To be taken care of is without a doubt the basis for every lasting bond,
but love is not a just passion, good intentions, or feelings; when it is true love, it is also something more. It is indeed a promise.
When two people decide to get married, they make a promise by which they give to each other their future. Their yes declared publicly is always a yes to the future of the other in its entirety, a yes to the future of the couple.
When you realize that being together for the present is no longer enough for you, only for the moment that you are living, and you feel attracted to a “forever” together, without ifs and buts, then it is time to get married.
A promise means allowing ourselves to be attracted by a dream. Today we are increasingly afraid of dreaming.
Certainly promising something is challenging, but committing oneself to a promise lends us the courage and the strength to start over again, letting yourself be carried away by that dream made together. Every dawn always comes with a new promise, which helps us to see life ever new.
In history, every lasting alliance has required a pact. Certainly marriage, if based on an empty promise, makes no sense; but if the promise is true, then marriage itself can help the partners to grow more and more in love.
Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter to two newlyweds in 1943: “It is not your love that supports marriage: it is marriage which from now on carries your love on its shoulders”.
But we need to believe and commit ourselves. If you then decide to get married in church, we also offer other words of Bonhoeffer: “God unites both of you in marriage: you yourselves don’t do this, it is God who operates here”.
He will help you to persevere in love, to be faithful to love, and to keep the dream alive, even when the going gets tough.
