Over the coming weekend five couples will celebrate the Sacrament of Marriage across our churches.  Weddings are always a happy occasion as families and friends gather together to celebrate the beginning of a new union with all the anticipation that the unknown future will hold for the newly weds.  I am always reminded of the incredible trust and deep responsibility that a couple enters into when they stand before me and say, ‘I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honour you, all the days of my life.’  There is often a tear in the eye of parents or older married relatives and friends who look on.  They know something about what these words mean.  They know that the newly weds cannot see into the future and do not know the joys and sufferings before them.  They know what ‘good times and bad’ and ‘sickness and health’ will mean.  These words are probably the most profound leap of faith that any two human beings will make.

I watch as other couples witness the wedding vows.  Some draw closer together and join hands as a gesture of support and recommitment of their own vows.  Others give each other a reconciling look as if to say, ‘I forgive you, lets try again.’  The young guests, single or partnered, look on wondering if they too, one day, will find that person with whom they could say those words – ‘all the days of my life’.

And everyone wants to be in the photos!  At the end of the ceremony there are roll calls as family and friends line up to have their photo taken with the newly married couple.  There is no where else that anyone would rather be on this day than in the aura of the love of this new couple.  I even photo bombed a couple on the steps of the Basilica at Camberwell last week!

The Church makes claims on the married couple too.  The love of husband and wife, says the liturgy, is the mirror of God’s love for the world.  In this way marriage is the image of God’s love.  God loves human beings and the whole of creation ‘all the days of our lives’.  God walks with us in good times and bad, in sickness and in health.  The unconditional love of marriage is one of the closest ways that we can know what God’s love is like.  So, the couple leave the Church with a mission.  All who encounter them will be better off for having known their love and life.  They are to be the love, peace, reconciliation and justice of God in all they do.

For me the final blessing of the nuptial Mass sums this up:

‘May you be witnesses in the world to God’s charity, to that the afflicted and the needy who have known your kindness may one day receive you thankfully into the eternal dwelling of God.’

So we should give thanks and pray for the couples coming to our churches for marriage this weekend.  We should pray that their married love continues to shine forth the love of God for the good of all!

Every blessing to Nicholas and Caroline, Kok Hung and Marcella, Mark and Olivia, David and Hien, and Joseph and Jeanette.

By Fr Brendan Reed