What's your ideal bachelor party?
A) Go all out; hit a strip club; get wasted; try to pick somebody up. It's your last night of freedom.
B) A fun night out with the guys. You can ogle, flirt, and say whatever you want, as long as you don't DO anything. No one takes it seriously.
C) None. The whole thing is an occasion of sin.
D) Hey, the guys are in town! We're not passing this up—but who says it has to be dirty?
Maybe I'm innocent but I'd like to think Catholics would steer clear of choice A. Do I really need to explain why being unfaithful right before you get married is not how to prepare for a lifetime of fidelity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO7FTFINw6g
On the next night when you are with your new spouse, do you really think you won't remember what you did the night before with a perfect stranger? Your wedding night will be tainted with the memory.
Option B
Okay, so how about B? Most people feel that B is harmless and will have no lasting effects. Check out what The Plunge, a blog for grooms affiliated with the highly respected, Brides Magazine, says about it:
Sex is a major component always associated with bachelor parties, but it's typically the idea of sex than actual sex. The guys who are already married or in relationships watch and live vicariously as the single guys try to pick up girls. The single guys try to goad the attached guys into doing something they shouldn't—and this is where we remind you to tell your guy what makes you uncomfortable before turning him loose in the wild. But it's more drinking than anything else, in case you were worried.
Yeah, why were you worried? He's only going to ogle other women, talk like a pimp, and try to get his friends to sin. But mostly he'll just be wasted. He might even be hung over at your wedding.
But by all means, tell him if any of this makes you uncomfortable.
Are these people serious? Do they really think a guy who goes for this sort of entertainment is going to magically morph into St. Joseph afterwards?
I've heard people ask: What about if you don't really DO anything? I mean if you're just kind of there? I belong to a closed group on Facebook where once a woman shared that her husband was invited to a bachelor party that involved a strip club. He didn't want to beg off for fear of offending the groom. So what if he just went and, I don't know, concentrated on a spot on the table the whole time?
Nope. You can't go to a place like that and not do something, simply because walking in is doing something. It's saying "This place is legitimate." And who you trying to kid?
Proverbs 6:27 asks: Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?
Even without going to these extremes, bachelor parties are famous for pushing the limits. (The same goes for bachelorette parties.) There is that one last flirtation, that one more drink, that concept that this is the last time you can bring yourself to the edge and get away with it.
Just stay home?
It's enough to make you want to go with choice C. Don't even go there. Stay home. Throw a blanket over your head. Get a flashlight. Read Aquinas.
That's how my daughter's new husband feels about it. He hates the very term "bachelor party" and all it conjures up.
But...his friends were in town and who knew when they'd be together again. So they went with choice D. A wild, crazy, male bonding time it was, but they kept it clean. Well, kind of. They played paintball.
But first, at the groom's request, they made a holy hour of Adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament to pray for him and to make reparation for other people's bachelor parties.
That, my friends, is the way a Christian gentleman prepares to wed his sweetheart. It's Biblical too.
Then Tobias exhorted the virgin, and said to her: Sara, arise, and let us pray to God to day, and to morrow, and the next day: because for these three nights we are joined to God: and when the third night is over, we will be in our own wedlock. For we are the children of saints, and we must not be joined together like heathens that know not God. (Tobit 8:4-5)
It's not logical.
