The truck rumbles to a stop, gravel crunching underneath the tires. The doors on the old pickup slam shut, causing blackbirds to flee into the morning light. We ease our way down to the river, waves lapping the city park sidewalk. Debris crunches beneath our feet: sticks, moss, cicada shells.  On the side of a rusted walking bridge, chalked in white: John 15:13.

            I glance at my friend, Joe. He looks away, sucks in a deep breath. No greater love....

            Two months before, under that same bridge, a seminarian named Max—and our friend—had abandoned the safety of his own kayak to pull from the water a young woman who had been dragged under by the current. The moment he muscled her onto the craft, he disappeared. His body was recovered three miles downstream.

***

My rented tuxedo hangs loose. Sleeves too long. Shoes too tight. I prop my leg up on a coffee table next to a stack of engagement photos of my best buddy Andrew and his bride-to-be. Scenes of salmon-colored sunsets and silhouettes, hands wrapped up in a rosary, their gazes like yearning light. A beauty that wounds.

Joe walks in, loosens his tie and motions me outside. Earlier that morning, we had been swimming in a pond out in the country, recounting memories, laughing like the swallows that darted in the skies above. Now back at the house, a few hours later, soaring swallows fall like rocks: “Max was kayaking in the river this morning.” Joe shakes his head. “He went under. He’s missing.”

            Later, we stand before a stained-glass window that stretches from floor to vaulted ceiling. Andrew looks through the veil of his bride as they turn toward each other in front of the altar. “I promise to be true to you, till death do us part.”

***

            I sprinkle the casket with holy water, green tent flapping in the winter air. I am now a young priest. Today, I am burying someone younger than me.

            The man’s parents stand shoulder to shoulder in front of me, arms around the younger children of the family, hands clasped together between them. Over their shoulders, silhouetted against the hazy sky, a building in which we danced in celebration of my cousins wedding just five days ago. They are the same age as the deceased. My mind drifts to the vows I witnessed them exchange: “I promise to be faithful to you, in good times and in bad.”

            A sparrow fluffs its feathers on a headstone. I reach beneath flowers splayed across the cold, metal casket and grasp the golden image of a man dying upon an instrument of torture. I place him into the hands of the young man’s parents and see their wedding rings, gold as the crucifix I hold in my hands.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

[ For reminders of new posts, please email Fr. Luke at [email protected]]