Homily for October 4, 2009

    “A suitable partner.” “I will make him a suitable partner.” You want a suitable partner, don’t you? Who doesn’t? -- a boyfriend, girl friend, husband, wife, or just a good close personal friend. To talk with, to overcome loneliness with, to share activities with, like naming the animals as we see in this reading from Genesis. That is, participating in God’s work, being co-creators with God, exercising their creativity in a permanent and faithful relationship where love is freely given and received. You will be “fruitful and flourish,” as the responsorial psalm says today. That is a definition of marriage as many folks here know because they live it every day and have for years. And the obvious way men and women partners do this in marriage is by making children and, of course, by naming them.
    But the first qualities I just mentioned: free and faithful acts, done for the good of the other, bring about intimacy, a growing together in one spirit. These are also qualities of friendship. Freedom and faithfulness are present in God especially. God’s love is faithful and it last forever.
    So from this reading from Genesis we see that we are called to be in relationship, first with God and then with our suitable partners -- whether we are married or single, whether we are dating, hope to be dating or married. For me, “suitable partners” are my brother priests. For Sr. Ellen, her “suitable partners” are her sisters in the Congregation of Divine Providence.
    Our growing in relationship with our “suitable partners” depends in good measure on compatibility. Do we have like interests and activities? My friend Bob told me he told his son Larry: Pick a girl for a life partner who shares some interests with you. He himself loved sailing but his wife only endured going sailing with him.
    Lasting marriages and friendships are based on caring, sharing and cultivating. I saw some priest friends in Boise Idaho this past week when I was there to give a talk. I also have a good priest friend in Colorado. We talk regularly on the phone, but seeing each other every now and then helps the friendship to last over the distance of time and space. Friendships require work. That's why having a good foundation for any relationship is so important.
    You here at UK do this regularly at the Newman Center of Holy Spirit Parish. I was noticing it last week at the Tuesday night Peer Ministry dinner. You are sharing something very deep, your faith and activities that surround your faith. It is not surprising how many marriages have come out of this worshipping community, and I suspect many more will come from among you. You will be “suitable partners” because you will share deep values and activities like the “naming” we see in today’s gospel as you participate in the work of God’s creation. Right now, at this point of your lives, the most important work you do is you. Yes, you are the most important creative work God has given you to do – to discover who you are and who God calls you to be in the particular mission God has given to you, as the unique and irrepeatable work of God that you are. This is what psychology calls self-actualization. In this process of self-discovery, you indeed co-create with God, naming yourself before the People of God. And when you do it well, God takes great delight in you. When you do this work well, you will have much to give to you “suitable partner,” whoever that turns out to be. Then, as today’s psalm tell us, you will be “fruitful and flourish.” God and your partner will take great delight in you!

    [The English poet John Donne was an emissary of the King and he was sent on a mission. He needed to leave his wife Anne who was pregnant. He wrote a famous poem, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.” In it he says to Anne that love is in the mind. It is based in the spirit, the Spirit of God. So when we part our love remains firm. He says Love is not love at alters when it alternation finds. Our love, thou I must go, endures no a breach but an expansion.” He says that because it is based on something more than the physical.]