Flowers, vows and an uncovered cross

Saturday's wedding in my parish church meant that on Sunday we still had a sanctuary bedecked with flowers, and floral wreaths and veiling adorning the end of each bench, creating an aisle seemingly lined by two dozen or more mini brides. After Mass I couldn't resist unhooking one, trying it on, and posing for a photo! I held onto a fallen rose, but when my impromptu photographer suggested I hold it more centrally, I instinctively said no: I don't want to cover my cross. 

It was just a plastic rose; just a fun photo... But I didn't want to cover my cross - sign of my vowed commitment to unmeasured, redemptive Love - especially today, when Jesus in the Gospel reminds us of the cross at the heart of the radical demands of discipleship. If anyone would follow me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me... (Matthew 16: 24). The priest had managed to weave the wedding into his homily, speaking of the deep joy and love he had witnessed yesterday, but also of the foreshadowing of the radical demands of this lifelong commitment contained in the vows: For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health... All this unto death. I could see the married people around me nodding gently, smiling softly at memories, and with the wisdom of lived experience of their own better and worse; their own times of loving, and being loved, with patient, selfless and self-giving love. 

And inevitably, I sat there pondering and recalling my own vows. 

Because it occurred to me that there is none of this foreshadowing, and no mention of the cross in the vows formula of a Religious of the Sacred Heart. But the cross is there, in the questions which precede the actual moment of profession, where words like sacrifice and surrender are used in the brief explanations of what each vow might entail. And having heartily replied yes to all this, I then professed my vows, embracing everything that obedience, poverty and chastity within the Society would and could contain; all the joys and struggles, richness and renunciation, times of light and of darkness which lay ahead. And of course the cross - and all its mystery and totality, and unending love - accompanies us all our days, via the crucifix we receive at first vows, and the cross some years later, after we pledge ourselves to this Love forever. The cross I didn't want to cover.

Later this year I will celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of my first vows, professed in December 1996 with immense joy, gratitude and fervour, and desire for the 'more' of God I still continue to seek. But today is a day for remembering that my first profession was also the day when I received my crucifix... When I took up the little cross which, according to the prayer of blessing said over it, would be for me a constant reminder of the price that must be paid for love... And oh! how those words resonated then, and still resonate now, with my own deepest desires, as does the blessing's next line: May she grow in the image of your Son, surrendering herself joyfully to you as he did. 

 

And all this is now in the prayer and the focus I will bring with me into this new week, and new month... And may I hold on, too, to that instinct, which said I don't want to cover my cross...