Today (January 19, 2020), I will perform my first wedding!

Marriage is one of the 7 signs considered sacraments by Anglicans, along with baptism, the eucharist, confirmation, the anointing of the sick, holy orders, and the reconciliation of a penitent (sometimes known as confession and absolution). 

These 7 things are considered by the Church to be special signs of God’s love and grace for us – an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, as St. Augustine is often quoted saying.

Usually sacraments are associated with actions or materials, like water, or bread and wine, or oil, or the laying on of hands. However, for the sacrament of marriage (notice marriage, not wedding), it is associated with two people, and the relationship they share. 

Their shared lives become for all us who encounter them a sign of the shared life that we have with Christ; their commitment to each other, a sign of God’s commitment to us; their enduring love, a sign of God’s enduring love for us. 

Please join with me in praying for and celebrating the love that these two – Igor and Barbara – have for each other, and the life that they are committing to share together; may their love be blessed, and may we in turn, and all those who meet them, be blessed by it as well. 

Thanks be to God! 


CG+