I AM the Witness
A Priscilla of Boston Wedding Gown!
Mother, I read with great interest your 1995 Pearl of Wisdom “On the Soul” (vol. 38, no. 29). You taught from Matthew 22:2-14, Jesus’ parable of the marriage feast and the wedding garment. I recognized it as the story of myself and of every soul. This Pearl is truly a treasure to be read over and over again. It brought to mind my own wedding day. I would like to share a little story with you.
In 1989 I was working as a teaching assistant at Summit University and was to be married during the quarter. Someone told me to call to Lanello to help me to get a wedding gown. In fact, they said that Lanello was so good at weddings that even if you borrowed someone else’s gown, Lanello could make it fit!
I really could not afford a wedding dress. It seemed extravagant to buy a dress to wear for only a few hours. My father had always been somewhat skeptical about weddings. He felt that large weddings with all the trimmings were an unnecessary expense. He used to joke that he would pay for me to elope!
So I always thought that long wedding gowns were not for me. I planned to buy a nice dress that I could wear after the wedding and I would leave it at that. I made the calls to Lanello, but I did not really expect an answer. I was sure that he was very busy with much more important things than what I would wear to my wedding.
One of the SU students heard that I was to be married and she asked if I had a wedding dress to wear. I told her that I did not. She then offered me her own wedding dress as a gift. She told me that she had inexplicably felt the urge to bring her wedding dress with her when she came to SU! She had no idea why, as she was divorced and had no plans to remarry. She was mystified and felt a little foolish bringing a wedding gown to Montana. But she followed the prompting of her Holy Christ Self and drove all the way from Ohio with her wedding dress in its box on the back seat of her station wagon. I was very touched and, of course, gratefully accepted her gift.
She was concerned about whether the dress would fit, as I have a slight build and usually take a size 6 or 8 in a dress. Although she told me that when she was married she was several sizes smaller than her present size, we both expected that I would need to take the dress in. But, amazingly, when I tried the dress on, it was a perfect fit. It was as if it had been made for me!
But what surprised me even more was the label on the dress. When I examined it closely I saw that it was made by Priscilla of Boston. I quickly cast my mind back to when I was a girl of ten or eleven in Australia. I loved to read the National Geographic magazines. I would sit on my bed for hours and read about all of the faraway places. I particularly enjoyed the stories about America and the lives of the people there. I never dreamed that I would one day travel far across the ocean and that this great land would be my home.
I loved looking at the pictures and pored over the magazines until I knew many of the photographs and their captions by heart. I remember one particular photograph of a bride modeling a beautiful wedding gown. The caption told me that it was made by Priscilla of Boston. It sounded so grand!
Her gowns were very beautiful but very expensive. She designed exclusive wedding gowns for society women in Boston and all over America. Brides would come to her to have their gowns specially designed. I remember thinking, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could one day be married in such a gown, a Priscilla of Boston gown?” The idea seemed very remote for a small girl living in Australia. But Lanello must have been listening!
Now, over thirty years later, here I was, walking down the aisle towards my new husband in a Priscilla of Boston wedding gown! It was a lovely Empire-line, ivory silk and lace gown with a long train and veil. I felt very special, as all brides do on their wedding day.
Happily, my family was visiting from Australia and could attend the wedding. My father was too ill to walk me down the aisle, but he was able to attend the wedding with my mother and was very happy for me. My sister was my bridesmaid and my brother stepped in as father of the bride.
I have thought quite a bit about “Lanello’s wedding gown” since that day six years ago. What long-range planners the Ascended Masters are! How tender and infinite is the love of our beloved Lanello for each one of us personally. I was very moved that he should be concerned enough about one soul’s happiness on her special day. We think that we are barely noticed by heaven, but not so. How important is each individual soul in the eyes of God and the angels!
I was touched that Lanello was just like a father to me. He could read the inner desire of the little girl within me even though I had long ago silenced her desires. He not only provided me with a wedding gown but he made sure that I would know that it was the right one. I only had to read the label to see that it was the only gown in the world for me. And a perfect fit, too!
I am now a minister of our Church and feel very blessed when I am able to perform weddings for couples in our Community. It is very touching that in the wedding service in our Church, if the father and mother of the bride cannot be present to give the bride away, then she may choose to be given away by Lanello and the Mother of the Flame when the minister asks: “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
I often shed a tear at the beauty of the service and the presence of the Masters and the angels. I remember my own wedding and I think about what Lanello was trying to tell my soul that day. In the Pearl of Wisdom “On the Soul,” you said:
| The soul is the mortal part of ourselves that can become immortal—that must become immortal if she is to survive. To achieve immortality, the soul must be fused, or bonded, to her Higher Self, who is her Holy Christ Self. Yes, until this bonding takes place, the soul is impermanent and therefore can be lost. This is why souls who are not tethered to their Higher Self are in jeopardy on planet earth.... ...The goal of the soul is to attain union with God and... to achieve this she must rise to the heart chakra and be bonded to her Holy Christ Self through the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But before this bonding can take place, the soul must accomplish many tasks, one of which is the daily weaving of her wedding garment. The Ascended Masters call the wedding garment the deathless solar body.... Day by day we weave our wedding garment, the deathless solar body. When we have perfected that garment, our souls will be ready to return as Brides of Christ to the heaven-world, never to go out again from Eden. |
So many of the Ascended Masters, including Lanello, have spoken of the alchemical marriage of the soul to Christ—the union of the soul with one’s own Holy Christ Self, with the Christ of Jesus and every Ascended Master. Whether we wear a male or female body, whether we are married in this life or not, it does not matter. Each one of us can become the Bride of Christ.
I think that Lanello was showing me a vision of what I could become and what each of us could become. By giving me a physical wedding dress to wear for a day, he was urging me to weave my deathless solar body for eternity and to enter into the marriage of the Lamb, to become a Bride of Christ. I am striving each day to do this, and I am truly grateful for the Ever-Present Guru, ever pointing the way home to his children.
Love,
N.B. Testimonies of disciples of Jesus Christ and the Ascended Masters stating their witness to the power of Truth in their lives appear regularly in this column in the Pearls of Wisdom. If you would like to witness to the power of Truth in your life brought about through the Ascended Masters and their Messengers, we welcome your testimony for publication. Your letter will be kept on file in our archives but your name will be withheld from this page to protect your privacy and your progress on the Path.
Litany of Humility
| O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, |
Here, in this all-embracing prayer, His Eminence Cardinal Merry del Val lays bare in a developmental, step-by-step fashion the embodiment of the totality of his conquest of self and of his entire spiritual life, revealing the secret sanctuary wherein he found the Source of Peace. He was accustomed to recite this litany after the celebration of Mass.
Reprinted, by permission, from A Prayerbook of Favorite Litanies, comp. Father Albert J. Hebert, S.M. (Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers, 1985), pp. 308-9.
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