My Bride and I were married 43 years ago today at Saint Mary’s in Paris, Illinois, the parish church of my youth. It was an unusual spring like day, the temperature reaching seventy. Our priest was “Fighting Father O’Hara” as I privately nick-named him. A crusty old man, he also had considerable Irish charm when he wished to use it, and he was kindness incarnate in the instruction he gave my Methodist bride prior to our marriage. She had attended Mass with me since our engagement in May of 1982 and Father O’Hara helped set the stage for her joining the Church with his passion for the Faith, for which he would have gladly died any number of deaths. May he now be enjoying the Beatific Vision.
My Mom supervised the reception and was in her glory. Little did I know that the cancer that would take her life on Easter Sunday 1984 had reappeared, she and my Dad not wanting to mar the day with bad news. My Dad died in 1991, a week prior to my Bride and I learning she was pregnant with our twins. My father-in-law, who joined the Navy at 17 after Pearl Harbor, died in 1997. My mother-in-law died in August of this year at age 93. Both couples gave great examples of loving life long marriages, and the success of my marriage I attribute to the grace of God, my ever patient Bride and them.
Asking my Bride to marry me was the wisest thing I have ever done. (Whether saying yes was the wisest thing she has ever done, I will leave for her silent opinion!) A happy marriage is one of God’s greatest blessings and throughout 43 years of life, death, joy, tears, triumphs and defeats, we have been very happy.
I wish you and your Bride every joy on your anniversary, Mr. McClarey! And may it please God to send you many more happy years!
Your both in my prayers this morning.
Newlyweds, the two of you. 🙏 🙂
May God continue to bless you both. God put you together and both of you were smart and holy enough to listen to him as he wrapped his arms around both of you bringing you closer together. A match made in heaven, literally.
Well done, Donald, and congratulations on 43 years! May God bless you.
Happy Anniversary to you & Catherine!
43 years?? That’s awesome! Congratulations! May you enjoy 43 more! 🙂
Happy Anniversary Mr. McClary!
Happy Anniversary.
As GK Chesterton wrote about his own wise decision:
And here is the subject of this memoir sitting on a balcony above the sea. The time, evening. He is thinking of the whole bewildering record of which the foregoing is a brief outline: he sees how far he has gone wrong and how idle and wasteful and wicked he has often been: how miserably unfitted he is for what he is called upon to be. Let him now declare it and hereafter for ever hold his peace.
“But there are four lamps of thanksgiving always before him.
The first is for his creation out of the same earth with such a woman as you.
The second is that he has not, with all his faults, ‘gone after strange women.’ You cannot think how a man’s self restraint is rewarded in this.
The third is that he has tried to love everything alive: a dim preparation for loving you.
And the fourth is – but no words can express that. Here ends my previous existence. Take it: it led me to you.”
Grandparents and parents share your day. 1926 and 1947. The day seems to have marital magic. Both lasted till death did they part.
Congratulations, and a December wedding—not usually the “norm” (so many brides these days insist on a spring wedding—“going along with the crowd”).
December, Advent tide, when one pauses to actually think of it, is a wonderful reflective time for the Sacrament of Matrimony.
Thank you my friends. My Bride and I had a good day working in the Law Mines and having a firm Christmas dinner. Time is a strange thing: days are often long but decades fly by.
God bless you two crazy kids! Congratulations. Good health to you and your beloved. And, oh, update your bio above. 🙂
I appreciate how very much you love your family and how much your family loves you.
Happy anniversary and many more.
Belated Happy Anniversary! Ad multos annos!
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to the McClareys
! You two are blessed. May you have many more years together. 43 years of matrimony is a wonderful example for your children and grandchildren.
Thank you again my friends. A happy marriage is indeed a gift from God.