pastor<\/em> was going to preside.\u00a0 She was especially upset, she told me, because she\u2019d already had the programs printed with his name.\u00a0 I told her that if there\u2019s a problem, she should take it up with the pastor.\u00a0 She did.<\/p>\nWhen she called him, he explained\u00a0 that no one else was available on the wedding date.\u00a0 He added, if you\u2019re not happy about this and can find a priest of your own to do it, go right ahead.<\/p>\n
Long story short: the bride enlisted the services of another priest from outside the parish to come in and do the wedding.\u00a0 A few days before the wedding, she called me to let me know.\u00a0 But she said there\u2019s a problem.\u00a0 \u201cHe can\u2019t be there for the rehearsal,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cCan you still do it?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Sure, I said.<\/p>\n
After I hung up the phone, it all came into focus.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t have a problem with a strange name on the program. She didn\u2019t have a problem with someone else doing the wedding.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 She had a problem because that someone else wasn\u2019t a priest.\u00a0 The plain truth was, she just didn\u2019t want to be married by a deacon.<\/p>\n
Well, okay.<\/p>\n
There were a couple other bumps in the aisle \u2014 like the bride\u2019s mother insisting that her daughter receive communion during the service, an issue that ultimately had to be swatted down by my pastor \u2014 but otherwise, the wedding went smoothly. \u00a0 (The morning of the event, my pastor wondered why they hadn\u2019t called to demand a bishop for the service\u2026)\u00a0 When I finally met the visiting priest to walk him through the ceremony, he said he was shocked to learn that the parish had a deacon who could have done it.\u00a0 \u201cAt my parish,\u201d he explained later in the sacristy, \u201cif it\u2019s a service and they don\u2019t want the deacon, and there\u2019s no one else available, we just don\u2019t do it.\u201d\u00a0 It later emerged that when they called him and said they needed a priest, he just thought he was helping them out in a pinch.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m the only priest at my parish,\u201d he told me, \u201cand it\u2019s not like I don\u2019t have a lot of other things to do today\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming just a couple weeks after my experience with another bride, who wondered if her chihuahua could be in the wedding, I\u2019m becoming convinced that the crisis in Catholic marriage starts with bad Catholic weddings.\u00a0 The other day, I was talking with a priest in my office about the challenges of doing weddings these days, and he agreed.\u00a0 A religious order priest, he doesn\u2019t do very many of them, and he doesn\u2019t like to do them for people outside his family.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not a sacrament any more,\u201d he said wearily.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s the Greatest Show on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed.\u00a0 Send in the clowns.<\/p>\n
RELATED:<\/strong> Sacred transformation:\u00a0 another wedding story<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every priest or deacon can tell you a wedding story \u2014 and the protagonist is usually the bride.\u00a0 Here\u2019s mine. File this under \u201cThings They Don\u2019t Tell You About in Deacon School\u201d \u2026 The background:\u00a0 I inherited a wedding in my parish from a foreign priest who was called back to his home diocese in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deacons","category-my-world-and-welcome-to-it"],"yoast_head":"\n
There goes the bride<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Every priest or deacon can tell you a wedding story -- and the protagonist is usually the bride.\u00a0 Here's mine. File this under "Things They Don't Tell You\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2011\/08\/there-goes-the-bride\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There goes the bride\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every priest or deacon can tell you a wedding story -- and the protagonist is usually the bride.\u00a0 Here's mine. 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<\/a>When the original priest left for his new assignment, my pastor told the bride that someone else would be handling the wedding.\u00a0 I called her to touch base and let her know I was the guy who\u2019d be doing it.<\/p>\n