I have sat on this topic for long enough. Today the line (so to speak) was drawn in the sand, and I’m hurt, upset and angry.

Stephen’s extended family is Catholic. That is to say, the majority of his 14 aunts and uncles by blood are.

But they aren’t just Catholic. They’re Deken Catholic.

When my mom had me in 1971, one of her co-workers came over, took a look at me, and sniffed haughtily. “Bastard child,” she said. My mom’s eyes popped open wide. “You know,” said the woman, “your marriage won’t be recognized because it wasn’t Catholic. So now this poor child you’ve brought into the world is a bastard.” This exchange had quite an affect on my mother’s opinion of Catholics.

These are the sort of Catholics the majority of the Dekens are. And I’ve known this for a while. I was warned, actually - by nearly every member of Stephen’s immediate family. Stephen’s dad is a hard-line Catholic too, but his mom and brothers are not.

Perhaps sometimes you can hear all the warnings, and the stories, but not really believe it until something hits you personally. And today what I feared might happen actually happened.

The extended Deken family has taken its time returning our response cards for the wedding invitations. At first it was just, “Oh, that’s the Dekens for you.” Then it became something infinitely more ominous. Because on Friday I found out that four of the Deken aunts declined their invitation to my wedding shower.

This, I knew, was the snowball that would turn into an avalanche - I just wasn’t sure when. But now I know. Today I received my first Deken response card - the Stolarskis sent it back with a big ZERO written on it.

Not a normal sized zero, mind you. An oversized 0.

My heart sunk. I just couldn’t believe that anyone would refuse to attend our wedding in the name of Christ.

My first reaction was fury. How dare they not come because we’re not getting married in the Catholic church! (It took quite a while for this initial reaction to wear off, I might add.) Then my fury faded (somewhat) into sadness. Sadness for a group of people so lost, so blind, that they believe they are doing the “right thing” by not attending our wedding service.

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I think the most interesting thing about this passage from Matthew 22 is that Jesus doesn’t say “Love God” and “Love everyone who is just like you, nobody else.” I don’t get to pick and choose who I love. I don’t get to ONLY love those who attend the Presbyterian Church in America. I don’t get to ONLY love those who love Jesus Christ, even. I don’t get to ONLY love those who look just like me in whatever way I choose to narrow the scope. Jesus commands me to LOVE GOD and LOVE OTHERS. And love them like MYSELF, even. Would I sacrifice for myself? Sure. Would I sacrifice for others? Damn. I have no choice, do I?

Yet, the Deken Catholics think they HAVE a choice. They believe they can CHOOSE to NOT love us.

Or perhaps they believe they are being “loving” by not attending the ceremony. That they are being “loving” by showing their silent condemnation of something they refuse to “tolerate.” Unfortunately, we are called to actively love someone, not participate in passive aggressive garbage.

We are also called to confront those in sin. If the Deken Catholics believe Stephen and I are in sin because we are not Catholic, then it falls on THEIR heads to approach us with this information, show us how we are falling short, and “evangelize” (so to speak) to encourage us to turn towards Jesus Christ. Right?

Unfortunately I believe they are much more comfortable taking the silent, judgemental route.

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
“But they paid no attention and went off–one to his field, another to his business. The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

I am far far far far from the most perfect person on the planet. I have NEVER even JOKED about being a Perfect Christian (pfft, whatever). But when someone says they are a Christian (even a Catholic Christian) and doesn’t recognize the obvious manner of his or her own sinful behavior against another person it needs to be called out. My feelings regarding the Deken Catholics can be summed up by Jesus’ own words as follows:

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
     ” ‘These people honor me with their lips,
       but their hearts are far from me.
     They worship me in vain;
    &nbsp  their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”
Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’ ”
Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

Upset and not very coherent yet,
michelle