CARTHAGE, MO—An embarrassed God admitted Monday that He was late for the Saturday wedding of Patrick Moore and Dina Roble, arriving halfway through the ceremony but catching “most of the important stuff.”
“It was one heck of a day,” God said. “Yes, I can be all places at once, but it’s just so hard to keep it all straight sometimes. It’s been crazy all month, and this thing just came up so fast.”
The ceremony that forever joined Moore, 28, and Roble, 26, in holy matrimony was held at 11 a.m. at Sacred Heart Church on Gorman Avenue in Carthage. Neither bride nor groom was aware of the Lord’s tardiness.
“Religion is very important to my entire family, and Dina and I plan to raise our children in a Christian environment,” Moore said. “So it was important for us to have our wedding in a Roman Catholic church, and be united under the eyes of God.”
God admitted that His eyes were upon the couple for a little less than half of the ceremony—”which is a lot,” said God, considering the length of the Roman Catholic liturgy.
“The Catholics go through everything at a wedding,” God said. “There’s a sermon and readings and even Communion. With the songs and the procession and the ’I do’ stuff thrown in there, it takes so long. And the whole time, it’s stand, sit, kneel, stand, sing, recite, sit, stand, sing, kneel, sit.”
God added that the ceremony’s liturgy of the Word—which includes readings from the Old and New Testaments, a responsory Psalm, the “alleluia” before the Gospel, and a Gospel reading—is nothing He hasn’t already heard “billions of times.”
Calling Himself “free of sin,” the Lord blamed His late arrival on poor directions provided by the couple.
“I was running a bit behind and, admittedly, I probably should have left a little earlier,” He said. “But I really would have made it on time if I hadn’t been stupid enough to rely on that map Patrick included in the invitations. It was barely readable. Then, I come to find out that East Gorman is a totally different street than Gorman Avenue. They run parallel. So, for about 25 minutes, I’m cruising up and down East Gorman like an idiot, looking for 299—and, of course, there isn’t any.”
Finally, at 11:30 a.m., halfway through the ceremony, God located the small brick church. He slipped in unnoticed during the middle of the second reading.
“I came in the back, really quiet, like a thief in the night. Nobody turned around or anything, so I doubt they noticed,” God said. “Besides, I am in a form no human eyes can discern, so I’d have to be pretty clumsy to get busted.”
God said He does not feel a need to tell Moore and Roble that His spirit was not fully looking over them as they became husband and wife.
“Why point it out?” God said. “I got there for the exchange of the wedding vows, so, really, is any harm done?”
Among the parts of the wedding God missed were the prelude, in which Roble’s sister Tammy sang “Come And Journey With Me”; the processional; and the opening prayer, in which God was personally thanked for attending the ceremony.
“It was such a beautiful day,” Moore said. “Everything was absolutely perfect. We were married in the presence of our friends, our family, and, of course, our God. What more could we ask for?”
Even Father Michael White, who officiated the ceremony, was unaware of God’s absence, despite making numerous direct references to Him throughout.
“We always start off the ritual by welcoming God into His house and into the lives of the soon-to-be-married couple,” White said during the beginning of the ceremony. “He is as central to this as the bride and groom.”
God said He has “no regrets” about His tardiness.
“I really don’t mind weddings—they’re better than the funerals,” God said. “But I’ve already been to 892,245 of them in the past month alone. It’s not like I really needed to hear one more organ rendition of ’Nearer To Thee.’”
