The institution of marriage has been so desecrated that lately, it has been so difficult for me to truly see and believe the purity and beauty that lies within it. The selfless and total gift of self to the other in marriage, has become somewhat of a taboo, impractical and delusional. As I watched the royal wedding, I was intrigued by the number of people who tuned in to watch the wedding. What is it about royal weddings that attract us, so much so that we would leave early from work, skip daily mass, talk our friends and family into rescheduling any plans that we may have had, just so that we can sit through and watch the wedding?
For your information, I didn’t do any of the above actually. I came back home as I normally would, took a short nap (although the royal wedding preparation was being screened on the tv), then got ready to attend the daily mass, walked down to the common hall of my hostel to find so many of my fellow residents gathered and following the wedding rather faithfully. I managed to catch a glimpse of Kate in her wedding dress, just before she got into the car to leave to Westminster Abbey Church before I left to attend mass in church. And I absolutely loved that dress. It was completely ethereal to me. I was telling Kathlin how it was exactly what I had in mind for my wedding (Not exaggerating!!!!). It is almost identical to what I had in mind for mine. I loved the laced sleeves, I loved the V-neckline, I loved the collar. It was beautiful. Then I went for mass, and then dinner, and then came back just in time to catch the royal kiss by the balcony. What are the odds? God blesses abundantly. He had no reason to but He still did.
So, yeah. Why share all this? Well, I came to realise that I had a subtle sense of contempt for the wedding. Sad but true. Perhaps it was because I was beginning to lose hope that love that is true and pure and God-centred existed and watching the royal wedding only made me feel like that this picture of perfection and fairy tale is but a lie and delusion. As I sat through mass, shared with God my doubts on this institution called marriage, my hopelessness was transformed into hopefulness, despair into trust.
I believe that the reason the royal wedding draws such a crowd of an audience is because of the so-called fairy tale-like nature of the wedding, the perfection that is portrayed, and the purity of the relationship and the magnanimous nature of the union.
And the reasons these elements draw our attention is because there is a strong desire hidden in the depths of our hearts to experience such a love and relationship in our lives too. We too desire for love that is grand, life-giving and life-transforming, love that is pure and unifying. We desire a love that is beautiful in such a grand scale; hence our fascination with royal weddings. Our fascination with the royal weddings reveals our desire for love that is more divine than utilitarian, love that is more fruitful than just pornographic, love that is more purified than just a result of a combination of human weaknesses.
The only problem is, although we know what we desire, we are not interested in pursuing such a thing in our lives, because we have been made to believe that such a love either doesn’t exist or is up to luck, or because it requires a lot of great efforts and making difficult choices, which we are not prepared to make. We desire but we are unwilling to give so much of ourselves, and work and effort to obtain it. Perhaps, sloth (i.e a sadness that arises from the fact that the good is difficult to obtain; and so we settle not to pursue it) is the evil that has robbed us of the fulfilment of the many desires that we feel in our hearts.
(Additional note: *In order to attain a higher value one must exert a greater effort of the will. So in order to spare ourselves the effort, to excuse our failure to obtain this value, we minimize its significance, deny it the respect it deserves. From Love and Responsibility by John Paul II)
But at the end of it all, despite the hopelessness I felt as I came to realize how unwilling we are to give what it takes to reap love in its fullest form, I was subsequently filled with the joy and hope of the promise of Christ, that because it is He who leads my life, then things will blessed against the norm, that He will bring good out of everything that can and may happen (even the not-so-good things) and eventually answer my prayers, and fulfill the desires in my heart, the desires which He placed in me.
And so I will wait, knowing that His promise will be accomplished because He desires for each of us a life lived in union with another (either in marriage or religious life) as He lives in union with Father and the Spirit.
