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One Wedding… and a Funeral?


Post Author: Ann Bonner-Stewart


It was the weekend after Christmas Day, the year of our Lord 2006. The rector was out of town. I had been ordained to the priesthood for, oh, maybe three weeks. I had assisted at other weddings, but this was the first time I was running the show myself. I wanted everything to go well, not only for the couple’s sake, but also to prove that I could do this, that I was capable and competent.

After the procession, during the opening prayer, I didn’t think too much about the woman who was sitting while everyone else was standing. It was an oddly warm day for December, and I remember thinking that I would probably be sitting down, too, if I had that option. I would not have remembered her at all, that woman fanning herself with the bulletin, if it weren’t for what happened a few minutes later. While I was reading the Gospel, I looked up from the pulpit to see someone stretched out on the floor. The woman who had been seated in the second row, well, her heart had stopped. I just stood there for a few seconds. “Let’s take a break,” I heard myself say.

Soon after I climbed down out of the pulpit, the office administrator approached me, asking if she should take the children out of the church. “Yes,” I replied, “That’s a great idea.” She gathered the flower girls, four blond elementary-age parishioners, and ushered them out. Her action inspired me to ask the bridal party if they wanted to go to the vesting room. A college student hired to sing for the ceremony, who was also the children’s choir director, opened the parish hall, so that most of the wedding guests could leave church and play what must have been the world’s most distracted game of “Simon Says.” The pediatrician who read that inescapable wedding reading from 1 Corinthians continued doing CPR through it all.

The ambulance arrived. The woman, soon to be pronounced dead at the local hospital, her husband, and a family friend left. Someone came up to me gingerly and asked, “Should we bring everyone back in?” I nodded.

As the subdued, solemn bridal party and guests filed back in, I knew I was going to go ahead with the wedding. I had some sense of all the time and work that had gone into this day. I thought of all the plans that depended on the wedding taking place: vacations, moving, and new jobs. I knew that stopping would be far, far more disruptive to the bride and the groom than going ahead.

How I was going to actually do that was beyond me. I sat there, waiting for everyone to find his or her seat, chewing my lip (a wildly attractive nervous habit that makes special appearances during more severe occasions). I tried to tame my turbulent thoughts, thoughts of inadequacy, thoughts of how this whole “priesthood” thing fit me, if at all. Not even the furniture fit. The rather large celebrant’s chair, in which my feet don’t reach the floor, was clearly built with someone much more physically substantial than a 5’2”, 115 pound woman in mind. In some ways, the celebrant’s chair is right. This job is, in fact, way too big for me. I don’t know enough; I’m unprepared.

This is the point in the story where I’m supposed to complain that nothing in divinity school prepared me for this. In the narrowest sense possible, I suppose that’s true. No professor ever mentioned what to do when your sacramental rites start getting convoluted, so that there are dead people in the church outside of the context of a funeral. The problem with this hypothetical complaint, the complaint I do not actually have, is this: it assumes that my ministry is all about me and my gifts. In reality, I don’t practice my priesthood in a vacuum, detached from all the foolish, feckless lay minions, removed from the divine. I don’t have to be completely capable and competent because I do not–and, in fact, should not–deal with things like this alone. All I had to do was recognize and accept the help from all those different people and from God. For that moment, for that night, we motley crew of folks were the body of Christ.

When everyone came back in, it was my turn. I did the thing that only I, in this particular configuration of people, in this particular time and place, could do. I was going try to interpret this thing theologically as best I could. I was going to remind people about the ever present Triune God.

On most days, speaking off-the-cuff goes against my innate Ann-ness. However, this was not most days; that was totally, and heart-breakingly, obvious. I muttered a prayer under my breath and bypassed the statuesque pulpit to stand the front of the altar. Before the words came out, I knew that I could speak in this moment, not because I’m smart (which I am), not because I’m quick-witted (which I sometimes am), not because I have a lot of experience (which I do not). The words just came; I really don’t think they were mine.

I admitted that there was nothing I could say to make the situation okay, so I wasn’t going to try. A beloved family friend’s heart is not supposed to stop in the middle of anybody’s wedding. After that, I don’t fully remember what I said. I talked for several more minutes, which suggests I said something. There was definitely something about how God in Christ gifts us with other people, people who become family—whether through blood, marriage, choice, or baptism, family in the broadest sense possible—to help one another during times such as these.

I invited the bridal party back up to the altar. I led the bride and groom through their vows. They were married.


Ann Bonner-Stewart is the associate rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Greenville, North Carolina, and the managing editor of Fidelia. She has officiated and preached at several weddings since the one detailed above without incident.


Image by: Free-Photos
Used with permission
5 replies
  1. Margaret says:

    And I thought falling down on my behunkus while officiating my first wedding was a rocky start! Thank goodness that the Spirit moves and speaks through us and that you were wise enough to allow it to carry the day!

    Reply
  2. Susie says:

    Wow. Thank goodness for grace and presence of… well, I was going to say “mind” but I guess “spirit” makes more sense.
    It would be okay if I never had to try this out myself.

    Reply

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