in my relationships with them as I began integrating myself into my new religious family, a brotherhood living in community. It's something more than simply moving away to work in another city, even though my patterns of visitation to home and relatives in South Jersey (lately, for Thanksgiving, Christmas, perhaps Easter, and a week in the summer) are little different than several cousins of mine who do not live in that charming corner of the world. It's a situation in which I see my primary "family narrative" being written through my experiences with my brother Jesuits, while my relationships with my blood relatives take on the role of a supportive sub-plot. Conversely, while my place in the ever-expanding family narrative that continues in South Jersey and elsewhere is hardly limited to my identity as a Jesuit, the qualities associated with their perceptions of my religious life do significantly shape our conversations when I'm home, and perhaps their words about me when I'm away.

My sister and parents

So when my cousin and her sister speak of welcoming a new family into ours, and when her husband and his brother invite my family into theirs, I find myself not only drawn into that expansion of relation, but also firmly rooted in the religious family to which I've given myself– not always as perfectly or generously as I could, mind you– over the past eight years. I've often heard superiors of religious communities– especially novitiates, where the first stage of formation takes place, and the most pronounced signs of "entrance" occur– offer comfort and encouragement to parents with variations on this theme: "You're not losing a child, you're gaining a family." It seems that I've been living, and increasingly recognizing, a corollary that applies to those in religious life: "You're not losing your family, you're identifying more closely with a new one." In any event, family is important to me, and whenever I'm back home in South Jersey, I'm renewed in my awareness of, and gratitude for, the crucial and invaluable love and support that they offer to me. In turn, I'm reminded to pay attention to my bonds with them, while remaining steadfast in the spirit of my vows that commit me, through community life in the Society of Jesus, to the brothers with whom God calls me to work and live.