Oh the joys of being catholic

Unfortunately for Deaner, it was never an option for him that we would be getting married in the Catholic Church. I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade. For the boy that started off as Baptist and morphed into a Presbyterian, I knew this would be more religious preparation than he cared for. In all fairness, he has been a pretty good sport. We asked the Monsignor in my church to marry us as I had known him since grade school. I thought the world of him so it was the obvious choice. Deaner and I began our marriage preparation on October 20th by meeting with Monsignor on a Monday night. Deaner had never met Monsignor before but was quickly fond of him and even helped him arrange his newest golf trophy that had been delivered to the church that afternoon. At the end of the meeting Monsignor told us that he would probably only need to meet with us one more time before March. SCORE! Everyone knows that this is getting off VERY easily. The entire way home we talked about how great Monsignor was and that we were both very excited for him to marry us. Well, my mom called me 10 days later at work and told me that Monsignor had passed away in his sleep the night before. I was devastated! He was the only person that I had ever imagined marrying me and there was seemingly nothing wrong with him the previous week! It was just very sad to me and I think about Monsignor every day.

So now I had to set about the task of finding another priest. Fortunately for me, the priest who baptized me is currently working at my church which is surprising considering I was baptized 28 years ago! Unfortunately for me, he rejected us! Whaaaaa???? It was his own personal rule that he only married couples that went on the engaged couples weekend retreat. Very understandable except for the fact that there was only one more offered between then and our wedding and it just so happened to be on a weekend that we are having a wedding party. Of course that doesn't work as an excuse! On to the next!

Finally we were recommended to ask a priest that is new to our church. We met with him for the first time last month. We both liked him very much but soon found out that our assignment would be to read a book about sex in the marriage! We were told he would want to meet with us no less than 4 or 5 times between then and March. Oh lord! I guess we could always go on that retreat weekend! :) Anyways, we have stuck with this priest and as Deaner has pointed out, we are probably getting more out of this than we would have with anyone else. I am glad that he has a good attitude about it! I'll remind him that as he is reading chapters 4 & 5 before our January 7th meeting! At least we finally have a priest!

The funniest part of this whole debacle is at the height of having no one to marry us, my sister called me and told me that their rehearsal dinner venue, that took them 2 months to find, that they had put a deposit down that week, BURNED DOWN!! Talk about perspective! I was no longer having the worst week ever! I'm sorry, but you have got to laugh at that!

In other news, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. We had our Catholic Seminar on Saturday which was ALL DAY LONG. It was pretty boring but at least we got it out of the way, and we didn't even have to miss any football! I know, good attitude right?? I know that no one reads this at least! Not looking forward to this week at work but Friday is my last day of work before a week off for Christmas. We are heading to Virginia on Friday after I get off work to visit Deaner's grandparents. I can't wait to see everyone. I'm going to pray for a quick week!