Royal Wedding Prayer
All weddings provide an occasion for hope and for reflection. Royal weddings, amid the pomp and pageantry, especially so because of the visibility. Discussion is already heating up as to whether the bride’s dress was sufficient to the occasion, if the maid of honour should have worn white, and the propriety of omitting the phrase “obey and serve” from the bride’s vows. But amid all that, let us first consider this example of two people pledging themselves to unity before God. May this provide all of us renewed hope in and dedication to the ideal of the unity of God’s people in peace. And, of course, let us remember the young couple in our prayers that the hope and promise of this day shall continue and be fulfilled throughout their lives together.
Prince William and his bride-to-be, Catherine Middleton, authored a prayer for this day:
God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.
In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy.
Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.
For those who did not stay up to see the royal wedding ceremony (or any of the rebroadcasts), the sermon was insightful and relevant (and brief!). The sermon was presented by the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Doctor Richard John Carew Chartres, Bishop of London. The full text may be viewed here.
“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 a 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.” – +Richard Londin