A week ago Wednesday, during the great snowfall that never quite happened, I did something I have not done in quite a while. I trudged up to the other end of Illinois Street to watch a movie. The film I ended up watching was called Companion. It was interesting and well-acted, and in an era of three hour blockbusters, managed to tell a story in a little over 90 minutes. It was a relationship movie of a different sort. Although not obvious at the beginning of the movie, several of the characters were actually robots. Robotics had developed to the point that one could order a life companion on-line, programming in the qualities that one desired and even memories of romantic moments that never happened. The robots were totally devoted to their partners wishes and were incapable of deception. Adjustments could be made in the partner after the product arrived. Naturally things start to go wrong with the robots, or there would not be much of a movie. Still, it caused me to wonder if this is the future of love. Thanks to AI, we already have the ability to create a profile of an imaginary ideal lover, with whom we can text back and forth. These AI folks are presumably more attractive than anyone we might meet on a dating app—except for the fact that we cannot actually meet them. They only exist in cyberspace.

Meanwhile, back in actual reality, the institution of marriage continues to take a hit. In the United States, marriage rates declined by 25% between 1969 and 2019. Catholic marriage took an even deeper dive. The number of Catholic marriages declined 55% between 1990 and 2020, even as the Catholic population has grown. Based on my experience, that trend is likely to continue

When I was first ordained and assigned to a town in New Jersey in the early 1980’s, most of the brides and grooms grew up in that community, were still living at home with their parents, and married in the Catholic Church they had known most of their lives. Now that most people getting married are older and cohabitation before marriage has become common, couples are much more likely to be disconnected from their roots. Many of the couples who come to Assumption to be married have no formal affiliation with any parish and have given little thought to church in recent years.  There is one factor, though, that I have noticed. When I meet with couples for the first time, almost invariably at least one of the partners will mention going to church as a family or going to Catholic school or religion classes. They may not have gone to church in quite a while, but the foundation was still there. As fewer young families attend Mass together and fewer families enroll their children in a religious education program, the number of Catholics seeing any significance to a Catholic wedding will also decline. An increasingly popular trend is to have a family member buy a minister’s license on-line and have that person officiate at the reception hall.

So, we try to be as welcoming as possible here at Assumption to the couples who do inquire about a Catholic wedding, meeting them wherever they are at in their relationship with God and church. Some couples who plan to have their cousin marry them in front of a crowd elsewhere still see the value of having a small religious ceremony in church. Couples attend a pre-Cana day led by a married couple and complete a FOCCUS inventory that covers a dozen different areas in a relationship. This past Monday I went through our sacramental records and discovered since coming here on a part-time basis in 2006 and becoming pastor in 2009, I have officiated at 853 weddings. Yes, it can become physically tiring, but it is never boring. I usually meet with each couple four times before the wedding; so, every ceremony is about two people whom I have had the privilege of getting to know. I never feel like I am just “doing a wedding.” Some couples I worry about more than others, because one or both parties comes from a very unstable family. But I long ago gave up trying to predict who is going to “make it.” Some couples who seem to have it all together only seem to have it all together; and others whose relationship is a bit of a mess are willing to put in the hard work and pull themselves together and have a great marriage.  Over the years I have also helped a handful of couples apply for a decree of nullity from a marriage I performed and have conducted a funeral for two people I married.

If Jesus taught us anything it is that real love involves sacrifice. That is why I think that a robot can never truly replace a human marriage partner. A relationship with a robot is totally self-centered. In spite of all the challenges real life couples face, it is through the sacrifices they make for one another and by facing the challenges of life together that they grow in holiness and become a blessing to one another. Couples have the potential to bring out the best in one another. That is the miracle of the sacrament of matrimony, and that is not something you can order on Amazon.

                                                                               Fr. Joe