"When we fall in love, even in a broken and sinful world, we sense a deep truth. Contrary to popular opinion, love is not blind. When we love another person, we see the other as they truly are. We see the dizzying depths that lie within this other person. Intuitively – not often articulated, but intuitively – we are drawn to the potential infinity that is within this other person. That is why we have a belief that the one we fall in love with is enough for us. "You are all I need," says the lover to the beloved, and that is true.
The experience of love reveals how, in each person, there lies within them – and I will submit you now a word, dense with meaning, from a theologian… from the words of St. Simeon the new theologian… there is within each person the reason of things and the nature and the knowledge of beings within themselves, but this experience of the reason of things, that the other is infinitely great and there is depth in them that summarizes all that is created by God.
The unfathomable depth of this mystery that the other is, and that love opens us up to see in another, can also become the place of the greatest suffering in our life. The other – for the other, like us, is greater than heaven, yet, as the fathers remind us, it is even easier to understand heaven than ourselves. When love in this world is not lived in God, then sin will distort it. For rather than receiving the loved one as the image of God, we will force the other to become in our own image, to possess, to control, and to use.
To say today "you are married in Christ," is to place the unfathomable, infinite mystery that each of you is in its proper order. The infinity that each of you are to each other has its source not in your love for each other, but in God. That is why you are married in Christ. Marriage in Christ is therefore not a static place, something to look back to, like a graduation, but it is a call. It is a destination that calls you.
Marriage in Christ is a call to never stop growing in what love or in your soul to see in each other when you fell in love. Every day and every moment, you are called to receive one another, discover one another, and re-discover one another, to repent, to forgive, to begin anew your marriage in Christ.
Marriage in Christ is both a gift and the ground you stand on and a promise. It is the place where you must engage what is most sacred and personal in each of you: your freedom and your will. Freely and willingly choose to live in Christ, your love, each day. This is the asceticism of marriage: to refuse to make the other an idol; therefore, to receive each other always anew and only through the hands of God.
St. Paul sums up well when he says in the epistle to the Ephesians – for couples, he says, "Live in respect of one another." (Eph 5:21) Now the word that is used is φόβῳ (phobō). It is the same word, φόβῳ, Μετὰ φόβου, that the priest calls out to the faithful as he brings our the holy cup for communion, Μετὰ φόβου Θεοῦ πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης προσέλθετε, with the fear of God, with this deep awe, have awe for one another, for great is the mystery that lies within you. Approach each other with φόβῳ with reverence for the fear of God.
Marriage is a royal path to live out the vocation we all have received in baptism. That is why the prayers for placing the crowns on your head proclaim, "This is a royal path,” this call, that grounds your life predates your meeting one another. What is this call? It is the call from one existence to existence. For those of us who are baptized in Christ, we know that to exist can only be one thing: to exist in personal love.
In fact, this love, this personal love, is the only vocation for each person in this world and, in Christ, this profound longing that each human being has is revealed as having its source in the life and the persons of the Trinity. This life of love is offered to us, not at the end of our life in heaven, but is a possibility that we can live here and now.
The Gospel reveals to us that what both God and man have in common is that both God and man love and seek to be loved. In the church, there are two µυστήριον (mysterion), two sacraments that had been set aside as privileged roles of this love: monasticism and marriage. Both monastics and married people are obedient to a particular way of life that desires to live here and now as a sign: the future Kingdom, this ultimate destiny that we are all called to exist in love, in communion with all within the persons of the Holy Trinity.
The monastics manifest here on earth a way of love that is not exclusive and that embraces all by renouncing the love of one particular person. Married people journey towards this personal love of God for all by learning to love the one and the only.
Beloved, recognize the great dignity and the beauty of the life that today you have chosen. Have reverence for all that makes up the daily life of your calling. You are called to be obedient and truthful, to become one flesh, to receive the blessing of many children. You are called to be together a sign of God's mercy in this world. Yours is a royal path to love and to holiness. There is nothing profane within marriage."
The unfathomable depth of this mystery that the other is, and that love opens us up to see in another, can also become the place of the greatest suffering in our life. The other – for the other, like us, is greater than heaven, yet, as the fathers remind us, it is even easier to understand heaven than ourselves. When love in this world is not lived in God, then sin will distort it. For rather than receiving the loved one as the image of God, we will force the other to become in our own image, to possess, to control, and to use.
To say today "you are married in Christ," is to place the unfathomable, infinite mystery that each of you is in its proper order. The infinity that each of you are to each other has its source not in your love for each other, but in God. That is why you are married in Christ. Marriage in Christ is therefore not a static place, something to look back to, like a graduation, but it is a call. It is a destination that calls you.
Marriage in Christ is a call to never stop growing in what love or in your soul to see in each other when you fell in love. Every day and every moment, you are called to receive one another, discover one another, and re-discover one another, to repent, to forgive, to begin anew your marriage in Christ.
Marriage in Christ is both a gift and the ground you stand on and a promise. It is the place where you must engage what is most sacred and personal in each of you: your freedom and your will. Freely and willingly choose to live in Christ, your love, each day. This is the asceticism of marriage: to refuse to make the other an idol; therefore, to receive each other always anew and only through the hands of God.
St. Paul sums up well when he says in the epistle to the Ephesians – for couples, he says, "Live in respect of one another." (Eph 5:21) Now the word that is used is φόβῳ (phobō). It is the same word, φόβῳ, Μετὰ φόβου, that the priest calls out to the faithful as he brings our the holy cup for communion, Μετὰ φόβου Θεοῦ πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης προσέλθετε, with the fear of God, with this deep awe, have awe for one another, for great is the mystery that lies within you. Approach each other with φόβῳ with reverence for the fear of God.
Marriage is a royal path to live out the vocation we all have received in baptism. That is why the prayers for placing the crowns on your head proclaim, "This is a royal path,” this call, that grounds your life predates your meeting one another. What is this call? It is the call from one existence to existence. For those of us who are baptized in Christ, we know that to exist can only be one thing: to exist in personal love.In fact, this love, this personal love, is the only vocation for each person in this world and, in Christ, this profound longing that each human being has is revealed as having its source in the life and the persons of the Trinity. This life of love is offered to us, not at the end of our life in heaven, but is a possibility that we can live here and now.
The Gospel reveals to us that what both God and man have in common is that both God and man love and seek to be loved. In the church, there are two µυστήριον (mysterion), two sacraments that had been set aside as privileged roles of this love: monasticism and marriage. Both monastics and married people are obedient to a particular way of life that desires to live here and now as a sign: the future Kingdom, this ultimate destiny that we are all called to exist in love, in communion with all within the persons of the Holy Trinity.
The monastics manifest here on earth a way of love that is not exclusive and that embraces all by renouncing the love of one particular person. Married people journey towards this personal love of God for all by learning to love the one and the only.
Beloved, recognize the great dignity and the beauty of the life that today you have chosen. Have reverence for all that makes up the daily life of your calling. You are called to be obedient and truthful, to become one flesh, to receive the blessing of many children. You are called to be together a sign of God's mercy in this world. Yours is a royal path to love and to holiness. There is nothing profane within marriage."
+ P.R., Orthodox Priest in Toronto, Sermon at an Orthodox Wedding, July 2014
