At Hutchmoot we announced our plans to publish a book of liturgies for everyday life. The book is called Every Moment Holy and we want to share a little more of what the book is like.
Here’s a look at the kind of liturgy the book will contain. This one is called “A Liturgy for a Husband & Wife at Close of Day.” If you’d like to support the Every Moment Holy project, click here to make a donation and see how you can help.
A Liturgy for Husband & Wife at Close of Day
Husband: At death we will part.
Wife: Therefore let us not take the blessing of our life together for granted.
Silence is kept as both spouses consider for a moment the gravity of this truth.
Husband: May our hearts be ever drawn towards You, O Lord
In whose three-personed perfection of love
Burns the fire that would kindle also our two-personed imperfection
Into a oneness that is warmed and forged of your holy flames,
Wife: A thing that is both an echo and seed and a play upon a stage
Portraying the promise of union with Christ that is to come.
Together: We are unworthy players, O Lord, unworthy to portray your glory.
We are weak. We are jealous. We are easily wounded.
We are petty. We are embittered. We store up remembrances of wounds.
We are insecure.
We hurt one another.
We do not deal with our conflicts well.
We fail to love as you have loved.
Forgive us even the failures of this day.
Silence is kept. If either husband or wife has need to make amends, they may do so now.
Husband: I am not strong enough in my own strength to be husband to you.
Wife: And I am not strong enough in my own strength to be wife to you.
Together: Let us turn to God together then, asking the strength that we need.
Husband and wife take hands.
Together: Give us therefore the strength that comes from the grace that flows from your heart alone, O God, that we might live and move and breathe in air of that grace, receiving it in ourselves, and then offering it daily to one another. Without grace, our marriage will wither as a vine unrooted. But sustained by your grace, it will ever flourish and bloom and flower and fruit.
Husband: Forgive us our failures and our sins against one another and against our marriage, O God,
And restore now our hearts to you and to one another.
Wife: Repair the damages of our selfishness, our thoughtlessness, our inconsistencies.
Draw us again together at the close of this day, in love, and forgiveness, and fellowship and peace.
Together: May we sleep this night side by side in unity of heart and mind and purpose.
May we wake in the morning in solidarity and delight,
Thankful for the sharing of this life, for the companion who journeys beside us,
For hands to hold and arms to embrace, and lips to kiss at the close of day.
Husband: May we love one another more at the end of this day
Than we did at its beginning.
Wife: May we treasure one another more at the end of this week
Than we did at its start.
Husband: May we hold one another as more precious, more respected, more dear
At the shuttering of this month, than we did at its opening.
Wife: May we delight in our companionship and take heart in the sharing of our burdens more at the close of this year, than we did as it opened
Husband: May we reflect your glory far more fully in the beauty of our shared relationship
At the hour we are parted by death than we did even in the hour of our wedding.
Together: Bless our marriage. Kindle our desire. Teach us to be friends and lovers and companions.
And may this our marriage exist not only for our benefit,
But may the bond between us grow to be a shelter and a blessing for others as well.
Husband: We ask these things in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Wife: Amen.
Together: And now, with joined hearts, together we bring to you these burdens of our day.
Husband and wife may now freely petition their heavenly Father with all worries, burdens and concerns.
Copyright 2016 by Douglas Kaine McKelvey. All Rights Reserved.