Blessed are you, Lord our God,
who crowns marriage with love and affection.
Taken from: Prayers for the Domestic Church: a Handbook for Worship in the Home, by Edward Hays. Forest of Peace Publishing, 1979. ISBN: 093951611X
Lord of Love,
we thank you for the numerous gifts
of our married love.
With the wisdom of generosity
laid open since Creation,
You have blessed the union of man and woman
with deep beauty in the song of love.
A mystic melody of sacred unity
arises when two hearts are fused as one
in the love of the Eternal One.
Lord God, we thank you for this holy gift.
Lord and Creator of Life,
Your loving union with Your people
was sung by the ancients
in symbols of wedding feasts and intimate unions.
No other vocation in life have you, Lord, so richly blessed
by interlacing intimacy and affection
in the sacred union of hearts and bodies.
We who share this ministry of marriage
must also share its heavy burdens.
But our moments of loving affection,
so human and so holy,
lighten our trials and nourish us day by day
in our common journey to You,
our Lord and Beloved.
Lord,
may the happiness of these times of tenderness
be for us a sacrament
of our future and endless unity
with You, with each other, (with our children,)
and with all Your holy saints and lovers.
Blessed are You, Lord our God,
who crowns marriage with love and affection.
Amen.