posted April 13, 2009 01:06 AM           

He said, "Husbands, if I asked you,
'Who is the most beautiful woman in the world?'
Who would you tell me the most beautiful woman is?"

The men in the pews shifted nervously in their seats,
but the priest spoke, as if reading their minds, and said,
"Well, if you know what is good for you, you will say to me,
'Father, no woman on earth is more beautiful than my own dear wife!'"

And the women in the congregation smiled, or giggled, and nodded.

"My Children, this is how we are to love the Queen Mother.
We are Christians, and married, heart and soul to the Christ,
so, if someone asks us who the most beautiful woman in heaven is,
we will be wise to say that the Holy Virgin Mother is the most beautiful."

A unanimous murmer of happy approval went up from the congregation.

"Does this mean, brothers and sisters,
that we cannot recognize the charms of other divine women?
Surely, we would be blind not to see that they are lovely, too.
But what does it profit us, to covet with our eyes,
the beauty of another man's holy wife, whom we cannot know?
And what does it profit us, to know another man's holy wife,
if it would only mean widening, and not deepening, our love?
Let every seeker be divinely satisfied with a single wife; --
for then shall his eye be single, as the Lord says, and not covetous."

Here, the priest bowed his head and closed his hands in prayer,
and the people did the same, for the love of the Holy Virgin Mother.

posted April 16, 2009 06:16 PM           

quote:

---

And what does it profit us, to know another man's holy wife,
if it would only mean widening, and not deepening, our love?
Let every seeker be divinely satisfied with a single wife; --
for then shall his eye be single, as the Lord says, and not covetous.

---