Our wedding music

28 comments

• I don’t think Pax Christi is a “dissenting, heterodox” group.  (But I understand that to say this is to sound like the Jesuits in the story who, accused of killing three men and a dog, triumphantly produce the dog alive.)

• Sorry, but Pax Christi is more like those groups than unlike. They’re participation in this event alongside the other groups is just one piece of evidence of it.,

• Simplicity takes real self discipline!  It is so easy for something like this to turn into The Wedding That Ate Pittsburgh.  It kinda happened to our wedding, but we did survive it and are going to celebrate our 23d anniversary on July 24th (I haven’t had too many cases of tunnel vision since then…)

• Dom,

  Good points.  Women should not be forced to enter the workforce.  Unfortunately, part of the problem is the “necessity” of keeping up with the “Jones’s”.  In our society, value is determined by money.  This is capitalism to the hilt.  If we place our value on money, rather than on relationships (with family and God), then is it surprising that many families feel it is necessary to send the woman to work?  Despite what studies have shown that this has a detrimental effect on the children? 

  It is a sad situation, but one that will unlikely change to a large degree.  As long as prices keep going up, and TV keeps shouting that you need more and more to be someone, it is a minority who will be able to resist this siren call.

• Why do people who disagree with the Church’s teachings try so hard to do so, when it would be so much easier to start their own church?  If they truly believe that the Church is the sacrament of Christ, that it was established by Christ Himself and the Spirit continues to guide it, what makes them think that they will bring about such sweeping changes?

  Or do they believe that the Church is divinely instituted?  I would say they don’t.  And thus, they cast themselves out of the Church.

• It’s not just the TV.  Women who work tend to see less value in women who stay home to tend the house and raise the kids.  Partly because, I suspect, that they must assuage their own guilt. 

  Women who do not enter the workforce are looked down upon in mixed company and also in female company.  They are simply less worthy by the culture’s standards.  That culture likes to characterize jobless women as “parasites” who burden their husband with having to support them—to carry the whole load of financially supporting the family—since anything a woman does at home is not considered legitimate “work”.  In other words, there is a subtle implication of laziness.  Women who are not employed are subtly sent on a guilt trip wherever they turn.

  At the checkout, the cashier wants a “work phone number” with your check, for instance.  It is assumed that you will have one.

  Move into a new house and the neighbors all want to know where you work.  Answer that you stay at home and there is an embarrassing silence, as though you are somehow mentally inadequate.

  Pick up a woman’s magazine and find the articles about balancing home and career.  The stay-at-home mom just doesn’t make it into print.  She is frumpy instead of glamourous and not worthy of mention.

  Even comic strip character mothers have entered the workforce.  Even in lighthearted entertainment the stay-at-home mom is losing her place.  Elly in For Better or Worse, one of the best and most popular family comic strips, got a job when her kids went to school despite the fact that she is married to a dentist.  Blondie started a catering business while her children remain in her home.

  Although I believe it is changing, once it was impossible to get a credit card without a job, even if your husband has a job and your family has an excellent credit rating.

  I think it is less the desire for “things” than it is the desire to belong, to be acceptable, to fit in that drives women into the workforce even when the income they bring in does not financially improve the family budget in any significant manner.

  It is decidedly not cool to be a stay-at-home mom.

• I used “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” at my first Mass of Thanksgiving.

• Beautiful line of music, Dom!  Did you and the future Mrs Bettinelli clear the choices with your ‘liturgist’ or the ’ Director of Liturgical Music Ministry’? Obviously, your ‘presider’ is satisfied with your choices. (Sorry, can’t help m’self.)

  Excellent choices. Ave Maria is my all time, champeen, hands down, favorite song.  When done well, usually by an Irish tenor, it brings me to tears. When done badly, it (sadly) brings me to rage.

  The only piece of advice I could offer in regards to wedding plans is to ask Father to cut off the a/c in Church. You’re (both) about to enter into a mortification that is monumental in scope and degree. Might as well get a running start out of the blocks…..just kiddin’. Love well, live well and laugh well… and you’ll be well.

• A/C? This is New England. We don’t need no steenkin’ A/C.

  Actually we do need it about 6 times per year, but on those days we really need it. I’m praying for a nice cool and sunny 70 degree August day.

  Big man, penguin suit, and momentous life changing day add up to sweat (and chafing). Ick.

• “Why do people who disagree with the ChurchP>12.76.166.195
  2005-07-21 22:14:16
  2005-07-22 02:14:16
  Look at Pax Christi’s newsletter from Sep/Oct last year, and notice how they selectively quote from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Doctrinal Note on the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.  Compare to the original document, and you will discover that they use the quotes, out of context, in such a way as to make CDF note seem to say the exact opposite of what it actually says. Heterodox (nice euphemism there) AND sneaky – they fit in perfectly with VOTF.

• Dream on…Tux-Man!!

• KMac:  when my wife made her most serious error in judgment (saying “I Do”) 29 years ago, the temperature in the church was well over 90 degrees—the LOW temperature the night before was 85 degrees (and this was in Green Bay, WI.!!!!!)

  One member of the choir dropped over from the heat during the Mass.  Fortunately, another member of the choir was an RN—and just in case, ANOTHER member was an undertaker.

  So far, so good!!

• I think the priest errored in putting soft core porn pictures at the end of the piece even if he claims it was a “token” for his brother. Rather disgusting and a blatant mis-use of the women posed in the pictures, even if they willingly posed for them. I find no humor in the use of the pictures and have found that it taints his message. Did he think no women would look at his article? I’m embarrassed for him for he has displayed a lack of understanding regarding beauty and decency. ….the very thing he wrote about!

• I got married in a full blown tux (brought in from Mr. Tux in Marlboro, MA) in the Philippines on a day beyond swealtering.

  The assisting priest commented that I must be nervous … I responded that I was not at all but that in this heat, in my land, people start dying.

  At a certain point, I stopped wiping my brow and just kneeled there with my eyes on fire from the salty sweat , actually, I turned my mind toward Jesus and how his vision was impaired by the blood caked over his eyes.  One must bear his cross patiently.

• Interesting to note that Democrats voted against the $1000 child tax credit. I know who is against my family, it’s you Senator Kerry and Senator Kennedy.

  Also interesting to note how child deductions on the state tax form cut out at 2 children. How Protestant/pagan.

  The child-care tax credits really hack me off.  This is state subsidization of women kennel-ing their children.  The are really punishing families where one spouse works and one stays at home (no need to prescribe which spouse does what.)

  Although, in Massachusetts, with Heather having two Mommies maybe the Legislature will get to work on this vexing issue.

• My former pastor told me why priests REALLY hate weddings.  When you go to the reception, chances are that the only people you will know there are in the wedding party and their table is full.  Since you’re alone, you’ll mess up the seating arrangements at any other table, so you end up sitting with the old maid aunts and other assorted relatives that no one else wants to spend the evening with.

  His advice to me was “show up for the meal then get the hell out of there.”

• Dom,
  Re:sweat/chafing, two words: Gold Bond.

• It sounds like a beautiful liturgy. At our wedding, all the music included congregational singing, which startled some relatives. Our processional was “Crown Him With Many Crowns.” It’s a good thing I proofread the bulletin carefully before it was printed – the typesetter had mistakenly led us off with “Crown Him With Many Thorns.”

• Nothing by the Carpenters?

• I can’t wait for the webcast!!

• What setting of Ubi Caritas, Dom?  Plainchant?  Perhaps the delicious Durufle setting? 

• I guess the plainchant. I’m leaving it up to the musicians who know such things.

• Rambling, overlong, overly salty in its language and its visuals – but for all that it contains priceless gems like these:

    But there is another reason contributing to the Churchs to act like a priest, his “rent-a-priest” scam would be history.

  On another note, it is always telling how these VOTF/CTA hacks treat everyone else as if they were too stupid to see their blatant ploys and tactics for what they are.  These folks are insufferably elitist.

• There are any number of articles related to VOTF real agenda. They have never been hidden about it. Look to some of the older versions of it Call to Action ARCC, etc. What has allowed them more power and prestige is the weakened leadership of our bishops who have little idea of just how organized these groups are. The strenght of the internet and how a small group can relate to a larger audience without much investment. And, the simple reality we, as a Chuch have been heading in the direction of a “schism” for some time now. Whether it is mirrored in our politics or not is fodder for discussion as well. But, it would seem so. The strategy might seem to be to stay the course and pray that our bishops lead and don’t follow. These groups have a way of self distructing since their only value. VOTF is just one example. Look to the list of speakers at their various groups. I think it was Crisis Magazine that did a great job of exposing them.

• I’m very pleased to see that you plan to follow the Rite of Marriage with regard to the procession.  So very few priests/deacons inform engaged couples that both bride and groom are to enter together.  But a question:  Where in the Rite of Marriage does one find a “Dedication to Mary”?

• Technically it’s the post-Communion meditation.

• <<Technically it

  Consider the huge increases in staffing levels at public schools over the past 40 years.  In many school systems class sizes in the primary grades are half what they were in the 60s.  On top of this there has been an explosion in “support” staff.  And much of this added cost is necessitated by the large number of children from dysfunctional familites.