The final act of St. John Paul II’s play “The Jeweler’s Shop” showcases a leap of faith taken by two of the children born of the first two marriages, Christopher and Monica. Christopher is the son of Teresa and Andrew, from the first act, and Monica is the daughter of Anna and Stefan, from the second. While Christopher and Monica are engaged to marry, they both have their apprehensions.
Shortly after Christopher was born, his father was sent to war where he soon died. Because Christopher lacked the example of a father figure at home, he feels insecure about his own ability to be a good husband and father.
Monica, on the other hand, while having had a father figure in her life, does not have a healthy example of marriage from her parents. She fears that she and Christopher will share the same fate as her parents’ broken relationship.
Yet despite their fears, they allow their love to continue bringing them together as one. They are each willing to take a leap into the unknown, trusting that their love will bring them safely through whatever challenges may come their way.
There is a beautiful abandonment in their disposition. They recognize they cannot control the future, but that they can control their choices. And they choose one another.
The third act concludes with a wise reflection – again, from Adam, the voice of reason throughout the play:
“…every person has at his disposal an existence and a Love. The problem is: How to build a sensible structure from it? But this structure must never be inward-looking. It must be open in such a way that on the one hand it embraces other people, while on the other, it always reflects the absolute Existence and Love; it must always, in some way, reflect them.”
Through their marriage, Christopher and Monica will have the opportunity to reflect God’s love. Pope John Paul II explains this in his General Audience on The Nuptial Meaning of the Body. He quotes Genesis 2:18, where God said: ‘It is not good that man should be alone;’ the pope affirmed that ‘alone,’ man does not completely realize this essence. He realizes it only by existing ‘with someone’ – and even more deeply and completely – by existing ‘for someone.’
When we exist for someone, we replace selfishness with selflessness, inward-looking to outward-looking. When a couple enters into a marriage with this desire, they enter into a “relationship of mutual gift…This is the body – a witness to creation as a fundamental gift, and so a witness to Love as the source from which this same giving springs.”
In this three-act play of just under 100 pages, we gain lessons about choosing love through our freedom and calling upon the grace of the sacrament to strengthen our ability to love and honor our spouse. We are reminded that love is not just a feeling but something we must faithfully choose for better or for worse – and sometimes this calls us on to a dying to self. We are called to focus on the other by giving the gift of ourselves.