I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.     (Revelation 21:2)

             I was in the first grade when my oldest sister got married. I had to recite a poem at the reception in the American Legion Hall. I remember nothing about the poem, but I do remember how beautiful my sister was on that day. I was struck by the pearls embroidered on the wedding dress (at that time in my life, I was more accustomed to sliding worms on a hook down at the creek). My sister had a wonderful smile. In the church photos of her wedding day, her eyes glisten as bright as votive lights. 

            My new brother-in-law sported a crewcut, drove a new Pontiac, owned a dump truck and could operate a backhoe. And he had given me a rat terrier for my birthday.

            What a day!

            As a priest, when I prepare engaged couples for marriage, my mind returns to my sister’s wedding over sixty years ago. I long to convey to them something of the love that unfolded in her life as a wife and mother. But how can I, a celibate, speak knowingly of the intimate sanctity of this sacrament?

            Well, sometimes, a perspective one-step removed is one-step closer to clear perception---like an artist sketching the muscles of a horse, or a sculptor carving a smile into a block of marble.

            Call it “Marriage from the Outside.”

            I have lived long enough to have had romantic notions of marriage laundered and cleaned so often to know that new clothes turn into work clothes in a short amount of time. My sister’s marriage served as an early test case. She and her husband lost their first child shortly after he was born. My brother-in-law had trouble holding down a job. My sister contracted cancer in her thirties. She nursed our mother when she came down with Alzheimer’s only to be diagnosed herself with Parkinson’s. In the final years of her life she could barely move and was unable to speak.

            Yet her smile rarely dimmed. Her inner joy remained as evident as on the day of her wedding, was ever-present. As for her husband? These days, he watches daily Mass on TV from his wheelchair. He prays the rosary with a picture of my sister nearby.

             In the snapshot, taken the week before she died, my sister’s face is slightly contorted, her mouth half-open, yet her eyes are focused and intent.

            “She’s trying to tell me something,” says my brother-in-law. We are speaking on the phone and I hear a catch in his throat. “I wish I knew what she wanted to say.”

            Later, that evening, I lean back in my office chair and study the engaged couple seated across from me. I, too, wish I could tell them what my sister longs to say. I wish I could tell them of the love their sacrament will unfold.