Massive convalidation event for civilly married couples likely the largest in archdiocesan history

The B.C. Catholic



Getting married in the Church was a dream come true for Sherly Heck.

“I always wished one day I would walk down the aisle,” said one of 15 brides who said “I do” in St. Mary’s Church in Vancouver Oct. 15.

Sherly and Joseph Heck, both Catholics, married in a civil ceremony 18 years ago, but they always hoped they would have the Church’s blessing on their union.

“I always told him: I’m going to walk there, and I’m going to wear the same dress.”

For several reasons, including intense grief after the loss of conjoined twins through miscarriage, the Hecks never had that big church wedding. Sherly, a nanny, married Joseph before a handful of witnesses in her employer’s home.

Then, this year, St. Mary’s launched Project Cana, a ministry to help civilly married Catholics pronounce their vows in the Church. The Hecks, who now have six children, saw their chance.

Sherly’s eyes were full of tears as she walked down the aisle, wearing the dress she bought to marry Joseph 18 years ago.

“One thing that makes me really happy to do this is it will be in front of my six kids,” she said. “Back then, I was very lonely.”

Joseph’s parents never married in the Church. “They had a civil marriage. My sister never had that either. I’m basically the first person in my family to do it, have a church wedding.”

Sherly volunteers as a greeter and is an assistant teacher for a Grade 2 Communion class. Their six children, ages 16 through 7, were baptized in St. Mary’s. The “one thing that was missing” was a church wedding, she said.

The mass wedding at St. Mary’s is likely the biggest in the history of the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Thirty brides and grooms between the ages of 20 and 60 said “I do” that day.

Having a church wedding was also a dream come true for Gerardo and Renida Magpoc, who married civilly in the Philippines in 2002.

“I made a promise to Our Lady that we would get married in the Church,” said Gerardo.

He credits divine intervention for bringing them together in the first place. Gerardo met Renida while working for the government. It was “love at first sight,” he said.

They dated until his job changed, and in an age without cellphones, they found it harder to keep in touch. “The strain of not being able to see each other for weeks took a toll on us, and we called it quits,” Renida said.

They didn’t communicate at all for the next 10 years. Then, one day, while Gerardo was working for a cellphone company, a mutual friend happened to come to the store. “I asked: how is she? Is she married?” The friend replied that she was not. “Oh my goodness, she must be waiting for me!”

Gerardo and Renida reconnected, married civilly in 2002, and had two children.

Years later, during confession, a priest told Gerardo he should get married in the Church. He said Catholics not married in the Church should not receive Communion.

“I said, oh my goodness, how are we going to do it?” It was a few months before the family was to move to Canada. “We only had a short time to make the necessary arrangements. Then I said: let’s try to do it in Canada.”

Organizer Rose Pillay called the mass wedding a huge success.

“It was wonderful,” she said. “For so many of them, it wasn’t the vows or the rings or the kiss, it was the first time in a long time some of them could receive Communion.”

Pope Francis celebrated a similar wedding Mass for 20 couples in St. Peter’s Basilica in 2014.

“It is a great joy for me to extend to each of you my blessing on this extraordinary celebration,” said Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, in a letter to the couples that day.

“It is a historic event for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, but of much more importance is the very special nature of this liturgy for those couples whose marriages today are being convalidated by the Church.”

Pillay said Project Cana anticipates another wedding in February.