I was just back home for my sister’s wedding. Of course the ceremony was beautiful and she cried – at the end of the procession, the parish priest commented that he was impressed she made it two-thirds the way down aisle before beginning.
She married a young man who resembles what I would have been like if I hadn’t entered the seminary – a computer nerd – except he is currently in RCIA. They evidently love each other and they waited. My sister’s pet peeve during the engagement was that everyone assumed they lived together when they found out they were engaged.
At the reception, I had to tell the story of how I came into the hospital the day she was born singing “Three Blind Mice” at the top of my three-year-old lungs. And somehow, she has since forgiven me. My other sister, the maid of honor, told her that she was hoping for a new niece or nephew soon; joking that she would see her in the maternity ward exactly a year later, as she got her house exactly one year before.
In the rehearsal, the priest semi-jokingly added “a dozen” before “children” in the repeat-after-me part of the wedding vows. At least he didn’t remind her for part of the homily that this her last chance to join the convent as he had with my other sister – the end of about 10 years of suggesting this path.
There were a few other comments about babies such as my two other sisters showing up at the rehearsal with balloons under their shirts to look pregnant. (Sorry, the rest are a little too complex or personal, or both to recount here.) All this drew a comment or two, of surprise not condemnation, from several people.
I guess mentioning babies is not so standard for the occasion. Without babies, or at least openness to them, the marriage ceremony and reception seems ridiculous. Nobody makes a solemn promise or throws a huge party over a new roommate.
Marriage is a real call. A call to bring the next generation into this life, just as the priesthood brings them into eternal life. Christ has connected the vocations. They are consecrated to God through being consecrated to each other while I have consecrated myself to God directly.
