Notebook
When I was a student at the Irish College in Rome back in the 1980s one of the features of our lives was the interaction we had with Irish couples who came out to Rome to be married. Sometimes there were four or five couples each week. Many of them travelled to Rome on their own and so we were drafted in as witnesses to fulfil the legal requirements. I’m sure there are many couples all over Ireland who, when they look at their wedding pictures, wonder who in the name of God were those guys who doubled up as bridesmaids and best men!
The upside of this for us was that we got invited for the dinner after the wedding. Inevitably the conversation at the table would involve asking the couple why they decided to come to Rome for the most important day in their lives. I remember being struck by how often couples had opted to choose a quiet wedding in Rome to avoid the pressure of a ‘big splash’ at home. They spoke of how difficult it was to have a small wedding in Ireland because of the expectations to do it in a certain way. That ‘certain way’ involved a lot of expense. In my years as priest I have witnessed how the average Irish wedding has evolved in a way that causes huge stress and cost for couples and their families.
Conversations
In recent Covid times I have been reminded of those dinner table conversations with newly married couples back in my student days. The predominant narrative in the media around weddings during the pandemic has focused on the disappointment and frustration of couples as the plans for their big day were postponed or cancelled over and over again.
Yes, I have witnessed some of that myself among the couples whose weddings I was to be part of. However, I have also detected another narrative which, as time moves on, is becoming more prevalent.
Many couples have confided to me and other priests too, that they are ‘relieved’ to be able to have an intimate wedding of 25 or 50 close family and friends. Most importantly during the pandemic a ‘small’ wedding is now socially acceptable and the pressure to invite every aunt and uncle and every couple whose wedding you attended is off the agenda. Couples are saving themselves thousands of euro and investing that money in their homes and their future plans. My sense is that with less emphasis on the big reception couples have focused more on the ceremony itself and the significance of the Sacrament they are celebrating together.
Question
The big question is will this more simple and intimate wedding outlast the pandemic? I’m sure the hotel industry and those who organise wedding fares will be hoping that this is only a blip and that next year we will be back to business as usual.
What I have said about weddings could easily also apply to how we celebrate other sacraments like First Communion and Confirmation. The widespread feedback from the celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation in the autumn of 2020 was that the simple ceremony with smaller numbers re-focused attention on the sacraments themselves and less on the ‘performance’ which sadly many of our First Communion and Confirmation ceremonies have become. Let’s hope and pray that, as we emerge from this pandemic, we can harvest its more positive effects rather than rushing back to the way things were.
Value for money
A husband and wife are shopping in their local Tesco and the husband picks up a crate of Heineken cans and puts it in the trolley. “What do you think you’re doing?” asks the wife. “They’re on offer – only a tenner for twelve cans!” he replies. “Put them back – we can’t afford them!” declares his wife, and so they carry on shopping. A few aisles further along, the wife picks up a €20 jar of face cream and puts it in the trolley. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the husband. “It’s my face cream. It makes me look beautiful,” replies the wife. Her husband retorts: “So does twelve cans of Heineken, and it’s half the price!”
In sickness and in health
“I remember a couple of years ago at a Mass seeing a woman who because of her illness could not hold her head erect. But her husband held her head up in the palm of his outstretched hand like an arm stretched out on a cross and I thought that years before on their wedding day he had promised to cherish her in sickness and in health and I gave thanks to God for what I witnessed. At the end of Mass she smiled at him. It was pure gold – indeed pure God. That is the sacrament of matrimony.” – Fr Ronan Drury.