LITURGY OF MARRIAGE CELEBRATION.

Like other sacramental rites, marriage now takes place within the Mass. Since it is a sign of the covenant between God and humanity and since the Eucharist is supremely the renewal of the covenant,the appropriateness of this arrangement is obvious. Besides it is very meaningful to integrate the mutual self-gift of the couple into the self-gift of Christ to the Church. A mixed marriage with the baptized person is normally celebrated outside Mass,although it could be celebrated during Mass with the permission of the local ordinary.


Marriage being a sacrament of the church it is celebrated in facie ecclesiae, that is , in the presence of the official minister of the Church. In the Latin Church, it is ordinarily understood that the spouses,as ministers of Christ's grace mutually confer upon each other the sacrament of matrimony by expressing their consent before the Church. Therefore the couples are the ministers of the sacrament of Matrimony in the Western Church. In the Eastern liturgies the minister of this sacrament is the priest or the Bishop who, after receiving the mutual consent of the spouses,successively crowns the bridegroom and the bride as a sign of the marriage covenant.

The presence of the official minister of the church is necessary for the validity of the marriage. We can distinguish four aspects of the reality of Christian marriage as it is presented in the Rite of marriage of the Roman Rite:

'