Ann and I recently celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary -- several times.
The most recent celebration was a wonderful dinner at a great restaurant for the wedding party, their spouses, and our descendants. Even though I was suffering the pain of a kidney stone for about the last hour, it was a delightful occasion.
On the anniversary date itself a couple of weeks earlier, we also celebrated with dinner at a restaurant for just the two of us. Meals of this kind always remind me of the Eucharist, and we celebrated with that, too. The evening before our anniversary we went to Mass and received a blessing from our pastor.
That reminded me of our 30th anniversary, which we spent in Barbados. On the morning of our anniversary, which was a weekday, we attended Mass at St. Francis of Assisi with our two friends who live in Barbados. This is an interesting church for several reasons: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair used to worship there even before he became Catholic, the church was formerly a movie theater, and it sits on a beach.
Plus there's one more distinguishing feature of the church: There are two windows behind the altar that are not stained glass windows. Instead they are clear-pane windows, often left open, through which you can see the beach and the Caribbean beyond.
To me this view of some of God's most beautiful creation as backdrop of Mass is as inspiring as any stained glass window.
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