Letter from The Minister Revd Bruce Waldron - March 2005
So Prince Charles is marrying Camilla
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| So Prince Charles is marrying Camilla. The TV was full of it last week, on every channel. Oddly enough, all this kerfuffle happened at the end of National Marriage Week. | ||||
| One program was questioning whether they should be allowed to marry. A Bishop who is something of a legal expert, explained that the blessing of the marriage is being held in the Queens own Chapel, not the one she attends but the one she owns. This seems to make a difference. He was defending the Archbishop's blessing of the marriage and it was all about legalities. The one thing that didn't seem to enter the equation was the word "grace." | ||||
| What do we do with this question of infidelity and marriage breakdown? Is there ever forgiveness? Do people move on and should they be allowed to move on? Does Grace have a part to play? I think it does. But before Grace can come into play, it is also necessary to remember that infidelity was the cause of the very public tragedy of the pain that Charles and Diana have been through, the eventual death of Diana, the uncharted ache of the children, the litany of emotional wreckages in their wake. | ||||
| Because marriage requires an inordinate trust - it is so intimate because the persons entering into it lay themselves defenceless and naked to the other in every way - the breaking of these vows is a very personal and deep wound. The vows are to love, honour, cherish, respect, care for each other, to keep each other as the first priority. Sexual infidelity is only one of many ways these vows may be broken. It is usually the end point of a number of broken vows. | ||||
| In one of our Lent Study films, Barbarian Invasions, a young married woman says "Love? You can't base your marriage on love… on Hollywood clichés… There's more to it than that." | ||||
| Marriage requires more than the magical "feel-good" of romantic love. The woman talks of her pain as a child when her parents separated, each weekend lying in front of her father's car to try and prevent him from leaving. The wound of failure to keep marriage vows is often felt far wider than just by the people who break the vows. | ||||
| Yes, let Charles and Camilla marry. Let grace have its right to free people from the mistakes they've made and begin again. They are no less human than any of us. But let it also be remembered that there has been an enormous cost. When marriage vows are broken, so are people. | ||||
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Bruce |
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