The Royal Road

Letters to the editor

The Royal Road

Dick & Janet Carpenter, Moncton

Volume 39  Issue 1,2,&3 | Posted: April 5, 2024

“If you wish, both of you, to respond to the call made to you today (or better the grace offered you) by a God-enlivened life, take your stand, as you must, without fear or hesitation, upon tangible matter; but, through and above it, direct your belief towards the intangible spirit.

Believe in the spirit which lies behind you, that is, in the long series of unions like your own, which as age has succeeded age have accumulated, to transmit to you a treasure of health, wisdom and freedom. This treasure is today placed in your hands. Keep in mind that you bear the responsibility for it before God and the universe.

Believe next, in the spirit which lies beyond you. Creation never stops. Life strives to prolong itself through the two of you. Let your union, then, be not a closed embrace, but an activity – a thousand times more unifying than any repose – of common effort towards a common end, ever more grandly conceive, and passionately sought.

Believe, finally, in – and this word contains all the others – the spirit which you share. You have given yourselves to each other to provide infinite scope for understanding, for personal enrichment, and for the growth of sensitivity. It is, therefore, in an inter-penetration and constant exchange of thoughts, affections, dreams, and prayers that you will discover each other above all. Only there, as you know, in the spirit beyond the flesh, lie no satiety, no disappointments, no limits. Only there, for your love, lies the free air the royal road.”

Teilhard du Chardin, in a 1924 letter from China to his cousin on her wedding occasion

You read this at our wedding 50 years ago, Pat. A lot of years behind us. We can only imagine how difficult it is for you not having Marnie in your life. Our thoughts have been with you over these past few weeks/months/

In Faith
Dick & Janet Carpenter, Moncton
Jan. 14, 2024

   

Dick & Janet Carpenter, Moncton