For Those Getting Married

Last updated on: June 24, 2026 at 11:18 am by Sherry Antonetti

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For Those Getting Married 2026-06-24T11:18:23-04:00 Sherry Antonetti

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This photo is of my parents, taken on their trip to the Holy Lands. The picture is more than a meditation, it is a manifestation of what was taking place back in their lives. My dad suffered from Alzheimer’s, and my mother cared for him.

It was part of the final journeying of their marriage –he stopped being able to travel not too long after that, and later needed to be at a home because Mom could not manage all his needs. He fell at the home, and went to a rehabilitation center. He fell again, and again. Meanwhile, his brain played cruel tricks on him, making the person who once read Hans Von Bathazar and argued in court, unable to fully grasp a picture book on Curious George. He was trying to read to his granddaughters. I took the book and wept.

The last time I saw my father living, he was in a rehabilitation home, and mom sat at his side. Monday was his birthday, though he died on Ash Wednesday, March 5th, 2014. Mom was at his side in that last moment too. Their lives imprinted on me how and what a marriage is, and I miss them every day. This past Father’s day and Monday, I felt it hard and it still haunts this week. The photo illustrates not merely way of the cross they walked, but the way of every marriage, not because it is tragic, but because it merely is.

To love, is to hold fast all the way to either on the cross or at it, and that is what anyone vows when they take on a spouse in the Catholic sacrament. It is a promise to love as God loves, ever present, and into all of the future. When pondered as a forever, the vow, the sacrament is so much more than romantic, it is love itself.

God promises us an eternity of joy, but it can only be understood through this life in all its brokenesss. We cannot value the cross if we do not understand its purpose –to illustrate what love is, more powerful than sin, more forgiving, more receiving, more giving, unto death, beyond death. God loves us beyond what we can comprehend, and the closest we come to understanding it is to contemplate Christ on the cross.

Christ receiving the cross, Christ carrying the cross, Christ on the cross. All of this is love, and all of this is willed, and all of this, is done for the anticipatory joy of our being with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in Heaven.

For those getting married, congratulations. Regardless of what is down the road, with the start of the sacrament, the joy has begun. It will flow out in every direction, and make the world around it fresh and new and fertile. Blessings to you both, the joy is just beginning.

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