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Congregation Untarian Universalist
Homiles, Thoughts and Special Words
Homily to the Bride and Groom
3-A
and , throughout human history the founding of a new home and a new family has been celebrated as an act of high and holy order. It has been celebrated with a service of marriage—in sacred groves, in humble meetinghouses, under vaulted arches, in temples with ancient rites, and in bombed-out cellars with hurried words. Yet neither state, church, nor family relations can by the sole weight of tradition, ceremony, or expectation create a genuine joining of man and woman. Such a wedlock comes only through the ripening of love freely given. It is in your power, therefore, and in your power alone to bless this service—by the sincerity of your purpose, the strength of your common devotion, and the enduring character of your dedication.
3-B
and , you cannot know what the future will hold. But you bring yourselves here today to take part in a ceremony that says you are not afraid, that whatever may come, you believe in each other and that you are secure in your love. With these pledges you enter into a lifelong union, a joining of hands and hearts, of minds and purposes and destinies. With these pledges thus begins the sharing of the rest of your lives together.
You have invited us to witness the happiness which you have found in each other and the pledges in which you commit yourselves to each other in love. We rejoice with you that you will be finding deeper meanings and joys in your lives as you share them in the unity of marriage. Taught by our own joys and sorrows, successes and failures, we remind you that in marriage as in life, those who insist on saving their lesser goods and smaller selves shall miss what is greater, but those who commit themselves in devotion to their beloved and in consecration to their common enterprise, shall find the fullness of life.
—first paragraph, David H. MacPherson
second paragraph Anonymous
3-D
and , one of the great joys of love and marriage is the discovery of feelings about yourself and about each other that you would not find in any other way. It is almost as if they did not exist until their miraculous appearance in your joining in love. In one way they are universal feelings experienced by men and women since the beginning of time. Yet in another way they are your feelings alone, growing from the uniqueness that is in each of you, touching the uniqueness of the other. Today we celebrate your discovery of both the universality and the uniqueness of your feelings for each other.
—Edwin A. Lane
3-E
and , in presenting yourselves here today, you are performing an act of faith in each other—a faith which should grow and mature and endure. If you would have your love set on such faith, not just for this moment but in all the days ahead, then ever cherish the hopes and dreams you now hold. Resolve that love not be blotted out by the commonplace, nor blurred by the mundane in life. Faults will appear where now there is entrancement; talents will fade in bleaching experience; wonder will flatten in the rituals of daily living—but devotion, joy, and love can grow as you build them together. Stand fast in hope and confidence, believing in yourselves and believing in each other. In this spirit you can create a partnership which will strengthen you both and give new hope and strength to all who love you.
—Peter Raible
3-F
and , you are about to enter into a union which is most sacred and most serious, requiring of those who enter into it a complete and unreserved giving of self. It will bind you together for life in a relationship so close and so intimate that it will profoundly affect 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. Love can make it easy, and perfect love can make it a joy. May this love with which you join your hands and hearts today never fail, but grow deeper and stronger as the years go on.
—Collectio Rituum
3-G
and , every wedding is an occasion of joy, joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have been granted the freedom and the power to take the rudder of their lives into their own hands. The course upon which you are embarking is one you have chosen for yourselves. Unless you can boldly say today: “This is our resolve, our love, our way,” you are taking refuge in a false piety. You hope to find in another that earthly bliss in which, to quote a medieval song, the one is the comfort of the other in body and soul.
3-H
and , may you make in your marriage no fetters for your spirits. Rather may the courage which love alone can give, guide your lives together into a fuller strength and a greater freedom. Love is a concern for the true happiness of the other. Love is a respect for the preciousness and worth of a person. Love gives and love receives. Love cannot live in itself, it must be nurtured with a mutual and ultimate sharing, a giving and a taking. Love is precious because it is an ethical commitment to another, which honors the duties of the promises here made, not only from a sense of obligation, but from the depths of the most divine sentiment a man or a woman can enjoy.
—Brandoch Lovely
3-I
and , may you know great love together, and may you live in the desire to attain that best which each may win more richly because of the other. May you strengthen one another in all sorrow, share with one another in all gladness, and be companions to each other in times of the silent and unspoken. May your home help to make the world more homelike; and should you be lost in a maze of circumstance, may there be for you both a way back to the tenderness and beauty of a life together. Wherever you may be placed by changing fortune, may you be united not in word or outward form alone, but by the presence in your hearts of deepening love. May the benedictions that rest on those who truly love rest on you, and fill you with love’s grace, both now and ever.
3-J
and , the secret of love and marriage is that of religion itself; it is the emergence of the larger self; it is the finding of one’s life by losing it. Such is the privilege of husband and wife—to be each himself, herself, and yet another; to face the world strong with the strength of two, wise with the wisdom of two, and brave with the courage of two. And the high and fine art of married life is in this mutual enrichment, mental and spiritual, this give and take between two personalities.
3-K
and , today you are taking upon yourselves the potential of a great love already real between you. It is no casual thing to have entered into the inmost life of another person. To make the commitment of love is to risk the pain of grief. And so, with this commitment and this risk, you are venturing forth with all the hope two persons can muster. Together you will discover the deeps of life. No matter what happens—when you are happy or sad, hopeful or discouraged, close together or far apart—may you always be there for each other. And we, your friends who share this day with you—may we be there too, if you need us.
3-L
and , may your union bring you all the exquisite excitements a union can bring. And may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding. May you seek each other, not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you know your fullness. May you need each other, but not out of weakness. May you want each other, but not out of lack. May you entice but not compel each other. May you embrace but not encircle each other. May you succeed in all important ways with each other and not fail in the little graces. May you look for things to praise, often say, “I love you,” and take no notice of small faults. And if you have quarrels that push you apart, may both of you have good sense enough to take the first step back. May you enter into the mystery which is the awareness of each other’s presence—physical and spiritual—together, warm and near when you are side by side and warm and near when you are in separate rooms, or even distant cities. May you have happiness, and may you find it making each other happy. May you have love, and may you find it in loving!
3-M
and , you cannot know what the future will hold. But you bring yourselves here today to take part in a ceremony that says you are not afraid, that whatever may come, you believe in each other and that you are secure in your love. With these pledges you enter into a lifelong union, a joining of hands and hearts, of minds and purposes and destinies. With these pledges thus begins the sharing of the rest of your lives together.
3-N
Awed by the many meanings of this hour and overjoyed by its promises, we hope the spirit of trust, understanding, and love may be with you, and , through all the years that lie ahead. Whatever trials and testings may come, may you trust each other wholly, for without such faith marriage is a mockery; may you understand each other, for without understanding there is neither acceptance nor forgiveness; and may you truly love each other, for without love marriage is only an empty shell from which the white bird has flown.
As you build together a new life and a new home, may that home be bright with the laughter of children and of many friends; may it be a haven from the tensions of our time and a wellspring of strength; and in all the world may it be the one place you most want to be, the place where you discover the ultimate human mystery—the secret of how two may join their lives as one.
So may this shining hour be an open door through which you will go forth to build that dearest of all relationships, a happy, harmonious marriage. May the years deal gently with you; walking together may you find far more in life than either of you would have found alone; and even more fully may you come to know this one supreme truth: that caring is sharing … that living is giving … that life is eternal … and that love is its crown.
—W. Waldemar W. Argow
3-O
and , not from pride, but from humility as mortals, with human weaknesses and strengths, you stand alone today and promise faith. Your faith you find as you live, each moment consecrated to a search for Truth and for that Good whose presence you have deeply felt. Now from this time, until the time you must rejoin the earth from which you came, love the love in you that underlies your actions. And with each other, share your wonder at the beauty that you find as man and wife.
—James Lawson
3-P
and , It was a wise person who said that it is important not only to pick the right mate but to be the right mate. And, contrary to many popular love stories, it is not during the first year of bliss that most dangers crop up. Marriages do not, like dropped chinaware, smash as a result of that first quarrel which the newly married hope is unthinkable. Marriage is a rooted thing, a growing and flowering thing that must be tended faithfully. Lacking that mutual effort, we are apt to find some day that our marriage, so hopefully planted, has been withering imperceptibly. Gradually we realize that for some time the petals have lost their luster, that the perfume is gone. Daily watering with the little gracious affectionate acts we all welcome, with mutual concern for the other’s contentment, with self-watchfulness here and self-forgetfulness there, brings forth ever new blossoms.
—Donald Culross Peatie
3-Q
Communicate. Offer what is of value: your feelings, your reactions, your dreams, your disappointments, the world in which you live. Offer this to the other. Let your marriage flow, as soft and gentle spring air, between you. Let it be a channel, not for giving but for sharing. and , you are each strong—full as individuals. Let now the strength of your relationship—its love and its courage, its sympathy and truth-expressing capacity, its fun and its thoughtfulness—let this strength become deep and securely rooted, part of both your lives.
—Rudolph W. Nemser
3-R
and , this is a moment of solemn and joyful happiness. No act of human beings holds the weight and hope as the dual act of trusting and being trusted. You love now, eagerly, expectantly, in comfort and succor because first, alone, you wandered the tortuous, rocky streets of human struggle. Remember those days, the tempering fire giving you sensitivity and appreciation for what it is you have found with one another. Offer one another a whole human being. With trust and gentleness, with humor and fondness you will receive in return more of a human being than you ever thought yours. We who are here salute you. We rejoice for you. Our presence is token of our hope and faith for your family, for your marriage, for you as individuals we cherish.
3-S
and , today you make a pledge, but it is tomorrow that gives that pledge meaning. A promise is but a seed which can grow only through love and faithfulness. Give of yourselves until you feel that this pledge lives as truly as you do. The harmony of married love will be yours only if you listen to each other as well as speak with honesty. If you are to reap the fruits of a relationship built on love, you must continuously sow into the lives of each other the seeds of kindness, respect, and compassion. So treated, the love you feel and declare today will continue and grow stronger as the years pass. Be gentle, yet strong; have fear, yet be courageous.
—W. Harper Welch
3-T
Three things are essential for beauty, said Thomas Aquinas: wholeness, harmony, and radiance. He was speaking about art, but his words apply to the beauty of a loving relationship as well. First, there is wholeness. We say to another person, I like this about you or that about you, but true love goes beyond the tallying up of attributes in some kind of a marital balance sheet. It is the whole person with whom we fall in love and that person is more than a sum of the parts—at sixty seven I know all too well that the parts sometimes falter, but the wholeness can remain intact. and , keep wholeness in your marriage. Second there is harmony, and harmony is generated by differences—but differences may generate chaos as well as harmony. It takes work, and discipline, and practice, and commitment—like the players in a symphony orchestra—to make differences into a harmony. and , weave your differences into a pattern, a harmony that is the music of your marriage. Third, there is radiance. Love glows—I can’t say it any better than that. At first it may have erratic flashes like a bonfire, but as time passes those even out into a steady glow like the dim but eternal light of the sanctuary—it is that steady radiance that is the key to a strong marriage. and keep the fire of your love burning with a steady radiance. Aquinas’ three essentials will keep your love beautiful in all the years ahead.
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