On Brides and Churches

Sunday, as Thom, Shelly, and Brother Bear went to the zoo (which Brother Bear really wanted to see), I stopped in Alexandria to attend a bridal expo with Wendy.  She got engaged on Christmas Eve and is starting the process of wedding planning.  God blessed us by putting me in DC the weekend of the expo: she needed a girl friend to go with her, and I am sad that I am not around for her wedding planning.

We spent the end of the morning and the beginning of the afternoon waiting in line (it was worth it -- we were the first ones in!), tasting wedding cakes, and listening to vendors advertise.  Wendy put her name into several drawings for discounts and gift cards and impressed vendors by her early start on her planning.  LB's wedding is the first wedding I am seeing from near the inside, and I am shocked by the amount of planning required, although, having run large events, I shouldn't be.  Now with Wendy, I am seeing even more of the beginning of the process and it is quite amazing the culture and business world that has sprung up around weddings.

[Side Note: It is also fascinating how much is geared to the bride, rather than the groom or the couple.  But that is a separate train of thought.]

After the expo and lunch, Wendy dropped me at the Metro and I traveled into the city for Mass at the National Basilica.  Although I have visited on numerous occasions, I have never attended Mass in the main church.  We knew the liturgy would be crowded and planned to get there at least two hours early.  To my shock, when I walked in at 3:30 (Mass was at 6pm) the building was packed.  Every pew upstairs was full and the folding chairs facing CC TVs in the side chapels upstairs and down were rapidly becoming occupied.

I get easily overwhelmed by large crowds, so I made a beeline for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.  I had barely knelt down, however, when a security guard told us we had to leave -- this part of the church was being closed off to prep for Mass.  With great difficulty, I pulled up some tile in the back of the church and tried to make myself large enough to hold floor space for four people.

Eventually, the other three made it from the zoo and Emily joined us, having abandoned her studies for the evening.  We spotted an other Catholic alum from the College, in town with the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus, and Thom drew in three of his friends from Jersey, so we ended up with nine people in space enough for four.

At first I had a lot of trouble making Mass a holy time -- again, don't like large crowds and the vibe of the place before Mass was more like a street festival than a solemn liturgy.  However, in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer, as I stared toward the altar, the people packed into every available space distracted me.  This time, however, I realized the profundity of the moment -- thousands upon thousands of people, so desperate for Jesus and His justice that they packed themselves into this building, and other churches across DC, to meet Him and draw closer to Him.  So what if I was rubbing elbows, knees, backs, and shoulders with eight of my closest neighbors?  We were here for what matters: the little white wafer that has the power to transform us and the world.