Like other Sacramental rites, marriage now takes place withen the Mass.Since it is a sign of the covenant between God and humanity and since 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 inti yhe self-gift of Christ to the Church. A mixed marriage with the baptized person is normally celebrated outside Mass, although it could celebrated during Mass with the permession 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 Chuch. 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 distinguise for aspects of the reality of Christian marriage as it is presented in the Rite of marriage of the Roman Rite :
a) Marriage is the celebration of the Church. The introductory rites put in evidence the fact that the relationship between the couple is, through the sacramental celebration, entering into the wider relationship of which the Church is constituted.. The parish community rejoices on this happy occasion because through the celebration of marriage the love relationship that exist in the community is going to be expressed by two individuals in terms of their self-gift. The introductory dialogue expresses the content of their mutual dedication and their commitment to fulfill the conditions of marriage: freedom indissolubility, fecundity and to take up their responsibility as spouses and parents.
b) Marriage is a covenantal act. The consent which they exchange after the liturgy od the Word is not a mere legal contract, but a covenantal act by which both of them enter into each other's gamut of relationships. It is an expression of their total and unconditional belonging to one another. The terms of this covenant is their human love purified of sefishness and sanctified in self-gift. Grounded in Christ's mystery this intimate community is made holy by the presence and action of the Holy Spirit. The word of God which they have listened to will be the interpreter of their lives henceforward and not their ideology of their likes or dislikes.
c) Marriage as an act of consecration. The nuptial blessing that is imparted to the newly wed after the doxology is an act of consecration. The covenant is ratified by God by the action of the Holy Spirit through the Ministry of the Church. The reality of marriage is fully inserted into the history of salvation. It recalls to mind the first blessing pronounced by God on Adam and Eve : all the other blessings that are pronounced on the couples in the course of time are a renewal of that blessing . Henceforward, the relationship between the newly wed people will be regulatedand actualized in the spirit of this ratification effected by the Holy Spirit.
d) Marriage as a fruitful union. This is the content of the final blessing given by the priest. The exchangeof consent made fruitful by the blessing has now to become a reality in their daily lives. This fruitfulnesshas the following expressions : they give life to new members in the Church, they themselves grow in selflessness and thus bear witness to redemptive union of Christ with the Church: they build up Christian families which are the domestic Church units which constitutes are the domestic Church in a locality. Thus the newly wed go into the world to live their alliance ratified before the altar. They become witnesses of the union of Christ with his Church.
The new rite of marriage translates into ritual the basic theological elements of the sacrament of matrimony. Through its celebration they recieve the grace to live their commitment throughout their life. Marriage becomes not so much their initiative as a response to the call which the Lord has made to them in his Church.
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