H: How holy are we, anyway?

I haven't updated in a while. I'd be better about it, except there isn't a lot going on right now. It's only in the past week that we've had new developments at all....I imagine that this will be updated more and more regularly the closer we get to the wedding.
...and the more Tracy reminds me ;-) (Hi love!).
Regardless, this is a long one!

I remember when I was first getting my massage therapists certification (since FYI, licenses in the state of California for the profession do not yet exist). One of the things that they constantly harped on was that each county and each city was different as far as their work requirements went. If you wanted to get a business license, you needed (for example) 125 hours of training in Sacramento County, 250 in Sacramento the city and so on and so forth. If you don't want to get the training necessary to work in a certain area, just move a town over.
When we went to talk to a priest about getting married, those memories came roaring back.

I haven't yet documented our quest to be recognized and blessed by the Catholic church. I don't know why exactly...probably because it's been such a rich topic of debate, confusion, and reflection with Josh and I. We're a couple living together before marriage, or "living in sin" for you religious peeps out there, which isn't something that the Catholic church traditionally looks kindly on. It's sometimes all a bit confusing for me since I was raised outside of organized religion while Josh was raised Catholic and is more or less practicing.
Since I wanted to get married outdoors to satisfy my spiritual beliefs and the Catholic church won't do that (unless under extraordinary circumstances and you need a special dispensation from the Bishop), we knew early on that we would need to have two ceremonies; one civil and one religious.

The first priest we talked to agreed to do it, under the condition that we be together for two years before agreeing to get married, not live together, and not...uh..."love" each other. We weren't interested in satisfying any of these requirements, so I was extremely disappointed. (I should add that being blessed by the Catholic church specifically isn't overly important to me personally. It would be nice and I'd like it very much to be blessed by a religious entity, but it's not the end all be all of my spiritual experience. Josh was a bit of a different story, and since it's important to him, it's important to me. Period.) Anyhoo, remember when I was talking about those varying requirements for massage therapy? Here's where the memories came roaring back. I didn't know this, but the requirements vary from parish to parish. Yes, not just from state to state or town to town....parish to parish. If you don't like what one priest tells you, try another one. I was a bit amazed but onward ho!

The next priest we met with made me cry. We told him our circumstances and he went on an on about how if we weren't married in the church BEFORE our civil ceremony than the church wouldn't bless our marriage. Ever. And therefore Josh would be living in sin (the only rectification to that being to say that he's sorry that he did it) which would mean he couldn't ever receive the sacraments. No last rites, no communion, nothing. I felt so dirty, like I was ruining his chances of going to heaven, but mostly that I was denying him something that was so important to him. So I'm sitting in this priest's office, crying, and he's looking at me both blankly and like I have three heads (I have no idea how he did it and I probably never will). It wasn't the best experience, but we agreed to the conditions, so we put a mandatory donation/deposit down and left.

To back up a bit, the previous Easter I went to Mass with Josh and Laura, Josh's mom. The priest speaking was Father McFadden, and I was absolutely enamoured with him. His style, his demeanor, everything. He made it clear that he had his own opinions and the Catholic church had theirs - he actually spoke the words "now, I don't think that's what they meant" - but he was still very devout. I suppose I should make it clear that I'm no atheist. I'm convinced that I've seen God and I really appreciate it when I can feel comfortable with a member of any clergy. I suppose I simply don't want them to misunderstand me when I say I don't know if that's what they meant, either. The point is that I really enjoyed him and sitting all alone in the pews while the others went up for communion I thought "I wonder if we could get him...."

Flash forward about six months and we decide to try to find another parish. It wasn't so much the requirements. We'd already ascertained that we'd be marrying in the church first, which was fine, but we wondered if we could find another kinder, gentler priest.
(Incidentally, when we told Laura - Laura the uber devout Catholic that aspires to be a nun - about our experience with priest #2 she said "...I've NEVER heard of that before....". Hmm. )
Laura had mentioned St. Mary's in Vacaville to us a couple of times, noting that they still had a Latin Mass, and asking Josh if he'd like to go sometime. Frankly, I think that'd be kind of cool. But anyway, she also mentioned a few weeks ago that Esparto, the town in which she lives, was going to be getting a new priest. Apparently Father McFadden was just on loan and was going to be going back to his regular assignment. At St. Marys. In Vacaville. Yes. OUR St. Mary's in Vacaville....a glimmer of hope......
Josh called and left a message for the matrimony coordinator and a few days later she called us back. He told her our circumstances and barring some medical emergency WE GET FATHER MCFADDEN!!!!
Soooooooooooooo excited!!!!
On Monday we get to meet with the church to begin our marriage process which includes some pre-marital counseling called pre Cana (Dante's Inferno...anyone? Anyone?). I don't know who we're going to be meeting with...I don't know if we get to meet with Father McFadden that day. But I'm very excited. But also very nervous. Is he going to look at me both blankly and like I have three heads? Is he going to treat me like I'm out to firebomb the church? Is he going to understand that I have only good intentions? Will he know that I think he's cool?
I don't really have any good answers right now. I wonder if he'll know that, too.