Perhaps love begins

where possession ends.
Where two souls
no longer ask,

What can you give me?
but,
How may I pour myself out
for you?

There,
something of the Trinity
begins to breathe.

Gift answering Gift,
love receiving love,
and love becoming
something greater
than either giver or gift.

Perhaps this is why
the Church calls marriage
a sacrament.

Not because our love
is without wounds,
but because through the wounds
Christ enters.

He knows something
about being poured out.
He knows the altar.
He knows the chalice.
He knows the terrible beauty
of giving Himself
completely.

And so,
when two people kneel
before Him
and speak their yes,
their yes becomes
a little altar.

Their lives
become the offering.
Their home
a small tabernacle
where forgiveness
and fidelity
keep vigil.

And Christ,
who once entered
the womb of Mary
through her fiat,
enters their covenant
through theirs.

Not changing water
into wine,
but changing
the ordinary substance
of two lives
into a sign
of something eternal.

A husband giving.
A wife receiving.

A wife giving.
A husband receiving.

And beneath it all,
the hidden rhythm
of the Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit:

love given,
love received,
love returned,
forever.

Perhaps this is
the deepest mystery of sacramental
love is that we do
not merely love one another
in God’s presence.

God takes our love
into His own life.

And what we thought
was only marriage
becomes,
by grace,
glimpse
of heaven.

~for Ann