To n. 739. - Appendix XVI. Historical-Liturgical Matters Concerning the Sacrament of Matrimony

I. Concerning the rites. 1. Present discipline. Since by divine law matrimony-sacrament is effected by the consent alone of capable parties, but by ecclesiastical law only this is imposed upon Catholics for validity, that they signify consent before a competent priest and two witnesses, no rite is essential; and, outside Mass, laudable usages or ceremonies of individual dioceses can be preserved. Therefore two parts are to be distinguished in the rite of the celebration of matrimony: the ceremonies with which the expression of consent before the priest and witnesses is clothed, and these can and do vary; and the solemnization of matrimony by Mass and blessing. That solemnization is not strictly imposed but is commended, and is to be carried out according to the Roman liturgy.

The variable part from the Roman Ritual is this: the spouses are ordered to join their right hands. The priest, after he has received their mutual consent unto matrimony, adds: "I join you in matrimony, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and sprinkles the married couple with lustral water. Then he blesses the ring of the bride, which the bridegroom inserts upon the finger of the bride, while the priest says: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Finally several prayers are recited by the priest.

The Mass for bridegroom and bride recalls from Psalm 127 the happiness of the household where the fear of the Lord reigns. The Epistle recites the admonitions of St. Paul from the Epistle to the Ephesians, in which the union of Christ and the Church is proposed as the type of the love and affection of a spouse. The Gospel inculcates the indissolubility of matrimony. After the Pater Noster, the Mass is interrupted for the solemn blessing of the bride: it consists of two prayers, of which the second, the longer, is very beautiful. After Ite Missa est, the wishes of the Church over the spouses are expressed by the celebrant, and an argument of exhortation is suggested to him.

2. Origin of the ceremonies. Although, before the Council of Trent, the Church prescribed no form of consent to be observed for validity, nevertheless from the first times a special Mass was said, or certain rites, for example, the nuptial veil, had to be done at the end of the ordinary Mass. Already Tertullian (ad Uxorem, l. II, c. 9, P. L., I, 1302), in his magnificent description of Christian marriage, commemorates the intervention of the Church thus: "Whence shall we suffice to narrate the happiness of that matrimony which the Church conciliates, and the oblation confirms, and the blessing seals?" By Innocent I (402-417), in the epistle to Victricius, bishop of Rouen, c. 6 (P. L., XX, 476), there is mentioned "the blessing which is imposed through the priest over those marrying." The Leonine Sacramentary, which is assigned to the sixth century, contains formulas for the nuptial veiling (ed. Feltoe, pp. 140-142), of which the collect, secret, and postcommunion have been transferred to the Mass for bridegroom and bride.

From there also, with a few changes, the Ritual prayer Respice quaesumus is repeated. In the special Mass which the Gelasian Sacramentary proposes (with proper Preface and Communicantes), two prayers are had after the Pater Noster (as now) and a third before the Postcommunion. Nicholas I (858-867), in the Responsa ad consulta Bulgarorum, c. 3 (P. L., CXIX, 979, 980), first rather completely hands down "the custom which the holy Roman Church received in antiquity and holds hitherto..." The passage stands thus: "After the sponsals, which are the promised covenants of future nuptials, and which are celebrated by the consent of those who contract these things and of those in whose power they are, and after the bridegroom has betrothed the bride to himself by pledges through the finger of faith, marked by a ring from him, and has handed over to her before guests from both sides the dowry pleasing to each with a writing containing this pact, either soon or at a fitting time, lest namely such a thing be presumed to happen before the time defined by law, both are brought to the nuptial covenants. And first, indeed, in the church of the Lord they are stationed with the offerings which they ought to offer to God through the hand of the priest, and so finally they receive the blessing and the heavenly veil... Yet he who passes to second nuptials does not receive that veil. After this, however, having gone out from the church, they wear crowns on their heads, which are always accustomed to be reserved in the church itself... But we do not say that it is sin if all these things do not intervene in the nuptial covenant, just as you say that the Greeks assert... and on this account, according to the laws, the consent alone of those concerning whose unions the matter is being treated suffices."

We are taught by Duchesne (Origines, etc., p. 454) that this Ritual is the ancient Ritual of the Romans, to which the sacrifice of the New Law has been joined in place of the pagan sacrifice. In the prior part it contains the sponsals, that is, the manifestation of the consent of the spouses and parents; the handing over of the pledges, that is, of the ring made by the bridegroom to the bride; the written consignation of the dowry before witnesses of both parties. In the other part there is had the celebration of Mass before the married couple, the blessing or veiling, and the coronation at the departure from the church.

The veiling is omitted in the Roman Ritual, although it is most ancient and is already mentioned by Siricius (384-389), in the epistle to Himerius, c. 4 (P. L., XIII, 1136), and by St. Ambrose (epist. 19, 7, P. L., XVI, 984).

Formerly mutual consent and the handing over of pledges pertained to sponsals.

II. Concerning the closed time. By canon 52 of the Council of Laodicea (between 340 and 361), the celebration of matrimony in the time of Lent is forbidden (Harduin, Coll., I, 790). The prohibition is confirmed in the forty-eighth among the chapters of Martin, bishop of Braga (Harduin, III, 397). The Council of Benevento (1091), c. 4 (Harduin, VI, p. 2, col. 1696), decrees thus: "From the day of Septuagesima until the octaves of Pentecost (elsewhere, until the octave of St. Pascha), or from the day of the Lord's Advent until the octave of Epiphany, marriages are in no way to be contracted." By the Council of Trent, Session XXIV, De Ref. Matr., c. 10, only solemn celebration is prohibited from Advent until the day of Epiphany, and from Ash Wednesday until the octave of Easter, inclusive.

E. DE M., S.I.