Enrollment Ceremony
This ceremony may be celebrated for those wishing to enter the Holy Spouses Society. It may begin after the homily during the Mass of the Holy Spouses, or after the Prayer after Communion of the Wedding Mass, or during a Word service after appropriate Scripture readings. The Celebrant then extends the following invitation:
Will those couples wishing to become members of the Holy Spouses Society please come forward.
Dear couples, God has called you to live a life of love and fidelity with each other as a sign of his love and fidelity for his Church. This is the vocation to the married life. This vocation is very dear and important to the Church and we thank you for your commitment to it. Realizing that our society does not always appreciate the beauty and integrity of this vocation of marriage, God has given you Mary and Joseph as examples and intercessors to help you in living your marriage joyfully and in overcoming difficulties that may arise in the midst of such a society.
Therefore, we, the Oblates of St. Joseph, invite you to take Mary and Joseph, the Holy Spouses, as your models and guides in your married life by becoming members of the Holy Spouses Society. The commitment you make in becoming members of this society will ensure that you will live your marriage according to the teachings of Jesus and his Church and that you will receive the assistance of the Mother of God and the Guardian of the Redeemer, who themselves lived most perfectly the vocation to marriage.
The celebrant then asks a series of questions based on the eight points of the commitment for membership in the Holy Spouses Society and the couple responds.
Do you commit yourselves to celebrate the feast of the Holy Spouses each year by attending Mass together as a couple, to pray some part of the Holy Spouses rosary together on a weekly basis, and to have a picture of the Holy Spouses enthroned in your home?
We do.
Do you commit yourselves to live your marriage as a call from God, to respect children as the greatest fruit of marriage and to uphold the Church’s teaching on the two inseparable ends of marriage, union in love and openness to procreation?
We do.
Do you commit yourselves to attend together a “Life-Giving Love” workshop and to avoid the use of artificial contraceptives?
We do.
May God bless you and sustain you in this commitment so that you may be his witnesses in the world of his love and fidelity. May Mary and Joseph, the Holy Spouses, guide and protect you always in your marriage.
Amen.
The new members of the Holy Spouses Society are then asked to come forward and sign the Holy Spouses Membership book, or certificate, or receive the Holy Spouses picture to be enthroned at a later date. If enrollment takes place after the homily at Mass, the general intercessions follow. If it takes place at the end of a wedding, the couple may present a bouquet of flowers before an image of the Holy Spouses.