Marriage Supplement

Couple’s wedding celebrates love through the years

By Mary Ann Wyand

(Listen to this story being read by the reporter)

A wedding is a family celebration of life and love.

For Patrick Farrell and Rebecca Laux, their wedding day was also an opportunity to remember deceased loved ones.

During their nuptial Mass on July 8, 2006, at Holy Cross Church in Indianapolis, they lit a candle in memory of his mother, Judy, who died on April 18, 2004.

After the ceremony, they stood on the steps of the historic church and posed for a family photograph which resembled his late grandparents’ wedding picture taken there on Sept. 20, 1938.

Father James Farrell, the groom’s uncle, and Father Brian Sutton, a newly ordained priest from Winona, Minn., who is the groom’s cousin, witnessed their marriage vows.

“Certainly the opportunity to be the minister who witnesses your nephew’s wedding is a special occasion for any priest,” Father Farrell said. “I think for me it was an opportunity to really step back in time since it was the church where our parents were married. Holy Cross Church has always had a special place in our family’s memory and in the hearts of each one of us.”

The pastor of St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis said his nephew’s wedding was a tribute to love through the years that honored three generations of the Farrell family.

“To have been able to witness the wedding of a grandchild of my parents in the same church certainly made that Eucharist a real celebration in time of something that is timeless,” Father Farrell said. “And that is the recognition of God’s presence in every generation, and the faith that has bound our family together and enables us to move forward with confidence that God’s love is ever present to all of us from generation to generation.”

He said the ceremony was also a reminder of the communion of saints.

“There was a whole sense of the cloud of witnesses that the Book of Hebrews (Heb 12:1) talks about,” Father Farrell explained, “the cloud of witnesses of our ancestors—who gathered in that church to celebrate a wedding in 1938—and that we would come back and celebrate a wedding last year, and recognize what a remarkable journey that our family has been on and how God has made himself present in so many ways in our family life.”

Patrick and Rebecca Farrell said it was providential that they were able to be married at Holy Cross Church 68 years after his grandparents, Jim and Josephine (Griffin) Farrell, began their married life together there.

“That was the reason we decided to be married there,” he said. “I was focused on the moment, of exchanging vows with Rebecca, during the ceremony. It wasn’t until we did the picture outside that I realized again that my Grandpa had stood on that spot with my Grandma so many years before.”

His great-aunt, Margaret (Hartnett) Hazel, attended both weddings.

“She’s a real sweetheart,” he said. “She’s in both pictures, which was a really good reminder of the generations that came before us whose lives helped set the stage for our lives.”

Having his uncle serve as the principal celebrant for their wedding was “fabulous,” he said. “I love him dearly. He’s an integral part of our family.”

Patrick and Rebecca Farrell met at the urging of a friend who had been trying to introduce them for three years.

“We finally went out on a blind date and it worked great,” he said. “We dated for about two years then I asked her to marry me.”

Rebecca Farrell describes herself as “sentimental” so the opportunity to continue a family tradition meant a lot.

“We knew it was a beautiful church and just thought it was really special to have that family history with it as well,” she said. “It was very special to have Father Jim blessing our marriage. We feel very lucky.

“I wasn’t fortunate enough to meet his grandparents,” she said, “so to some extent it gave me a feeling of connection to his family, to the members that have passed and that I had not been able to connect with personally.”

Kevin Farrell, the groom’s father and a member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Indianapolis, said family members appreciated the historical significance of the day.

“It was great that the kids chose that church to get married in,” he said. “It was a beautiful day for both families.” †