A Kingdom for a Kingdom

Would you trade an eternal kingdom for a almost non-existant chance to gain an earthly kingdom? I wouldn't but Autumn Kelly did.

Autumn Kelly is a Canadian woman who married Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne and is 11th in line for the British throne. Great Britan still holds to the archaic rule that anyone who becomes Catholic or marries a Catholic loses their claim to the throne. Kelly is a Catholic who renounced her faith and joined the Anglican church so Peter wouldn't lose his place in line. No matter what the media claims, she didn't have to renounce her faith. Other British royals have given up their unrealistic claims without problems. They aren't beheading anymore.

If either of them think Peter Phillips has any chance of becoming king, they are kidding themselves. Unfortunately, there is a real kingdom is in their reach, but the allure of gold and jewels and a royal life has seduced Autumn. I hope she has a happier life as a member of the royal family than the others who have gone before her.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Sang Tan, Pool

Wedding Season

Wedding Season is here. I have a wedding next weekend and I met with two couples this weekend. I am tired of the "traditional" wedding repertoire, but my attempts to persuade couples away from these tired selections is in vain. They all seem to want the soap opera wedding. I am often tempted to ask them if they also want what comes after. Yes, the soap opera or fairy tale wedding is lavish and some may consider it beautiful (I don't), but how many couples ask for the soap opera marriage?

Most of the couples who come through my office hold the delusion that love will get them through anything. They are so much in love that nothing could possibly ever rock them. As great as that feeling is, it's not reality.

We don't know what happened after Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or Snow White married the prince, but we do know that their courtship left much to be desired. They fell madly in lust and decided to marry. They know nothing about each other, but they marry anyway. Then Prince Charming carries his bride off into the sunset on his white steed. We never find out what happens next, but I have my suspicions that it isn't happily ever after.

Couples getting married today do much of the same. The Church requires that couples participate in marriage prep classes and in my diocese they also must take the FOCCUS. Prospective brides and grooms tend to view this as an unfair hoop they must jump through to satisfy the Church. They never consider that this may help prevent future problems. The FOCCUS results are often frightening. Many couples have never discussed the simplest matters of faith, children, and finances.

I don't understand how a couple can marry without knowing anything about the other party. I have even met brides who didn't know what their fiances did for work! Still, they claim to be in love. They aren't! Then are in lust, infatuation, excitement, anything you want to call it.

Many couples walk into marriage blindly and their plan their wedding Masses the same way.

Couples: Reconsider the "traditional" wedding that you want and ask yourself if it really sends the message you want to say. Consider walking into the church together. The bride and groom are equal partners in marriage, but are unequal during the wedding. The tradition where the groom stands near the altar while the bride walks down the aisle with her father goes back to the days when a woman was considered the property of her father or husband. It is literally a delivery and transfer of property. Of course, that isn't how brides think of it. They see themselves as the princess. The center of attention. They are going to meet their prince at the altar.

When both the bride and groom walk in the procession together or with their parents, they demonstrate that they are equal partners. It's not all about the bride and she isn't becoming the property of the groom. They are entering to marriage as equals and are exercising their roles as the ministers of the Sacrament. Yes, a bride and groom marry each other with the priest there to solemnize and bless the bond.

Of course, that sort of wedding makes "Here Comes the Bride" sound a little ridiculous. The processional hymn which was played at my Nuptial Mass was also used as a processional at the Papal Mass in Washington DC. You can hear it here at 4:50. The hymn is "Go Up to the Altar of God" by Fr. James Chepponis. It was played at my wedding on organ, trumpet and tympani and it truly said how we intended to begin and live our marriage together.

Don't want into marriage blindly and don't allow your Nuptial Mass to be planned blindly according to traditions of questionable quality.

Inflatable What?

H/T to the Ironic Catholic.
I thought this was a joke when I first heard about it, but it's for real.

Can you imagine this ad? (Note this is not a real ad for this product)

Is your local parish being unaccommodating? Are they preventing you from having the wedding of your dreams? Are you upst that they are requiring that you are follow church rules and Catholic doctrine? Just don't want to be bothered going to church?

Well, I have found the church for you. You can rent or buy the inflatable church where the theology and morality is as soft as the blown up vinyl non-structure. Even better, this church comes to you. You can worship in the comfort of your own backyard. Complete with plastic "stained glass" windows, airbrush artwork, inflatable organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and a gold cross. Even the doors are flanked by air-filled angels. The manufacturer claims this church can be built in 2 hours and dis-assembled in less than one.

After your magical non-religious wedding, you can have your reception at the inflatable pub.

Finally the church of me has found a home.

Bishop Wolf To Marry

Thankfully, SHE isn't Catholic. Unfortunately, in the article she is quoted as saying on this occasion "being a bride is more important than being a bishop".

From the Providence Journal:

The Right Rev. Geralyn Wolf, who next month marks her 11th anniversary as Rhode Island’s Episcopal bishop, is getting married.

The bishop says that until she met her husband-to-be, Thomas Charles Bair Jr., at a visit last summer to St. John’s Parish, in Newport, she assumed she would always remain single.

But that changed when Bair, who runs his own financial-services company in New Paltz, N.Y., and who had come to help the Newport parish with its stewardship campaign, saw her there and invited her out for lunch.

Bishop Wolf, who is 59, says that toward the end of August, “I began to feel I had met a very special man, and he felt he met a special woman.”

It wasn’t until the end of October that the two became increasingly certain that they wanted to marry, and they kept the news from close friends and family members until recently. A letter to diocesan clergy was mailed Friday.

“My family is rejoicing and shocked at the same time,” the bishop said Thursday.
Although it is not common for a sitting Episcopal bishop to get married while heading a diocese, it is not unprecedented. Bishop Wolf noted that Bishop Carolyn Irish, the Episcopal bishop of Utah, married an old friend a few years ago. Bishop Wolf and her fiancé are planning to be wed at the Cathedral of St. John, Providence, on April 21, with the U.S. Episcopal Church’s former presiding bishop, Frank Griswold, officiating.
To reserve the cathedral for that day without tipping their hand, Bair requested use of the cathedral for that date for the purpose of holding a retreat. Staff members in on the secret developed the practice of referring to Bair not as the bishop’s fiancé, but as the “retreat director.”

Bishop Wolf acknowledged that even she was surprised by how it all developed.
“I’ve never had any suitors. When I went out with him, I told him it was my first date in 11 or 12 years. Nothing before was serious. I had always assumed I would remain single.”

(...)

Bair is a member of his parish vestry in New Paltz.
The marriage will be the second for Bair, who divorced 10 years ago and has two sons, ages 15 and 19. Bishop Wolf said that because of the divorce, they will need to get permission to marry from the Episcopal bishop of New York. They have already spoken at length about their plans with Bishop Griswold, who now lives in Philadelphia, and with the U.S. Episcopal Church’s new presiding bishop, Katherine Jefferts-Schori.

Bishop Wolf said that by the time of the wedding, she and Bair will have received all the premarital counseling required by the church and “some more.”

Bishop Wolf said she hasn’t picked out a wedding dress as yet but plans on wearing a white A-line gown rather than her usual Episcopal garb.
“I think that on this one day, being a bride is more important than being a bishop,” she said. (...)

Read the complete article here.

Wedding Nightmare

Wedding season is starting to wind down. I still have two weddings left this year. For some reason, October has become a popular month for wedding. The days of the June brides are fading.

As I was thinking about all the weddings I have been part of, and all the rehearsals I have coordinated, I thought of the many so-called "Bridezillas" I have encountered. Is it inevitable that every bride will become crazy? While I don't think so, it sure seems that way.

Planning a wedding, expecially a large one, is a demanding and exhausting task. Many brides dream of the "perfect" wedding. Usually that is modeled after something they have seen on TV or in a movie. Unfortunately, those weddings aren't reality. To have a wedding like that requires an extreme amount of planning and cost. As time passes, they realize that the wedding of their dreams is impossible and the frustration starts to build.

I wish more brides (and grooms) would put as much time and effort into planning the marriage as they put in planning the wedding.