"I am the first and the last;
I am the Lord who died that you might live.
I am the bridegroom, this is my wedding song.
You are my bride, come to the marriage feast."
- Take and Eat, Michael Joncas
One of my most favorite things about traveling is getting to visit and worship in different Catholic churches. What I love so much about this is knowing that I can go to any Catholic church, be welcomed like family, and the Mass will be familiar to me. I also love listening to the music they sing, the announcements they read (how rich their weekly spiritual life is!) and of course, a different perspective on the readings in the Homily. It is always familiar, even if it's in a different language, and church, specifically Mass, always make me feel at home.
This past weekend, I was blessed to the spend time with my bridesmaids in Hershey, PA. We went camping, rode roller coasters and ate a lot of chocolate. As much as I hate being the center of attention, it was beautiful to walk past so many people and have them wish me well wishes for my upcoming marriage. Recently, I've been so busy at school in my ministry job, that I haven't had much time to really focus on the fact that I am, indeed, getting married, in quite a few days. Every so often, in the middle of my chaos, a little alarm goes off in my brain that says, "Reminder. Reminder. You are getting married." And then there's the sub-sequential thoughts of, "I need to order flowers. I need to pay the dj. I need to call our priest. Do we have a place to live yet?" Yikes. Yet this weekend, I had time to enjoy the friendship and sisterhood of my bridesmaids and also focus on the fact that, yes, I am getting married. Judging from the movies, you'd never think that a Bachelorette weekend would be like a retreat. But I'm grateful to my girls for giving me that opportunity.
I loved that my girls knew me well enough to make celebrating Mass together a part of the weekend, making the weekend absolutely complete. As I stated above, I love visiting various different churches on my travels. Despite having gone to Hershey so many times, I can't remember ever going to Mass at St. Joan of Arc Parish. When we arrived a few minutes before Mass, I knelt to talk to Jesus. In this conversation, I was drawn to the stained glass windows on the right side of church. Contemporary images of spiritual life, education and so on. I am so used to seeing saints in the stained glass, that these contemporary images really made my Theology heart sing. But when I turned to the left side of the church out of curiosity, I was even more intrigued. I had never seen Catholicism linked so beautifully with Scripture and the present day. My inner Theology student/nerd burst. Each contemporary image on the right was paired with an image of Christ on the left; tied together with only one or two words.
Now while I feel I could write a paper on all the windows, I will only share the first two windows with you. You'll have to go see the others for yourself. On the left side was the Holy Family; Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. It simply read, "Spiritual Life." On the right side was a young married couple, with a newborn baby at the baptismal font and a priest baptizing their new baby. Again, below the image, it read, "Spiritual Life." I could only be reminded of what so many sisters have told me during this time of engagement, "We need Holy Families, too." How beautiful was Christ's confirmation to me in my heart through these images! I could not help but think of textbooks and textbooks worth of Theology behind the sacrament of marriage. Because while we will have a wedding day, the sacrament is the most important part of the day. And it's mostly because we get to begin our marriage, which will last a lifetime, with the Eucharist, surrounded by the physical Body of Christ in our family members.
Father's homily spoke about the first reading, in which Isaiah says, "my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts." He told us how he fought his vocation to the priesthood, wanting something completely different. I had to laugh as how much I felt connected to this, but in the opposite way. How I fought married life because I felt it wasn't good enough. And yet, I have learned so well these past few years how the vocation to marriage life is just as good and holy as religious life. I simply needed to find my holy, faithful, husband to be.
The icing on the cake, or should I say, the icing on the Hershey's bar, was the Communion hymn. I loved the traditional hymns that the congregation sung with the cantor, but my favorite was at Communion. I guess as a person with high empathy and as an auditory learner, I tend to connect with music, stories and people more quickly than the average human. Every so often, when singing in the congregation during Mass, I get to a certain line and suddenly, I'm overwhelmed with emotion. This happened on Sunday with the above quoted hymn. It was Jesus' invitation to me (and Joe), to come to His wedding feast. Yet another confirmation that this is truth. That in 75 days, we will join together in Matrimony at the wedding feast.
There's a part two to my day, however. I thought I was finished being blessed during the day but Joe called me on the way home and asked if I might make it home in time to go to Mass with him and his family. I told him I already went to Mass, but I did want to see him. So what better way to spend time together than during Mass (can you tell I love the Eucharist soooooooo much?)? I made it just in time for 5PM Mass at his parish. Again, hearing another perspective on the readings is always good for my heart. This time, the Deacon gave the homily. He correlated a story of what he encourages newly weds to be for each other with the Gospel. Deacon said, "I always encourage young newly weds to remember to be one thing for each other: saints." He reminded the whole congregation of this but I felt that he was speaking right to us. He continued to express that marriage is not just between two people, but a 100% dedication by three people: husband, wife and Christ. The wedding feast was coming back to me for the second day. Just when I thought my blessings were already too numerous for the day, this homily was just another added blessing. Yes, so many church experiences of marriage.
God's ways are not our ways and God's thoughts are not our thoughts. Yet somehow, God always manages to speak to our hearts in a way we can understand. I cannot wait to be Joe's wife, to begin a holy family with him, and I wait in the hopeful patience that God will continue to prepare our hearts to be saints.
