Well, my wife and I are back from our honeymoon. We went to Italy. It was lovely, but unseasonably cold, and I got sick part way through. No big deal, though. We still had a nice time. While there I saw Cardinal Bellarmine's birth house (in the city of Montepulciano), so I snapped a photo and sent it off to my old college buddy, Jeffrey Steel, who is doing a doctoral dissertation on him and Lancelot Andrewes (his blog is called Meam Commemorationem).
The wedding liturgy was very lovely. My uncle, an old school anglo-catholic and otherwsie very classy guy, said it was "top shelf." We had the Solemnization of Holy Matrimoney first, and then the mass. We used the classic American Missal. The ordinary of the mass was Byrd's "Mass for Three Voices", sung by a small schola. The entire liturgy was accapella, as the church organ was broken. While it would have been nice to have an organ, it was very special and cool to have the hymns sung in four-part harmony. Not only was it hauntingly beautiful, but it was a tip of the cap to my wife's tradition she grew up in (Mennonite), which does not use instruments in worship. The preacher was my mentor and good friend, a priest in the APA who is also a member of the SSC. He had a fantastic charge that was quite thought-provoking and very theological. The liturgy was executed flawlessly by the rector of my parish, who is very good up at the altar.
About 2/3 of the guests were not Anglican, so only my wife and I, and the altar party, communicated. No one seemed to be put off by that. The non-Anglican's seemed to be intrigued by the kneeling and sublime Elizabethan English of the liturgy. It was an ecumenical wedding in the best of ways: my best man is studying to be an ELCA minister; my rector and a PCA pastor gave me and my wife premarital counseling; and two former classmates from the Roman Catholic seminary I attended - one who will be priested this spring - were in attendance. Also in attendence were many traditional Presbyterian friends, most of my APA home parish, and of course my wife's huge Mennonite family.
It was beautiful, and I give thanks to almighty God for His many blessings. God works slowly and mysteriously at times, but He does work... and when He does - WOW! All I can say is "Thanks be to God!"
