The Hands Passage
Please face each other and hold hands, so you may feel the gift that you are to one another. These are the hands of your best friend, young and strong and full of love for you, that are holding yours on your wedding day as you promise to love each other today, tomorrow and forever. These are the hands that will work alongside yours as together you build your future. These are the hands that will passionately love you and cherish you through the years, and with the slightest touch will comfort you like no other, These are the hands that will hold you when fear or grief wracks your mind. These...
Read MoreSeven Blessings
May you be blessed with love. May the love between you be passionate and serene, strong and enduring bringing a deep and abiding peace into your lives. May you be blessed with wisdom. May you continually learn from one another and the world. Together, may you grow, deepening your knowledge and understanding of each other and of your journey together through life. May you be blessed with the fruit of the earth. May your harvest be abundant and prosperous in all the areas of your lives. May you be blessed with art and beauty. May your creative aspirations and experiences find expression and...
Read MoreFrom Poems by Denise Braxton Brown and Peggy Wrightsman
Taken from poems by Denise Braxton Brown and Peggy Wrightsman Let’s grow old together, beginning with today. Let’s work slowly with each other and build a relationship that we can both enjoy being a part of. Let’s share love and understanding that neither of us is perfect; we both subject to human frailties. Let’s hold each other close and whisper through the night, pledging our love, honoring our commitment. Let’s encourage each other to pursue our dreams, even when we’re weary from trying. Let’s expect the best that we both have to give and still...
Read MoreBlessing for a Marriage
By James Dillet Freeman May your marriage bring you all the exquisite excitements a marriage should bring. And may life grant you also patience, tolerance, and understanding. May you always need one another – not so much to fill your emptiness as to help you know your fullness. A mountain needs a valley to be complete; the valley does not make the mountain less; but more and the valley is more because the mountain is towering over it. May you need one another, but not out of weakness. May you want one another, but not out of lack. May you entice one another, but not compel one another....
Read MoreHappiness in Marriage
Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens. A good marriage must be created. In the art of marriage, the little things are big things… It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day. It is never going to sleep angry. It is at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship shouldn’t end with the honeymoon, it should continue through all the years. It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives; it is standing together to face the world. It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole...
Read MoreOn Marriage
From Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet Then Almita spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master? And he answered saying: You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one...
Read MoreMarriage Joins Two People in the Circle of Its Love
by Edmund O’Neil Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal. It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime. Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships. A wife and a husband are each other’s best friend, confidant, lover, teacher, listener, and critic. And there may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the...
Read MoreHow Do I Love Thee?
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by the sun and candle light, I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old grief’s, and with my childhood’s faith, I love thee with a love I seem to lose With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath, Smiles,...
Read MoreApache Wedding Blessing
Now you will feel no rain, for each will be the shelter for the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each will be the warmth for the other. Now there is no more loneliness, for each will be the companion for the other. Now there are two bodies, but there is only one life before you. Go now to your dwelling place, to enter into your days of togetherness. And may you days be good and long upon the earth.
Read MoreCherokee Prayer
Oh Great Spirit whose voice I hear in the wind, whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear me; I need our strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice, Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people. Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards me. Le me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. Help me seek pure thoughts and act with the intention of helping others. Help me find...
Read MorePrayer of St. Francis
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is desire, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy’ O Divine Master, Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Read MoreScripture Readings
Old Testament Song of Solomon 2:10, 13,16 My Beloved spake, and said to me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For low, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; Flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Arise my love, my fair one, come away. My beloved is mine and I am his. New Testament I Corinthians 13 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and I have not love, I have become sounding...
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