![\"Wedding](\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/5596367222_0972153fc8_z.jpg\")
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I remember this day, eleven years ago. In the morning we had a birthday party for my maid-of-honor and dear friend, Laia. The afternoon was consumed by jittery preparations and far too many photographs (which seemed, a few years later, far too few photographs). Everything was quick and nervous and I kept wondering what I had missed, what I had left undone.<\/p>\n
When the hour arrived, I went out into the courtyard, where the sandstone of the church building was yellowing in the late afternoon sunlight. I walked in the church doors — beautiful carved wooden doors that have appeared in my dreams and have always symbolized my hope of salvation — and looked in the sudden darkness for the one person I had been waiting all day to see. And time ceased.<\/p>\n
The smile there — there was recognition in it, and a joy that has an element of surprise, a love that sees a gift that surpasses all expectation, a promise of eternity. Christ was there, saying that no preparation was wasted and none was necessary. The only thing that had been missed was here. There was grace there in the antechamber.<\/p>\n
And then the timelessness went on within time, and Matt kissed me through the veil, so thin he didn\u2019t see it, and hugged me like a vise and took my arm, and we processed towards the altar and sang and vowed our fidelity and received Holy Communion.<\/p>\n
So we began our life together. When I remember that day, I remember our vows — not, actually, the ones we said that day, which are the alternates and which I would have to look up, but the ones we expected and memorized and wrote in our wedding book beforehand and spoke to one another in our preparation: \u201cI, Kim, take you, Matt, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you, in good times or in bad, in sickness or in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.\u201d I test the words and taste the truth in them. I remember the tenderness and awe in Matt\u2019s voice as he put the ring on my finger, this sign of his love and fidelity. And I remember the smile.<\/p>\n
I use my marriage as an example when I teach about anamnesis, the kind of remembering that Christians do in sacramental celebrations. Anamnesis is remaking ourselves by our memory of God\u2019s gifts to us. It is not just a recall, but an entering into the mystery being recalled. I don\u2019t just remember that I vowed; I renew the vow, and rejoice in the one who was there and the subtly different one who now is. I don\u2019t just remember the love and commitment offered to me then; I see it anew in the love now offered to our children and the commitment to the daily sacrifices of living together.<\/p>\n
Anamnesis is a bit like a french braid: it starts with a small strand, like a smile piercing darkness, but every time you flip it over you pick up a bit more in your fingers. A vow, an evening meal, a lost ring, a diagnosis, an intimate moment, a shared communion. An undeserved forgiveness, a perfect trust, a free sacrifice, a tired child; an all-encompassing covenant. Soon what you have in your hands is so large that you can\u2019t see and can\u2019t hold the whole, and that is how you know that God has come to dwell among us again, there under your hands.<\/p>\n
Always quick in school, I am a slow learner in the things that really matter. I struggle to believe in the notion of unconditional love — for me, even me! Julian of Norwich understands me perfectly: \u201cFor some of us believe that God is almighty and may do all, and that he is all wisdom and can do all. But that he is all love and will do all, there we fail” (Showings, ch. 73, spelling modernized). I am remembering God\u2019s love for me in the antechamber of this life, and the anamnesis begins with that smile on my wedding day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the hour arrived, I went out into the courtyard, where the sandstone of the church building was yellowing in the late afternoon sunlight. I walked in the church doors — beautiful carved wooden doors that have appeared in my dreams and have always symbolized my hope of salvation — and looked in the sudden darkness for the one person I had been waiting all day to see. And time ceased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liturgical-spirituality","category-marraige"],"yoast_head":"\n