Additional Columns by Sherry Antonetti: The Real Life Jacket Asking for the Gift We Do Not Know We Need If Today You Hear His Voice Feeling like a World of Sparrows Haiku Prayers The Year of Paul the Apostle The Gifts of Sons Teen Tips for Surviving to Adulthood, Spritually Intact The Luminous Mystery of Marriage, A Primer for All of Us Prayer Spam My Son Peter Meets the Pope Being Spiritually Awake for the Feast Why We Don't Always Get What We Want...And Shouldn't "Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame!" Becoming a Great Story Learning to be Unafraid to Ask The Gift of Courage Coming Home to the Wide Open Door of the Father To Do List for the Day, Every Day Delighting in the Unexpected Immediate Intimacy of Answered Prayers Celebrating the Song of Songs on Saint Valentine's Day Forty Lenten Resolutions

Congratulations to the Antonetti, who welcomed Paul to their family on September 17th! Sherry will be recovering for the next few weeks and will return soon. Please keep her family in your prayers!

The Wedding Feast

Hurricane Gustav reminded me of the last big hurricane to affect my family’s life, Rita. Back in 2005, Hurricane Rita garnered a better response than Katrina, as the Feds sought to show they’d learned their lessons. When it slammed into the Texas coast, my parents, aunt and sister were sent on a 24 hour drive that only got them 100 miles from the epicenter of the storm. It was a terrifyingly slow march to nowhere, stuck in traffic, inching along an evacuation route. The cars finally ran out of gas. Before my folks got to pop the hood and signal they were in trouble, the first miracle happened. A family stopped to offer them shelter from the storm at their nearby home. By evening, they had steaks and wine and warmth and fellowship with new lifelong friends as the storm blew and raged away.

My hometown however, was a mess. There were trees down in every lawn. Roofs damaged, windows smashed, electricity down and roads blocked. Six weeks from the storm’s arrival on land, my sister was scheduled to wed. The hotels? Those that weren’t utterly damaged, were taken over by FEMA to supervise repair work. The reception hall? Roof and water damage, unusable. The Caterer? Roof damaged and refrigerators damaged, unable to use. The band? Only partially intact. All the trappings of a traditional wedding were obliterated in a single night.

The second miracle of the story, the Church and its facilities were not damaged, despite being at the near center of town. The sacrament could and would take place.

Then, the third miracle occurred. People got on their cell phones. The Church hall became the reception area, the band came together and a second band, made of cousins, brothers and friends, joined in the fun. Neighbors opened their houses to the out of town wedding guests, including my own family of nine at the time, such that while there was no room in the Inns, there was no one left out in the cold. The caterer called friends and favors, such that by the day of the wedding, you would never have known it had all come together in 42 days. The wedding feast was one to remember, but it actually began the day of the storm, and lasted until the last person left a stranger’s home that had been opened up for the week of the feast.

The message of that great and frightening and wonderous six weeks, over and over again, do your best and “March on, God will provide.” Every day, we have the opportunity to be a participant in someone else’s wedding feast. Every day, we get the chance to be part of someone else’s miracle story of goodness and triumph over suffering, struggling and tragedy. Every day, we get to be part of God’s army that provides. Every day, we can go forward confidently, though we never know if we are the guests or the workers at the feast until afterwards. So march on, God will provide.

Sherry Antonetti is a mother of eight children and a freelance writer of humor and family life columns with prior publications in Absolutewrite, the Catholic Standard, Beaumont Enterprise and the Washington Post. She can be reached at Smwbmpfjm@netzero.com. You can read additional pieces from her blog, http://sherryantonettiwrites.blogspot.com.