THE Catholic Leader sat down with former columnist Sebastian Condon and his fiancée Inez to talk about life, love and theology.
TCL: Tell us a bit about your backstory, and your journey so far.
Inez – Well, I can say that Sebastian’s many years of training for the priesthood have had at least this effect upon him: he focuses perhaps too much on the transience of life. He is very stubborn, very dramatic and has a martyr complex. He still cycles into work even after many horror stories of the things I’ve seen in the Intensive Care Unit – he has no capacity to assess risk!
Sebastian – As you can see, Inez has no problem speaking her mind! But it is often a front for a deeply affectionate nature: last year, while I was undergoing chemotherapy, each time I ended up in the Emergency Department – no matter how late or early the hour – Inez would appear at my bedside, often despite strong discouragement from me. Woody Allan is remembered for having once said that 80% of life is showing up; I have a sense that the percentage is possibly higher for a cancer patient – it is the people around them that bear most of the emotional brunt. I still find it astonishing to think how patiently Inez endured it all. St Paul would be proud! [“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Cor 13:7]
TCL: Would you say that is what you love about Inez?
Sebastian – I remember when I was in the seminary at Banyo the Spiritual Director once said that when couples are asked why they love one another, they often fall back on some trite detail such as ‘it was her laugh’ or ‘it was his smile’. But in reality, the reason why people fall in love has a degree of mystery to it.
When we went to Mass some months ago the (very) old friar who preached the homily mentioned that, whenever he was preparing couples for marriage, he was always quite wary if they could articulate exactly why it was they loved one another – because love is a mystery, like God!
Of course, at that point in the homily I turned to Inez and, without skipping a beat, she said, ‘Don’t worry Sebastian, I don’t know why I love you.’
Inez – But the important thing is that I do!
Sebastian – I suppose love is like contemplation in that sense: St Thomas [Aquinas] defined contemplation as ‘a simple intuition of the truth.’ We can’t exactly articulate why we love each other, but we that know we do.
TCL: Was the fact Sebastian studied for the priesthood a plus when deciding to date him?
Inez – Actually, seeing as we connected on a dating app, he’s lucky we met at all – his profile had so many selfies!
Sebastian – I had just left half a decade of religious life! It’s not as if I had a large number of pictures where I wasn’t wearing a thirteenth-century habit!
Inez – The thing that saved him was his voice prompt – he answered one of the questions with a recording and I thought he had a nice voice. He mentioned that he had trained for the priesthood for some years and was now dating again.
Sebastian – Though whether that was a good thing or not still remains an open question.
Inez – For sure; when I first mentioned to my mother that I was dating Sebastian, she told me that she prayed every night that he would return to the Seminary. She thought I was stealing him away from his vocation. Apparently she has stopped those particular prayers fairly recently.
Sebastian – I should certainly hope so.
TCL: On the question of vocation, given you have been a Seminarian, a Religious and are now getting married in October, do you think the ‘call’ of God changes over time?
Sebastian – Yes and no. I think we are all ‘called’ to love to the fullest extent possible; that is why we were created and redeemed. It’s just a question of discerning how we are each supposed to live that love. It’s clearly taken me a while to come to a conclusion as to what I imagine God has planned for me (for how could anyone ever ‘know’?), but I think those years have helped me realise how much I depend on God’s Grace. When I first went to the Seminary, or when I entered the Novitiate, as I look back now, it seems I was forging ahead very much under my own steam. Life and love have taught me that it is it is Grace that will carry our lives – I have become much more cooperative with the Holy Spirit!
TCL: What have you learned about your faith from challenges you’ve faced together in your relationship and what are you looking forward to about married life?
Inez – I think we are both quite hopeful people; we wouldn’t have got through what we did if we were not. That said, it’s not as if it was all smooth sailing especially during chemo and Sebastian’s cancer diagnosis.
Sebastian – If anything, those experiences have shown that life is truly transient, and we should embrace the opportunity for love that we are given.
Inez – That will be one of the joys of married life – instead of spending hours on the phone every night, we can actually be together!
TCL: Well, we certainly wish you all the best and hope you have a long and fruitful married life together.
