Some people would prefer to replace the traditional wedding vows with words they have composed themselves, thinking that this would make their promises more personal and more authentic. I’m not so sure about this.
Amish wedding ring quilt
I did an email interview last week with David Gibson for the website ‘For Your Marriage‘. He was asking me about some of the ideas I sketched in my recent Royal Wedding post. You can read the interview here, and this is the full response I gave to his questions:
In my experience most young people hope to get married one day, despite the prevalence of marriage breakdown and a general suspicion of institutions.
It’s not just the romance of a wedding day. I think they recognise that love finds its deepest fulfilment in a lifelong commitment, in giving oneself to another person without conditions, without reservation. And they know that marriage is a way of making that commitment. It frightens them, because commitment is frightening, at the same time as it attracts them.
The words of the wedding vows are so simple and so profound: ‘To love and honour each other for the rest of your lives… For better for worse, for richer for poorer… Till death do us part’. Young people are not, on the whole, cynical, selfish or hedonistic. They want to fall in love; and when they do, they want that love to last. They know, deep down, that love requires commitment and sacrifice; and they are longing to give themselves to something of lasting value.
They also sense, perhaps without understanding why, that love demands a promise, a definitive Yes; and that this promise needs to be made in public. In other words, the institution of marriage still speaks to young people with great force.
Of course a couple can express their love for each other in many different ways; and they can commit themselves to each other in their own words. They should do this often! But I don’t think this can ever substitute for the traditional words of the wedding vows. This is partly because the words themselves are already so meaningful – it’s simply hard to better them. ‘I promise to love and honour you for the rest of my life… For better for worse, for richer for poorer…’ So to substitute your own words would somehow be a diminishment.
But I also think there is something important about entering into a tradition that is larger than yourself, and freely choosing to use a set of words that you haven’t yourself chosen, because then you allow yourself to be freed from the limitations of your own vision. This ‘humility’ allows your love to be purified, stretched, and transformed into something far deeper than you could have imagined.
To use the solemn words of the wedding ritual, rather than your own composition, is to say ‘there is more to love than we have yet understood, and we choose to let this larger love possess us’. It’s not impersonal to use the formal words of the wedding ritual; it’s a way of lifting what is deeply personal into something larger and even more beautiful.
I agree about the vows.
The website ‘for your marriage’ is very thorough and a great resource for people both discerning marriage, happily married and for struggling marriages.
One thing which is frustratingly and constantly overlooked is the sacrament of a church marriage, when the gift of faith is absent, and of course all its implications.
The older I get, the more clarity and Truth I can see things things with, and the more I cherish the beauty and Truth of The Catholic Faith, and the importance of Catholic teachings. The full understanding and experience of the Grace and beauty of the sacraments, hopefully in their relevant order, should be the privilege and right of EVERY human being.
I have recognised that the period of discernment, seems to be more brightly highlighted in life, for a religious vocation and possibly less so for marriage (a word not used at all in working class secular life). It strikes me that discernment for every vocation is equally as important, though I do understand they need to have practical time differences.
As a child being given the gift of Faith, being educated within that faith, falling in Love within that faith, being in relationship with God and choosing in triune to live within the context of your faith is everything.
Church marriage intimately inhabits a spiritual covenant, and only when that spiritual covenant is fully understood, should it become a practical one. And now I see where the divisions in the church fail us, and the strictness of the Catholic church blesses us. I am unsure where this leaves secular practical marriages, and secular marriages taken under Church vows.
This understanding only comes with truly knowing God who is Love, and being educated within faith. Thank God for my children being given the gift.
“As a child being given the gift of Faith, being educated within that faith, falling in Love within that faith, being in relationship with God and choosing in triune to live within the context of your faith is everything.”
A reconsidered point
The above is extremely important, It is not everything. To Love and to Love tenderly is everything.
I agree! My fiancee and I are opting to follow the Rite of Marriage closely; once we read it, we knew that it would be a witness to the wisdom of the Church and our surrendering ourselves to Christ.