When Home Is a Nuptial Liturgy

I had been watching this relationship unfold for years: James, a brilliant, talented, thoughtful, God-centered Irishman; and Katherine, equally brilliant and creative, sensitive, deeply committed to the Church.  I'm no Yenta, but back when they met at Newman University Church in Dublin, there was a voice inside my head that said "Surely these two would be an amazing couple, if their paths converged...."

Well.  Yesterday, at the very church where they first met, their individual paths merged and became one, and what an amazing day it was to behold: years of familial ties and friendships remembered and celebrated once more.  Toasts and speeches were made deep into the night.  Colleagues had a chance to compare notes on where life had taken them.  And as the capstone of it all, there took place a breathtaking wedding liturgy, assisted by a choir of fabulously talented voices, including a dear friend (now medical doctor), who was an exceptional Irish fiddle and violin player.

James & Katherine

The church where they met was also my home for years.  When we arrived in 2016 paint was peeling off the walls in footlong swaths; the heating system hadn't worked for more than a year (professional violinists refused to play there in the winter, complaining that the building was too cold for their instruments); the choir gallery hadn't been cleaned in years.  But from the start we knew the old bones of this church would spring back to life once more.

Over the next five years, lighting was improved, surfaces were cleaned, sound systems and video cameras were modernized, and the gallery became a place to store and catalogue precious scores. A much needed library of sacred music began to unfold, one that might befit any cathedral.  

Much more than this, the church had become a beehive of activity, welcoming back wedded couples through the ages, creating a community around prayerful gatherings in the spirit of the Taizé community, and offering both lectures and concerts to inform and inspire Dubliners of all walks of life.

And yesterday, all of it came together to help celebrate the union of two exceptional people.

There is something quite breathtaking when, sitting in the midst of a congregation full of strangers, you become aware of how sacred music washes over every single soul, melding voices and hearts together.  You become cognizant of the power of song as a unifying foundation for communal prayer.  And you see, from your pew, the almost hidden moments of a man or woman, whose name you do not know, wiping tears from their cheeks and eyes, the result of some stony part of their hearts being made sensitive and caring once more.

While we were serving at Newman Church, John Cardinal Newman became Saint John Henry Newman, and we traveled to Rome to celebrate the man who had sacrificed so much of his own life, leaving the land and people he knew, moving from one faith family to another, tasked to build a Catholic University for a people who had been suppressed for three centuries.  I couldn't help but think of how joyful this priest, philosopher, poet, and visionary would've been, seeing what has become of his dream.