Choosing the Readings

Because Adam and I live half a world away from each other, wedding planning turned into something a bit rushed. We crammed picking a menu, a cake, the flowers, the bridesmaids dresses, the church, and even my dress into the span of a week. The photographer and the band followed within a few days. Most of the time, I'm happy to have the whole thing finished. But occasionally, when Adam's in class and I'm playing the part of expectant bride-to-be, waiting be the phone (well, computer) for my fiance's call, I regret not spending months planning the wedding down to the last corsage.

The real treat has been spreading out the planning of the liturgy. Catholic services typically have four readings: one from the Old Testament, a Psalm, one from the New Testament, and one from the Gospel. The readings are supposed to work together as a whole; the priest usually focuses on them to focus his homily.

We've used the The Catholic Wedding Book, which I cannot recommend highly enough and will praise at greater length later, to help us choose the readings. The book suggests that the process of choosing readings can itself be an important part of marriage preparation:

...Discuss your favorites and give your reasons to one another. Also point out to one another those ideas you consider alien or difficult, remembering that Jesus often speaks to his church about things we choose not to hear in ways we consider hard to follow...

Adam has kindly agreed with me to go through a possible reading a day to narrow them down. The process has taken us more than a month, but it's been a month we've been able to spend together in prayer and contemplation, for at least a short while, almost every day.

There have been a few readings which we eliminated almost right away:

• The story of Issac and Rebekkah required too much back-story for a shorter wedding (Genesis 24:48-51, 58-67).
  
• Readings from Song of Songs seemed a bit abstract for our wedding (Song of Songs: 2: 8-10, 14, 16a).
• 1 Corinthians 13 is tried and true, but perhaps too cliched to retain its original effectiveness (1 Corinthians 12: 31-13: 8a)
  
• Particularly in the New Testament, most of the readings focused on the love of God only, rather than the way in which we enter into God's love (Romans 8: 31b-39; Romans 12: 1-2, 9-18; Romans 15: 1b-3a, 5-7, 13; 1 Corinthians 6: 13c-15a, 17-20; Ephesians 5: 2a, 21-33)
  
• A few just didn't seem "right" for a wedding (Genesis 1:26-28, 31a; Jeremiah 31: 31-34a).
• Many, out of context at least, seemed to downplay the beautiful statement of equality built into the Catholic wedding liturgy by focusing on the man's possession of or domination over the woman (Tobit 7: 6-14; 1 Peter 3: 1-9) or by leaving him out of the equation (Proverbs 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31; Sirach 26: 1-4, 13-16).
  

Of course, we recognize that all scripture is sent from God--all of these readings could potentially be perfect for other couples. As the book observes, "Scriptures are not a supermarket where you choose what you like while leaving the rest on the shelves. All scripture is for our consideration and helps to form us as it has formed the church and our ancestors in faith these part two thousands years."

With that in mind, it's been lovely practicing discernment together about which readings would best demonstrate the values we hold most important for our married lives. Besides, all of them have given us a wonderful chance to study scripture together. We'll be looking at our "short list" of readings in a day or two and I am very excited about it. I will keep you posted.