Wedding Notebook
a resource of the Long Green Valley
Church of the Brethren
Unity Candle
A candle-lighting service can be a very meaningful part of your service. However, think through what you want it to symbolize. One option is to have no interpretation of your act, just doing what is suggested in # A-C below in silence or accompanied softly by the organ ("Oh Perfect Love," "O Master Let Me Walk With Thee," etc.), by a solo, a reading of scripture (ex. I Cor. 13), or another reading. You can more consciously include your parents by having them light the two outside candles before the processional. Add in a statement about them, if you wish. Option C is another way of symbolizing the need for Christ at the center of your marriage. Even with A-D, special music can be used during the actual lighting.
p.s. A Roman Catholic priest friend of mine once told me that he refused to include unity candles in his weddings because this liturgical device originated in TV soap opera rather than in the church. I don't know the truth of that, but I've also heard something similar about the time for objections ("let them speak now or forever hold their peace") we often associate with weddings, that this was a product of Hollywood imagination to add drama. -plh
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A. ________ and ________, the two outside candles burning here represent your lives at this moment. Each light is distinct, each able to go its separate way. ________ and ________ are two persons; unique, complex, individual human beings. And the same Father who gave each of you your individuality and uniqueness is now giving you to each other. The scriptural mystery shall be fulfilled. The two shall become one flesh. From now on, what each of you have been individually, you will become together. What will touch your lives as individuals will become a part of a new unity. As each of you take a candle, carry the flame to the center candle, and extinguish the small candle, thus let the center fire represent the new unity being celebrated in this service. As the one center light cannot be divided, neither can your lives. May the one in whose name you are joined, who worked in your lives as individuals, continue to walk with you in your life together.
B. The two outside candles have been lighted to represent both your lives in this moment. They are two distinct lights, each capable of going their separate ways. To bring bliss and happiness to your home, there must be the merging of these two lights into one light. This is what the Lord meant when He said, "On this account a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall be one flesh." From now on your thoughts shall be for each other rather than your individual selves. Your plans shall be mutual, your joys and sorrows shall be shared alike. As you each take a candle and together light the center one, you will extinguish your own candles, thus letting the center candle represent the union of your lives into one flesh. As this one light cannot be divided, neither shall your lives be divided but a united testimony in a Christian home. May the radiance of this one light be a testimony of your unity in the Lord Jesus Christ.
C. (There
are four candles upon the worship center. Only one is lit, the tallest one
standing behind a lower, but perhaps wider candle, two unlit candles are in
holders on either side.)
D. The candles which ________ and ________ now light represents the coming together of their two lives in a marriage relationship. Their two individual candles continue burning. In the same way, ________ and ________ will continue to be two unique individuals in the midst of their marriage. (This can just be printed in the bulletin with no words spoken during the candle lighting.)
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format ©2001 Peter
L. Haynes
actual worship items come from a variety of sources
please use!