"A Great Yes to Love"

If you don't receive the Knight's of Columbus "Columbia" magazine, or if you don't know someone who does, be sure to read Kate Iadipaolo's thoughts in the August issue.

To give you a start:

Before I was married, my own vision of marriage was overwhelmed by a darkly grim sense of duty. The overture to the drama was simply, "Make it work, make it work." To me, marriage seemed to be a heavy yoke of meeting responsibilities. Only when I met the one God prepared to be my husband did that veil of grim duty lift. My future husband made me laugh. He listened. We prayed and studied and danced, and our love became more gift than duty. Our relationship, engagement and marriage brought more in the way of peace than anxiety.

As with any marriage, there are difficult moments — moments that cost us something of our independence or the sinfulness to which we sadly cling — but we have experienced that vast horizon of the other. The beauty of it points me onward, reminding me that the prize is worth the bumpy ride.

Sometimes the demands are not as simple as spinning my daughter about in the laundry basket. Sometimes, my "Yes" requires more in the way of self-mastery. How often have my own husband's legitimate wishes been met with joyless reluctance, hesitation or even worse, silence? Counting my husband and three children, my home boasts four sets of the softest brown eyes I have ever known. In these eyes, I have beauty enough to last me a lifetime.

One would think I would realize that the greater the costs, the more abundant the blessings. But I, yet a fearful pilgrim, am still caught up in counting costs more than blessings. I am comforted by the pope's reminder that the one-flesh union of marriage journeys the path of our lives "until the man and woman become one spirit as well." Speaking in his May 13 address, Benedict added that a our bodies teach us "the value of time, of that slow maturation in love." There is time for me yet.

But it really is a terrific read! Find it here.