What is in Kelvin's Head?

Prayers on converting a Civil Partnership into a Marriage

15/11/2014

In a few weeks time, here in Scotland, it will be possible for those couples who have entered into a Civil Partnership to convert that into a marriage. It is clearly a significant moment though interestingly, legally they will be regarded as having been married from the time they entered into the Civil Partnership rather than the time of the conversion.

Some have had Civil Partnerships followed by a blessing (ie a ceremony which recognised them being married to one another) in church. Others may not have had anything in church but may want some way in which this moment in their life together might be marked and celebrated in church.

Most couples in this situation made much of their Civil Partnership and regarded the ceremonies surrounding that as their wedding. For that reason, they don’t seem to want to go through another wedding. However, those wanting to mark the fact that they are legally now regarded as married have no resources to do so in church.

So here are a few prayers that may fulfil that need and which might be used at the offertory of a Sunday Morning Eucharist.

Prayers for a couple converting a Civil Partnership into a Marriage.
The couple stand in front of the priest holding their marriage certificate.

Priest: N. and N.’s relationship is a great journey that,
in different ways,
we have travelled and will continue to travel with them.
Today we pause along the way
to gather at a decisive and important moment,
recognising that they have been married.

The couple lay their marriage certificate on the altar of the church.

Marriage cannot exist on its own.
God’s call to live faithfully together,
to love one another with respect, tenderness and delight,
is part of the call to love all people.
This love empowers them to care for others [and to nurture children].
By this love human dignity will flourish and deepen.

This is the life that N. and N. have begun,
and in which we will support and strengthen them.
We pray that God’s presence may surround and enfold them,
today and in the years to come.

God the Father,
God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit,
bless, preserve and keep you;
the Lord look upon you with favour and mercy
and so fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace,
that you may so live together in this life
that in the world to come you may have life everlasting.
Amen

The priest may sign and date the back of the marriage certificate in the presence of the people.

N. and N., having been joined together according to the law of the land
I now declare in the presence of God and before those gathered here
that you are married.

We meet in Christ’s name.
Let us share his peace.

convert Civil Partnership, LGBT, marriage, same-sex

7 responses to “The Archbishop, the gays and their sins”

fakepete

25/02/2015

Nicely put, he seems to feel entitled to freedom from criticism. It’s a censorious attitude that I thought the CoE put behind it when most of us learned to laugh at the Life of Brian and it is contradicted by the church’s own call to participation in democracy.

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Andrew

25/02/2015

The poor old Arch. He really is an old school establishment man who cant really understand where the deference has gone. The Green Report, the other Reports on the ‘future’ of the Church of England and the ‘Conversations’ all speak of a deeply controlling man who is deeply frustrated that there is no control to be had any more. When the split comes he will probably want to make what is left into a more confessional and defined group (the evangelicals have always wanted that) but I suspect the Church that will emerge will be more liberal than he likes even if it is outwardly more evangelical and enthusiast than the Church of England has been for a very long time

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1. fakepete
  
  27/02/2015
  
  @Andrew I’d switch that around. Justin Welby is someone who does not show deference to what has in Western society become The New Orthodoxy (definitions on a postcard please), this is why he provokes such puzzlement, and thus consternation and anger.
  
  Reply
2. Daniel Berry, NYC
  
  03/03/2015
  
  Andrew, I don’t see how that can be, really: he hasn’t the pedigree to be “an old school establishment man.” He’s a late vocation who had been a high-power figure in the corporate world–meaning he’s undoubtedly accustomed to having the last word.
  
  As to his attitudes toward gay people, I’m disgusted with him and the many others who accept the natural sciences’ contradiction of bible, but just can’t bring themselves to the same place with the behavioral and social sciences, and even with medicine itself–ignoring along the way that homosexuality is found in upward of 450 animal species besides our own. Otherwise they seem perfectly comfortable with dispensing with the savagery found in much of “holy scripture.”
  
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Dharma Nicodemus Cuthbert

26/02/2015

I love the line “who am I to judge them for their sins, if they have sins” makes us seem angelic compared to those who have children. Only one problem we, according to the bible commit sin just by being together. Does this mean that he is disagreeing with orthodoxy, and we are not sinning by being together.
God bless all and may his words of love bring more, troubled, souls to him.

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1. JCF
  
  28/02/2015
  
  “Only one problem we, according to the bible commit sin just by being together.”
  
  I *think* you meant “according to false translations/interpretations of the bible…” (or should have meant).
  
  “Being together”: can we call sex, “sex”? If not, why not? [And can we call marital sex (same- or opposite-sex) “marital sex”?]
  
  Reply
Daniel Berry, NYC

03/03/2015

best line for me:

You say that stuff and you are going to get people observing that there’s a lot more archbishops who claim that gay people are their friends than gay people who claim archbishops are their friends.

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