“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So
said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today. Marriage is
intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become
what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.
Many
are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the
message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is
the right one – this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every
continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as
every wedding day should be, a day of hope.
In a sense
every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king
and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow
through them into the future.
William and Catherine, you
have chosen to be married in the sight of a generous God who so loved
the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
And in the Spirit of this generous God, husband and wife are to give themselves to each another.
A
spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves.
Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of
spiritual life in which we discover this; the more we give of self, the
richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the
more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully
revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller
life.
It is of course very hard to wean ourselves away
from self-centredness. And people can dream of doing such a thing but
the hope should be fulfilled it is necessary a solemn decision that,
whatever the difficulties, we are committed to the way of generous love.
You
have both made your decision today – “I will” – and by making this new
relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the
way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a
creative future for the human race.
We stand looking
forward to a century which is full of promise and full of peril. Human
beings are confronting the question of how to use wisely a power that
has been given to us through the discoveries of the last century. We
shall not be converted to the promise of the future by more knowledge,
but rather by an increase of loving wisdom and reverence, for life, for
the earth and for one another.
Marriage should transform,
as husband and wife make one another their work of art. It is possible
to transform as long as we do not harbour ambitions to reform our
partner. There must be no coercion if the Spirit is to flow; each must
give the other space and freedom. Chaucer, the London poet, sums it up
in a pithy phrase:
“Whan maistrie [mastery] comth, the God of Love anon,
Beteth his wynges, and farewell, he is gon.”
As
the reality of God has faded from so many lives in the West, there has
been a corresponding inflation of expectations that personal relations
alone will supply meaning and happiness in life. This is to load our
partner with too great a burden. We are all incomplete: we all need the
love which is secure, rather than oppressive, we need mutual
forgiveness, to thrive.
As we move towards our partner in
love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is
quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light. This
leads to a family life which offers the best conditions in which the
next generation can practise and exchange those gifts which can overcome
fear and division and incubate the coming world of the Spirit, whose
fruits are love and joy and peace.
I pray that all of us
present and the many millions watching this ceremony and sharing in your
joy today, will do everything in our power to support and uphold you in
your new life. And I pray that God will bless you in the way of life
that you have chosen, that way which is expressed in the prayer that you
have composed together in preparation for this day:
God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.
In
the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and
important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and
energy.
Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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