Catholic Sensibility

On and off for the past twenty four years, I've assisted couples in various liturgical preparations for their weddings. While I was in grad school, prep consisted of talking with friends about music for their wedding. Those were among the best of times, especially for couples who were getting married at parish Masses. My friends Dave and Annie, for example, got married at the parish's Thursday night Mass. One of our choir members raised an eyebrow over the Litany of the Saints for the opening music. People singing! of all things. Our director took it in stride, but the choice was quite fine, especially in a candlelit setting. Occasionally, people would ask me to write a song for the wedding. Those kinds of assignments were usually fun. Except for my first choir director ... I had writer's block and didn't finish until the morning of the wedding. Driving to the church, teaching parts in the car, getting lost, getting delayed in arrival. My poor friend! She must have been ready to blow us up, but some weddings are renowned for the irrepressible joy of the couple, no matter what happens. Moving into parish liturgist mode, I spent my early professional years dodging mothers and lassoing grooms into wedding planning sessions. My first parish had no bench fee (none of my parishes have had them, actually) so I was able to steer couples to pianists (the pastor recycled the organ fund into some other account after the building was done) who could play the repertoire they were seeking. By 1995, my own wedding drew near, and it was a golden age. My wife and I would invite couples to our home for liturgy and music prep. Do you want a lemonade and some pie? How about a beer? My goal was not only to give them a polished plan and good musicians for their wedding, but to ensure a seed of Sunday participation was planted in them. Over the years, couples say I'm much different than their heads' trepidations would have led them to believe. I find wedding planning is much easier these days than fifteen years ago. While I miss playing for friends' weddings, I appreciate the window into another couple's joy. My first two years at my present parish, I did squat with weddings. It was pretty much the clergy's domain, and each priest had his own way of preparing couples. Almost immediately, our new pastor asked for my involvement in the wedding planning process, a request I was pleased to satisfy. When I was in Eagle Grove, I had been doing the counselling, the liturgy planning, the paperwork ... for all of five weddings in two years. That was neat, meeting with couples to do the whole thing. It's nice to have the liturgy and music portion back again. Confronting people about church involvement and cohabitation and all ... my instincts tell me watch for the middle road: don't shy away from the discussion, but don't expect conversion on the spot either. Once I worked with a couple who kind of gave me the willies. I could tell they were intent on hiding some aspects of their relationship, so I let my suspicions go. Focus on kindness. Focus on welcome. Focus on getting them to pray with each other. Focus on guiding their discussion in our meetings. It worked. Both were soon involved in the parish life, volunteering for church functions and being happily visible in the community. I was sad to have moved away before their wedding took place. So it's back to liturgy and music prep with couples. That's okay. I think I put it higher on my satisfaction scale than planning funerals with families, and for a church musician, that's saying something. I go into my meetings with couples convinced of these things: - Even if they are not completely reconciled with God and the Church, it is an experience of grace that brings them to plan a Catholic wedding. - Our parish (or whatever parish they will live in) will be enriched if these people get involved. - God knows these things, and I do too. Now the task is to convince both the couple and the parish this is so.