This past Saturday, my parish celebrated the happy occasion of a wedding between two parishioners. And it so happened it was my first time to witness a traditional Prayer Book wedding (Reformed Episcopal Church BCP, to be exact).
I noticed that quite of lot of prayer book language has been adopted by even very un-Anglican weddings:
. . . for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, tell death us do part . . .
Traditional Book of Common Prayer.
With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship . . .
Ditto.
I also noticed that the traditional Book of Common Prayer is quite frank about the sexual aspects of marriage:
[Holy Matrimony] was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.
Combined with lessons from Proverbs 5: 18-19 and the Song of Solomon, the temperature rose in the Sanctuary at times.
This was also the first time I’ve heard the groom say, “I plight thee my troth.”
Special language for a holy and joyous occasion.
Hello and good afternoon, fellow TX Anglican. Just came across your blog. Good stuff. Hope you don't mind, but I wanted to let you know about my blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm an aspiring clergy-writer who's new to the Anglican tradition, and am trying to find Anglican readers. The title of my blog is "Musings of a Hard-Lining Moderate: The assorted thoughts of an evangelical Anglican."
I write about theology, history, culture, politics, movie/book reviews, pet theories... anything that’s on my mind. Right now I'm doing a series on the doctrine of Scripture, which was prompted by the crisis in the global communion. I also recently wrote a post on the value of the christian calendar.
Anyway, I don't know if you'd be interested, but here's the link: http://bit.ly/dXh2qd. Have a great day.
Grace & Peace,
Carson