Hi everyone, Anthony here. I'm the lucky guy who is engaged to, as you can see from this photo, the most beautiful girl in the world. :)
Cue smug Anthony look. I'm no doubt thinking,
"Yeah, I got the most beautiful girl in the world, all right."
Sometimes it staggers me. I think, "How in the world did I get Andrea?" I think of all the complaining I used to do to God when I was so anxious to find my future wife, and I can just picture Him up there laughing, saying, "Cool it, Anthony. You have no idea who I've got in store for you!"
The greatest thing about Andrea is that she is even more beautiful on the inside than on the outside. The more I get to really know her, the more I discover her soul — her very herness — and the more beautiful she becomes.
That beauty lies in her love of God.
God is Beauty. Thomas Aquinas teaches that, at their highest level, Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are all One. They are all the same thing, and convertible one into another. This is because they are all properties of Being Himself, of God, the only being whose properties are identical with His essence. God is Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. And so all beauty in the world is a pointer back to its source, Beauty Himself, and whatever is closest to that source is most beautiful. Physical beauty is a real beauty, since it reflects the goodness of a created being operating as God intended it to. But it is a limited beauty, a finite and decaying beauty. A tree is beautiful, but it will eventually wither. So too will anyone's physical beauty. But a deeper beauty lies in the soul's connection to Beauty Himself. If, even while the body withers, the soul grows towards Him, that person will grow in beauty to those who can see. That's why Mother Teresa was far more beautiful than, say, Kim Kardashian will probably ever be (poor girl).
Beauty
By loving Beauty Himself, Andrea reflects His beauty. Her soul takes on some of His brightness, the way the moon reflects the light of the sun and shines with a beauty that at one and the same time is wholly its own and wholly the sun's, since without the sun it could have no beauty at all.
Now, don't worry. I am fully aware that Andrea is human (sometimes I wonder if she knows that I am, though!). We are both very much works in progress. We aren't saints by any stretch of the imagination. And so I don't expect her to be perfect.
But I know that Andrea loves God.
These days, we mostly reduce love to feelings and a general niceness. But love is more robust than that. Feelings are wonderful, and niceness is, well, nice, but love is ultimately in the will. It is manifest most of all in deeds. Andrea's fidelity to God and to His Church demonstrates her love of Him.
I'm incredibly lucky to have found a girl who loves God enough to be faithful to all His teachings, and not to pick and choose the ones that appeal most to Her. Nowadays, that kind of total fidelity is hard. When the whole world is screaming at you to go with the flow, it takes someone very special to stand firmly for everything that God has taught us through His Church.
And so I am definitely a lucky guy. Not only is Andrea obviously very beautiful physically, but I know that her beauty will never fade, because she is beautiful on the inside as well. As long as I have eyes to see that — and I pray every day that I always will — I will always be married to the most beautiful girl in the world.
