Love and Marriage

I proposed to my girlfriend Angela this past weekend. Below are the pictures. Let me just tell you how excited I am to be planning to spend the rest of my life with this woman. She is so exquisite and beautiful, so honest, loving, and caring. She makes me want to be a better man.

We have now dived head first into wedding prep, doing stuff for reception halls, the Nuptial Mass, as well as guest lists and a whole host of other things. It is sort of terrifying to see all the stuff we have to do in the next six months. The wedding date is August 22nd, which for all of you liturgists out there is the Memorial of the Queenship of Mary. In the old calendar, August 22nd is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When I saw this, I knew I wanted to get married on that date. Angela and I's favorite Marian title is the Immaculate Heart, and so I think it would be very appropriate.

But as we are travelling full speed to August 22nd, we must remember that this is still a period of discernment, and I must remember to keep talking about life after the wedding, when Angie and I will be married and in our own place, trying to do the will of God. We both want a good number of children. I have thrown out the number 12, and she has thrown out 7. However, while it does kind of matter what we think, God is the one who will allow us to get pregnant with the number of children he wants us to have. As long as we are open to God's plan for us, we will do alright.

By being open to God's plan, let me explicitly say that in a marriage, there is no room for contraception or any other form of birth control which attempts to take the power of God out of God's hands and make it your own choice. Contraception is intrinsically evil because it doesn't allow a man and woman to fully partake in what sexual intercourse was intended. Sexual intercourse is the beautiful mix of unity and procreation, and when one of them is not present, a man and woman are not making love, but simply having sex. They are then in it solely for pleasure. I don't intend to take pleasure out of the act of making love (because you probably can't do that), but the pleasure should be directed towards the openness to procreativity.

Anyway, I hate to soapbox when I talking about such a great event in my life. But I am very happy, and Angie makes me happy. Thanks Angie for saying yes. I love you, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with you.