“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
So said St Catherine of Siena….
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 their truest selves…
The 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.
….very hard to wean ourselves away from self-centredness.
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 the 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 so 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.
We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive.
We need mutual forgiveness in order 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….

Words from a Royal wedding ceremony