Oct 16th - Hedwig

Though probably best known as the name of the Harry's owl in the excellent Harry Potter series of books, that is not the reason she is considered on the sanctoral calendar (though knowing Ms. Rowling's penchant for carefully choosing names, the sanctoral aspect may have suggested her name for the owl).
Hedwig was many things throughout her life but what strikes me the most is the power and pitfalls of a truly loving marriage. Not just the love between the two but the love directed at God within the marriage, a love that directs outward and makes so much difference in the world.
The power is easy to talk about, but the pitfalls not so much. As a couple and as parents we never truly know or understand the effects that our love has within the family. Certainly throwing political power and intrigue into the mix does not help but it is the everyday that I want to focus on. Sometimes our love can focus inward for the mortification of our own souls but we leave others behind. Our deep love may be viewed from the outside as personal and only for two.
One never knows how children will react as well. Some will be inspired but create a kind of unrealistic view of married love; others will reject it creating another type of unrealistic view. Some will nestle deeply into the love and find comfort; others see the ups and down that are part of a stable marriage and find comfort while others find insecurity.
I do not know, as I ramble here, what I really am reflecting upon so I will try to focus for those who are in a married vocation: in marriage Hedwig and her husband Henry did so much for others in their love for one another but it did not always have the desired effect within their family. Still it did not stop them from loving deeply and fully with God as the glue that bound them together and saw them through tough times, even after they were parted by death. They certainly got each other to heaven and that comforts and challenges me in my marriage.

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...those all alone with no companion, with neither child nor sibling—with no end to all their toil, and no satisfaction from riches. For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good things? This also is vanity and a bad business. Two are better than one: They get a good wage for their toil. If the one falls, the other will help the fallen one. But woe to the solitary person! If that one should fall, there is no other to help. So also, if two sleep together, they keep each other warm. How can one alone keep warm? Where one alone may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily broken.

-- Ecclesiastes 4:8-12