The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

Every book must end where its heart is, and the heart of this one is not a canon but a table. Saint John, in the Revelation, heard the voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters:

Here is the end of the whole story the first chapter began: the Bride, adorned at last, without spot or wrinkle; the guests gathered from every nation and every century; the supper that has no end; and Heavenly Communion, of which every Liturgy on earth was the appearing and the foretaste, become the open, everlasting face-to-face.

Everything in this book was written for that table, and for nothing else. The wall was for the table. The refused commemoration was for the table. The loneliness, the patience, the exactness, the tears, all of it was so that the soul might come to that supper wearing the wedding garment of the true confession, having refused, through the whole length of the storm, to exchange it for another.

So let the last words be plain, and let them be the whole book in one breath.

Love the Church, for she is the Body of Christ and your mother, and there is no life outside her. Guard the faith, for it is her blood, and one drop of poison consented to is not a small thing. If the day comes, or has come, when a shepherd preaches openly what the Church has condemned, do not lie at the altar: cease the name, with grief, and stand where the saints stood, inside the Church, behind the wall, facing the road. Build nothing, judge no soul, curse no one. Pray for the men you refuse, protect the little ones, seek the true Mysteries, and wait for the Church, who has come at the end of every storm and will come at the end of this one. Keep the heart soft while the confession is hard; weep more than you argue; and let the wall make you not a warrior but a watchman, whose eyes are not on the enemy but on the east, keeping the Bridegroom's own charge, hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

For the night is far spent; the Bridegroom is nearer than when we believed; and blessed, now and unto the ages, are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb.⁹⁷