Today is my seventh wedding anniversary! We celebrated by getting a special blessing for our marriage during the 9 AM Daily Mass. Many thanks for Our Lady for sneaking into my sedate Methodist wedding and injecting some true Wedding of Cana Wine.
I daily reap all the blessings of having a sacramental marriage to my loving husband as a result of my one simple act of obedience. During the crazy period of wedding planning, my dream of a joint Catholic/Protestant wedding service suddenly seemed like to much trouble. "Let's just use my minister and get the marriage blessed in the Catholic church afterwards," I suggested after a tiring discussion of how to coordinate Catholic wedding prep plans between Ohio (my home), New York (his home) and West Virginia (the place of our wedding.) "I can't explain why, but I really think it's important now to have the wedding recognized by my church from the start," my nervous groom suggested. (This was a complete flip from the hands-off, "whatever you want", & "don't bother with that stuffy Catholic stuff" which had dominated Jon's speech during the countless hours of pervious discussion we had on this subject.) "Okay, If it's important to you, then I'll come" I answered. So I drove through three hours of heavy snow in Cleveland and Buffalo to hit a pre-cana retreat session with my then barely Catholic fiance.
That simple sacrifice made our "mixed marriage" blessed by Jesus Himself, and over-flowing with graces. Today as we stood for our anniversary blessed with three noisy children (and one saint in heaven), we were a "mixed" marriage no longer. Now we share one heart, one fleash, and one Faith.
