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letters from our readers
A totally goofy
marriage ceremony
Editor: In your November 1999 HPR, Ian Rutherford advises parishes to keep their liturgies spiritual. In that same issue, Fr. David Konderla advises priests to keep marriage preparation spiritual. I would like to add another point to the conclusions of those two excellent articles: Marriage ceremonies should be kept spiritual, too.
Recently, I was the organist for a marriage in which the couple had been living together for six months. The priest gave me only one instruction: “Play the St. Joseph Ave Maria at Communion.” That was the one good thing that happened. Otherwise, there was the Wedding March and the traditional Wedding Recessional and (gasp) the theme song from the movie “The Preacher’s Wife.”
The music is not what leads me to write this letter, however. It was the ceremony itself. Totally goofy. First, it was held up 30 minutes while the groom went home for the marriage license. Obviously state rules have to be acknowledged, but to postpone the sacrament for a piece of paper is like the tail wagging the dog. The incident (at least symbolically) pointed out that the priest had a lot more respect for the requirements of the state than the requirements of the Church, considering he was marying a cohabiting couple.
Once the wedding got underway, the huge wedding party made its way down the aisle, and the couple took their position on the altar with the priest. They remained there for the rest of the ceremony. Only the priest left the altar; he recited the vows from the assembly. The couple was uneasy and nervous, facing a crowd that included the bride’s mother with her new husband and “blended” children and the bride’s father with his new wife. When the readings were supposed to be read, the priest practically had to beg the rehearsed groomsmen to come forward. One reading got lost in the shuffle. The priest just shook his head and went on with it. The bride did not receive Communion because, although a baptized Catholic, she had never received First Communion and had not prepared for it!
When the confusion was over, I recalled the good, ol’ days when a couple advanced to the altar and sat there for over an hour, facing God. Surely, this was a good, symbolic move on the part of the traditional Church. Not only should one prepare maturely for marriage by living chastely, but also the couple needs every ounce of symbolic and spiritual help possible to realize that these vows are being made before God and should not be broken. Is this the message they receive today—standing in front of their divorced parents and cohabiting friends?
Previously, the entire marriage ceremony was handled with aplomb by the priest and his altar servers. The modern idea that the “community” has to get involved by doing the readings and other “odd jobs” just trivializes the whole sacramental event. The couple is too keyed up to do anything, and members of the wedding party are not up to performing. They feel awkward, and everyone in the congregation is squirming, too. The whole experience just reeks of instability and impermanence, precisely the qualities the marriage ceremony should seek to negate.
The present trend in the Church is to avoid pomp and circumstance at all costs. Well, sometimes pomp sends a powerful message. It brings tears to the eyes. It stirs the heart. What better occasion for pomp than one in which two people promise to love one another forever? These folksy marriages stir no one; they just legitimize the big wedding reception. Oh, yes, and they legitimize the children who have been prevented thus far by contraception!
Jane D. Anderson
San Jose, Calif.
Are they Catholic?
Editor: If I understood Father Konderla’s lengthy article on Marriage Preparation with Co-habiting Couples correctly (November 1999), he is saying that such couples are not really ready for marriage and priests should try to talk them into cancelling or postponing their plans. No matter what the scholars might say in textbooks, I don’t believe either is realistic.
Even more important, I don’t believe he mentioned the most difficult problem, which arises when the parties insist that in their minds they have been doing something that is morally acceptable.
I cannot understand how an adult Catholic could make such a statement and still wish to remain within the Church. If the Church is not reliable in telling its members God’s law and Christ’s teaching on this matter, why would the Church be worthy of belief on any other matter? Two come to mind immediately—the precept to attend Mass and the requirement of confession before receiving holy communion after a mortal sin.
How can people live as practicing Catholics or rear children in the Church, if they have this kind of perception on the role that our Church is supposed to play in the efforts we make to live the Christian life?
Rev. Msgr. John R. Maguire
St. Louis, Mo.
Tell couples the truth
Editor: I just read “Marriage Preparation with Co-habiting Couples” by Fr. David Konderla (November 1999). What a good and loving shepherd he is! He loves people enough to tell them the truth.
I was married 26 years ago in the Church. I was a Baptist at the time and my husband was Catholic. We were not questioned about living together or birth control. We went through 20 years of marriage with this same mentality until I became a Catholic and began doing some reading on my own.
I was crushed and wounded that no one had told me the beautiful teaching of the Church on marriage and sexuality. My life and our marriage would have been very different if someone had cared enough to tell me the truth. It probably would have made me very mad at the time, but the priest must be faithful to tell the truth and leave the rest to God.
I pray that priests everywhere will read and heed this advice and others will be spared the pain.
Cheryl
Tennessee
Mary as Co-redemptrix
Editor: My chance of getting this in the Homiletic & Pastoral Review is about as good as getting a private audience with the Pope. However, here goes:
To those who are against the definition of Mary as Co-redemptrix, please ponder these words of Mother Teresa. Dr. Mark Miravalle (the man who heads the movement for this Dogma) was speaking to Mother Teresa about this. Mother Teresa looked up at him, without batting an eye, and said, “Of course Mary is Co-redemptrix. She gave God the Son His Body which saved us.”
I really believe in my heart that these same people who oppose this teaching as a Dogma would have done the same thing before the definition of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption. Their eyes are open and yet they see nothing.
Charles E. Lee
Hartshorne, Okla.
Lutheran bishop preaches
in a Catholic church
Editor: I was grateful that you published “The Gift of the Priestly Homilist” in the November issue. It reinforced for me my belief of what I thought I had read in Canon Law, that the “Eucharistic homily can only be preached by the ordained.” My diocese had tried to tell me otherwise.
Early in January 1999 it was announced in Sacramento that our bishop and a Lutheran bishop would “exchange pulpits” on January 31. Catholic Bishop William Weigand would preach at the Lutheran Church, and the Lutheran bishop, Robert Mattheis, would preach in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Some of us tried to convince Bishop Weigand not to have this exchange, not even sure of what was planned. Bishop Mattheis is a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). ELCA officially supports abortion, is pro-sterilization and pro-contraceptive, and pro-ordination of women, “gays,” and lesbians, to name a few differences. Bishop Mattheis himself had permitted his pastors to “bless gay unions.”
The “pulpit exchange” was touted in the media and even drew TV coverage. Bishop Mattheis gave the homily in the Cathedral, much to the surprise and dismay of many Catholics, who, unaware of the nature of the event, were attending what they thought was a regular Catholic Sunday Mass of obligation, a Mass at which they were entitled to the preaching of their Catholic priest. Instead, they had to listen to a Lutheran who boasted how when he was young he believed that the Pope was the anti-Christ.
In subsequent correspondence with the Bishop’s Ecumenical Officer, assigned to field criticism, Catholics were told that the Bishop had the authority to dispense with certain norms (presumably the one which forbids non-ordained to preach the homily).
Your article makes it abundantly clear that the non-ordained cannot give the homily. The fact that this was a Lutheran Bishop of a religion which differs radically from the Catholic faith adds further insult to the injury which was done.
Laurette Elsberry
Sacramento, Calif.
A plea for devout liturgy
Editor: The October issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review, has prompted me to write this letter. First off I must tell you that your editorials are like a breath of fresh air to me. You tell it like it really is, with no sidestepping by fancy words, or innuendoes. Thank you, and if there were no other articles in it, I would purchase it for your editorials alone.
This issue however contained a great article by Linda H. Graber, titled “The Worship Wars.” As a very old Catholic, I remember well the Holy Masses prior to Vatican 2, with their beauty, the wonderful music, the Aspergis, the wonderful and devout benedictions. Oh how thankful I am to have seen the Liturgy then. Today I doubt if many Catholics could define a “High Mass.” Anyway I was so impressed with Ms. Graber’s article that I just had to tell someone. If I had her address I would tell her so.
Please continue the work you are doing. No, I am not a priest, just a very old Catholic man, who longs for the altar rails, the kneelers, the statues, the long lines at the confessionals, the forty hours, the wonderful Catholic Latin hymns, and the beauty of the Tridentine Mass.
Unfortunately today so many Catholics do not realize what they have lost.
Harold V. Messick
Covington, Ky.
Increase in vocations
Editor: Recently some very interesting statistics about vocations reveal that the priesthood is alive and recovering from those who would remake the image of the priest over to their own warped image and shadowy likeness.
Catholic Replies, for example, does not know the total number of seminarians in the 190 archdioceses and dioceses of the United States, but relates that “according to the Vatican’s Statistical Yearbook for 1997 (the latest year for which statistics were available) there were 35,000 seminarians in the United States, up from 22,000 in 1978. Worldwide, there were 108,517 men studying for the priesthood in 1997, a 70% increase over 1978, when there were 63,882 seminarians (Catholic Replies, 345 Prospect St., Norwood, Mass. 02062).
The June 1999 issue of This Rock on page 13 also quotes the Vatican’s statistics of 1997: “The most striking statistics are those of vocations to the priesthood. In 1978 there were 63,882 seminarians; according to the 1997 yearbook, there are now 108,517, an increase of 70 percent. Over the last twenty years, Africa and Asia have seen an increase of 238 percent and 24 percent respectively. In all continents there has been a decisive increase in vocations with the exception of Oceania, where the number of seminarians went from 784 to 797. Even Europe has seen an increase of over 16 percent (from 23,915 to 27,853). The Americas have become the seedbed fo the Catholic Church’s vocations. At present, they have 35,000 seminarians; twenty years ago it was 22,000.”
I would like to recommend to the readers of HPR that they subscribe to the Adoremus Bulletin, P.O. Box 3286, St. Louis, Mo. 63130). That publication takes me back to my silver jubilee as a priest. It promotes what the homilist at that Mass said more than once: “Our Lord told us how to promote vocations. He told us to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send many laborers into His vineyard.” How often do we pray for that grace?
Fr. Denis O’Brien, M.M.
Dallas, Texas
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