Marriage and Math

Today, on this Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, we celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary. We exchanged wedding vows on a beach with a retired judge presiding and about a hundred family and friends witnessing. Sunday 1pm.
 
Five years ago, we celebrated our 17th anniversary in Charleston. We had just arrived three days prior and school was starting up Monday so the Sunday respite was very welcome (and habitual*). Also I couldn't help thinking what a momentous leap of faith we'd taken both in getting married and moving here.

So I was curious if there's a pattern to this. How many times will Aug. 14 fall on a Sunday? I've been doing this manually and it is complicated (math is hard, my kids would say) because of the leap years. I found a great website that lists the table for repeating calendar years. This is for 1994. 2005, 2011, 2022 ... But wait a sec. How come 2016 is NOT on the list? That's because it's a leap year. So the pattern is not a simple 11, 6, 11, 11, 6, 11, 11, 6 ... but rather 11, 6, 5, 6, 11, 6, 11, 11, 6, 5, 6, 11 ... but then it falls apart after 2095 because there are 3 sixes in a row :( (2100 AD is not a leap year). I suspect that the repeating pattern of 11, 6, 11, 11 will continue after 2101. I love that there is an overall period of 28 years and that within this, a littler pattern of 6, 11, 11 (these add up to 28) and within the 11 (5+6). I don't know why all these things fascinate me so much but they do satisfy the desire for seeing order in what can sometimes feel random. Thanks to my friend and organist extraordinaire Steve Collins for letting me know there is a pattern if I looked hard enough.

The calendar site is a very useful for writing historical fiction. It lists the phases of the moon since so many holidays are dependent upon this.

Below I have some more wedding photos. We love looking through our album and seeing that even though we had an unholy beginning, followed by a marriage that was less than perfect (we didn't really understand the part about sacrifice), God blessed us, chased after us, and showed us the way. We are helping one another and our children get to heaven. I hope by our witness we'll take as many of you along with us :) What can I say except faith *is* evidence. I need only examine my life to see it. Hebrews 1:11 hangs in Max's room: Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. So true!
 

 

Sweet pea flowers from the garden

 

With my wonderful MIL, who made many of the arrangements.
Thank you, Charlanne!

 

Heading home in our Barracuda. I still miss it.

Thanks Michael, I didn't know I could love you more today than that happy day 22 years ago. God bless you always.

*When we went through RCIA, we plunged into keeping Sundays for the Lord, for rest and recreation out of necessity because our RCIA classes were attached to Mass, the adult at 9am and the children's at 5 pm. Imagine when our classes were done and we only went to one Sunday Mass! It freed up several hours ... but having our lives revolve around Jesus became a habit. The only way I'd miss Mass is if I'm contagious.