Christian wedding

Christian Wedding Traditional Vows

The declaration of vows symbolizes the moment when a bride and groom become husband and wife. There are several ways to perform the monologue-style vows: The Grooms and Brides can memorize the words ahead of time; you can repeat them after the priests; or the priests can say them in the form of a question, and you can respond with “I do” or “I will.” Variations on the traditional wording can often be accommodated.

Catholic Wedding
“I, _____, take you, _____, for my lawful wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.”

Protestant Wedding
“I, _____, take thee, _____, to be my wedded wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith.”

Presbyterian Wedding
“I, _____, take you, _____, to be my wife/husband, and I do promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband/wife in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”

Source of Marriage

God is the right source of marriage: "...and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman and brought to the man" (Gen 2:22).

The idea of male and female was God's idea: "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27).

This fundamental truth is essential to the appreciation of marriage - that God made male and female for his own good purposes. Creation was incomplete without woman viz to bring joy into man's life.

Why of Marriage

Marriage was designed by God to meet the first problem of the human race which was loneliness.

"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help fit for him'" (Gen 2:18).

Marriage always begins with a need that has been there from the beginning - a need for companionship and completion.

Marriage was designed to relieve the fundamental loneliness that every human person experiences.

Marriage was planned and decreed to bring happiness, not misery: "Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man'" (Gen 2:23). In modern parlance:

"Wow!" : an expression of delight and excitement;

"She's so beautiful! She is perfectly suited to me! I have finally found the one who can complement me!"

Marriage is meant to procreate life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it..." (Gen 1:28)

Basis/Foundation of Marriage

Commitment is the right basis/foundation of marriage:

"Because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband' (1 Cor 7:2).

Goal of Marriage
Oneness is the goal of marriage: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh' (Gen 2:24).

Marriage must begin with:

Leaving = of all relationships
Cleaving = between husband and wife throughout their lifetime
Becoming one = in the fullest possible sense, including intimate physical sexual union without shame.

Stages in Marriage

It is said that there are three stages in marriage:

i) honeymoon = "angels"
ii) disenchantment = "devils"
iii) reality = "we are human"

Right Basic Relationship in Marriage

Order in Marriage is the right basic relationship in marriage: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them" (Col 3:18-19).

"Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her... husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it, as Christ does the church... For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one" (Eph 5:22-31).

Nurturance for Marriage Growth

Marriage is like a garden; for it to grow strong it needs the right nurturance. Agape Love is the right nurturance for its growth: "Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never enote" (1 Cor 13:4-8a).

It also needs intimacy: not just sexual intimacy but also gentle touches, looks and words which convey warmth and care for the total person, enabling the couple to disclose their inner selves to each other.

Five Ways for Men to Build Lasting and Loving Relationships with Their Wives

a) Endeavor to understand the ways you have hurt or offended your wife
b) Admit your major part in weakening the marriage
c) Express sorrow to your wife whenever you offend her
d) Seek her forgiveness for your offensive behavior
e) Let her see your consistent and sincere efforts to correct offensive actions or words (attitudes, not actions or words, often harm a woman the most. When she sees her husband's attitudes changing, she is more than willing to open herself to him and accept him into an intimate relationship).

Family Institution: Fabric of society

Our globalize world dominated by the profit motive has drastically altered the very fabric of our society: the family institution. Among its many consequences, the most obvious is the severe distortion of human dignity and consequently that of the family. The value and quality of life itself has all been reduced to mere economic efficiency in accumulating wealth and possession. Besides, the traditional family itself is under immense threats on all fronts: instantaneous gratification of individual needs and rights, the pervasive sexual, contraceptive-abortion, divorce, homosexual and childless home culture.

Without surprise children have also become news - being displaced, abandoned, traded, abused and exploited in both the labour and sex markets. Data and all the discouraging media coverage seem to prove that the family is being deinstitutionalised or is terminally ill. The greatest deficit in all this is the paralyzing effects generated by hopelessness and fatalism. This imperatively demands our commitment to assert anew the dignity of human life and the family.

Paradigm shift: Today's family

Today's family comes »n all shapes and sizes. It challenges us to stretch our paradigm to arrive at an adequate understanding of the family. It also includes maintaining a vital equilibrium. On one hand, our Covenantal Tradition upholds marriage as divinely instituted, sanctioned and

commissioned to be each other's "helper" (Gen 2:18) and to "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 1:28).

On the other hand, the fast emerging single parent family - that of the separated, divorced and unmarried. Such balance outlook does not negate nor diminish the truth that the Husband-Wife Covenant in the family is non-negotiable!

Faith formation of and in the family

Intimacy with Christ is the heart of our Christian faith. It includes experiencing Christ's love and allowing him to make his home in our hearts (Eph 3:17). Having him at home in the family, irrespective of two parents, or single parent, is the basis of family well being. This intimacy is never a decision or a destination to arrive at once and for all. Rather, it involves a gradual growth process.

This series of 12 articles 'is to focus on the faith formation of and in the family.

The family reasserting its dignity

The family is definitely one of the highest human vocations. We have all the necessary education and competence for every vocation, except the family. Lacking this basic prerequisite, especially in our competitive age, it shouldn't surprise us that today's family is in such dilemma.

Of course, our series can never make up for this crucial lack. Nor does it pretend to be the cure all, or have ready-made answers.

Rather, it seeks to initiate this vital process of reasserting the full dignity of the human family.

Approach

Relying on our Scriptural heritage, theology and tradition, it adopts a descriptive and motivating approach to enhance family intimacy.

It also utilizes the latest advancement in human and behavioral sciences, especially to have deeper insights into the dynamics of human relationship, motivation and communication within the family.

Finally, if changes need to be made, we must always remember that it all must begin with us. For things to change, I must change first.