RC Wedding Readings - ideas?

I Heart Internet

My fiancée and I are getting married soon in a Roman Catholic ceremony. which readings would you suggest to use for 1st, 2nd and Gospel?
We have some ideas but I feel that the standard ones recommended in guides on the net, etc are a bit too familiar. I'm not sure, for example, that because the miracle at Cana happened at a wedding it should necessarily be pushed as a wedding reading.
What do people think?

antiskeptic

I Heart Internet wrote: »

My fiancée and I are getting married soon in a Roman Catholic ceremony. which readings would you suggest to use for 1st, 2nd and Gospel?
We have some ideas but I feel that the standard ones recommended in guides on the net, etc are a bit too familiar. I'm not sure, for example, that because the miracle at Cana happened at a wedding it should necessarily be pushed as a wedding reading.
What do people think?

It wasn't a Catholic wedding but we used Pauls prayer to the Ephesians (Eph 3) which called for God's blessing on both of us.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who
is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to
his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen.

We also had Psalm 116

Psalm 116
1 I love the LORD, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
2 Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The cords of death entangled me,
the anguish of the grave came upon me;
I was overcome by trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the LORD:
“O LORD, save me!”
5 The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
6 The LORD protects the simplehearted;
when I was in great need, he saved me.
7 Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the LORD has been good to you.
8 For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling,
9 that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
10 I believed; therefore I said, “I am greatly afflicted.”
11 And in my dismay I said, “All men are liars.”
12 How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD.
14 I will fulfill my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.
15 Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his saints.
16 O LORD, truly I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant;
you have freed me from my chains.
17 I will sacrifice a thank offering to you
and call on the name of the LORD.
18 I will fulfill my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,
19 in the courts of the house of the LORD -
in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD.

...which is effectively a testimony to our recognizing (both) ourselves to have been lost but now found.


Which brings up an issue - a reading, to my mind, is something that is personally relevant to you, something the bible speaks of which is pertinent to your own situation. In our case..

a) bringing up the fact of our having a living relationship with God and having the reader call down that to which we, as his children, have an entitlement. Namely, his blessing.

b) testifying to the work he has done in our lives in saving us from our sinfulness.


If there isn't that relationship (witnessed perhaps by an unfamiliarity with what he says) then you won't be able to generate something personally relevant yourself. Which tends towards leaving you with the generic wedding passages


We finished with:

Gospel of John, chapter 15.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now abide
in my love. If you obey my commands, you will abide in my love,
just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and abide in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his
master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you
to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Then the Father will
give you whatever you ask in my name.
This is my command: Love each other.

It may be generic (I don't know) but it certainly is relevant to a marriage. How fast I've forgotten it myself..