June 5, 2025
It had been a long time since Ann had been to a wedding, and an even longer time since her husband had passed. Many of the ceremonies for her grandnieces and nephews seemed to be nothing more than an exchange of vows with no references to God whatsoever. What had happened? One niece was married by her friend, who had gotten a certificate on the internet that allowed her to legally “marry” the couple. Then, one afternoon while she was rummaging through her papers, she came upon a document that included the words the priest had spoken at her wedding so many decades ago. Commonly recited before Vatican II, it was called “Exhortation Before Marriage.” She read it and understood why her marriage had lasted and what their life together had been all about. It said in part:
My dear friends: You are about to enter upon a union which is most sacred and most serious. It is most sacred, because established by God himself.…
This union, then, is most serious, because it will bind you together for life in a relationship so close and so intimate, that it will profoundly influence your whole future, That future, with its hopes and disappointments, its successes and its failures, its pleasures and its pains, its joys and its sorrows, is hidden from your eyes. You know that these elements are mingled in every life, and are to be expected in your own. And so not knowing what is before you, you take each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death….
And because these words involve such solemn obligations, it is most fitting that you rest the security of your wedded life upon the great principle of self-sacrifice… And whatever sacrifices you may hereafter be required to make to preserve this mutual life, always make them generously. Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome. Only love can make it easy, and perfect love can make it a joy. We are willing to give in proportion as we love. And when love is perfect, the sacrifice is complete….
No greater blessing can come to your married life than pure conjugal love, loyal and true to the end. May, then, this love with which you join your hands and hearts today never fail, but grow deeper and stronger as the years go on. And if true love and the unselfish spirit of perfect sacrifice guide your every action, you can expect the greatest measure of earthly happiness that may be allotted to man in this vale of tears. The rest is in the hands of God….
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