Marriage Matters Thursdays!

Living Witnesses

In some ways it feels like it has been ages since Jason and I were planning our wedding, and in some ways it feels like it was just yesterday! Wedding planning was such an exciting time for us. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun, too! One aspect of the wedding planning that we really enjoyed was getting to plan our Nuptial Mass. It was so exciting that we got to choose so many parts of the ceremony. We put a lot of thought into the prayers and readings that we chose, trying to use the ones that really symbolized us and our beliefs about marriage.

Over the next several weeks I will be posting the readings and prayers we used at our wedding, and a reflection about why we chose them. To start things off, let's look at the opening prayer we chose.

Father, when you created mankind you willed that man and wife should be one. Bind Jason and Erin in the loving union of marriage; and make their love fruitful so that they may be living witnesses to your divine love in the world. We ask this through our Lord....

After reflecting on this prayer there is one line that stands out for me: Bind Jason and Erin in the loving union of marriage; and make their love fruitful so that they may be living witnesses to your divine love in the world. To me this line sums up our mission as married couple. As a couple, united through God, we need to proclaim love, God's love, to everyone we meet. How do we do this? We do this by reflecting God's love to each other in our own marriage. The world today needs examples of genuine love. You don't have to look far to see that our world is broken, and that marriage is not valued the way that it should be. The world needs examples of a marriage rooted in God and in unselfish love. We can reflect God's love to each other by the way we interact with each other, and serve each other. We can reflect God's love in the way that we serve our children. Our mission as a married couple is to lead each other, our family, and all we meet to Heaven! This is our vocation, and it is in the way that we love each other that we will become witnesses to the world of God's divine love!