At the end of Act 2, friar Laurence speaks to Romeo and Juliet, saying the following:
Come, come with me, and we will make short work;
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
Till holy church incorporate two in one.
The friar says this soon after Juliet's arrival at his cell. Romeo was already there. The purpose of their meeting is for the friar to marry them. He is impatient and wishes to hurry through the ceremony and get it over with. He mentions that it was the two lover's request that they will not be without each other and have thus requested him to join them in holy matrimony as soon as possible.
Although the wedding is held in secret, the friar does not find his task unpleasant even though there is some risk in his doing so. The two lovers are from two families, the Montagues and Capulets, who have been involved in an age-old feud, its origin unknown. Friar Laurence believes that the unbridled passion that the two young lovers share and their consequent marriage, will finally bring an end to a battle which has brought so much misery and turmoil to both families. He stated as much when Romeo asked him to perform the ceremony:
...But come, young waverer, come, go with me,
In one respect I'll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households' rancour to pure love.
The friar believes that the sooner the ceremony is performed, the sooner the two families will resolve their differences and realise the folly of their actions. He is concerned about the greater damage that a continued strife will cause, not only to the families themselves, but to all those who are drawn into it. His actions are therefore directed towards a greater good. This idealistic notion supersedes his concern that the lovers' decision is too impulsive.
It is this idealism of the friar which eventually results in the most unfortunate of outcomes. He had not considered the unpredictability of life, especially in such complicated circumstances, and his good intentions lead to the deaths of not only the two lovers, but also that of the county Paris. He does acknowledge responsibility for his actions, though, and is prepared to suffer even the most extreme of sanctions, as he states in the final scene:
...if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.
In the end, though, the friar's wish for peace between the two families is realised. Ironically, the warring households eventually come to terms and make peace not as a result of their only children being wed, but because of their death.
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