Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Today is the feast of Sibling-Spouses… a Sister-Wife and her Brother-Husband Ammonius. The story of two saintly individuals from the end of the fourth century of Christianity. We have a young man with no interest in marriage who is being forced to marry a young woman who is, likewise, disinterested in marriage. Their families, however, force the marriage and deny either a chance for true discernment. What results are two souls seeking how to provide for each other as fully as they can in a world that refuses to do so. To their vows of marriage they add vows of equality as Siblings in Christ and commit to celibacy and simplicity. In this they subvert the expectations of both their wealthy families as they slowly convert their large inheritances into support for those in need and the founding of monastic communities… and do not provide further heirs to take up the family name.

For about a decade the two lived together as a monastic community fostering similarly minded individuals… eventually Ammonius moved to the desert to found a community of hermit monks while his sister-wife kept their estate and gathered around her a community of nuns. They wrote back and forth letters of mutual spiritual direction always to their “brother-husband” or “sister-wife”. Creating a haven for themselves, and others, who were disinterested in following the expectations of society and parents that every man become the head of household and everyone woman an observant wife, redefining the very nature of what a marriage can be, and developing different models of how a married couple can support and foster health and wellness in the community around. 

Which is to say, in my mind, that Christian life does not fit patterns and expectations… as much as it fits love and concern for each other in the midst of the patterns and expectations that surround us. Finding that space for ourselves and for those around us is often quite difficult, the discipline of a lifetime, but essential to learning how to love ourselves and how to love our neighbor. Allow this day when we celebrate this rather different pair of monastic saints to be a day when we open our lives to love and concern outside of patterns and expectations.

Pax,

—Ben