-By Fran Watson, Marriage Care’s Head of Marriage Preparation and Enrichment
This year Marriage Week takes place in a Jubilee year for the Catholic Church. A special time to re-establish a proper relationship with God, with one another, and with all of creation. The theme of this Jubilee year is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’; a year of hope for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, and other crises.
In many ways married couples are ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. If we go right back to the start of the Genesis story, we see that God created man and then said ‘It is not good that man should be alone’ and in his final act of Creation, God made woman, as an equal to man to complement him, and we first see the basic unit at the heart of human society, the couple.
Slightly later in Genesis 2; 24 we read ‘This is why man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife, and they become one body’. The couple and their Marriage are the culmination of Creation.
During the Catholic Marriage service, we hear that decision being taken again by each couple:
‘I call upon these persons here present to
witness that I…do take thee…to be my lawful
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.’
(Declaration of consent from The Order of Celebrating Matrimony 2016)
Each partner chooses to make a Covenant with the other, to ‘have and to hold’ meaning, to give the whole of themselves to the other as they are, and to accept the gift of the other entirely as they are. There are no conditions or exceptions as with a contract; ‘I will love you, honour you, cherish you, forever, no matter what’. An unconditional love in the same way that Christ loves His Church (us); He will love us forever even though as humans, Christ knows that we will turn away at times…
In the same way, the couple is fully aware as they enter marriage, that although they love one another completely, the journey, will not always be straightforward and at times will be very difficult. They could be seen as ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ taking ‘a leap of faith into a future as yet unknown, because of where they are’ (Adapted from words thought to have been said by St John of the Cross in the 16th Century).
What leap of faith are you making in this Marriage Week? What does being a ‘Pilgrim of Hope’ mean to you?
