Getting married right

by Editor · February 5, 2014

Millions of television viewers around the globe were witness to a rather unusual nuptial ceremony recently as 33 couples were wed during the Grammy music awards show.

Theological and sacramental considerations aside, it is proper that a Catholic wedding should take place in the building where the Catholic family life will likely be lived: in regular Mass attendance, baptisms, first communions and confirmations, even funerals. (CNS file photo/Jon L. Hendricks)

The �ceremony�, on a stage made to look like a church with stained glassed window, was presided over by rapper/actress Queen Latifah, while singer Madonna pronounced the couples married.

Self-evidently the event was a publicity stunt. Since there were same-sex couples among those who were wed, the obvious point of the exercise was to campaign for the legalisation of gay marriage.

As a political manoeuvre, it may well pay off by amplifying support for same-sex marriage in the United States.

Naturally, the Church will have taken a dim view of the stunt, especially in the light of her opposition to same-sex marriage.

Few Catholics, even if they differ with the Church on the question of same-sex marriage, would commend an event which, far from celebrating matrimony, made a mockery of it.

An awards show is not an appropriate setting for a wedding, nor should the act of getting wed provide the forum for making political points.

Matrimony is serious stuff. Although usually entered into in a radiant spirit of love and joy, a wedding ceremony is also a solemn occasion as two people make what should be a life-long commitment. There may be an audience of many witnessing the occasion, but as the couple exchange the marital vows, entering a covenant that is dissoluble, they are alone before God. It is an intimate act.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that �marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes�.

�These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures,� the Catechism says.

Jesus performed his first public miracle at a nuptial feast. The Church, as the Catechism notes, �attaches great importance to Jesus� presence at the wedding at Cana. She sees in it the confirmation of the goodness of marriage and the proclamation that thenceforth marriage will be an efficacious sign of Christ�s presence.�

The Grammy awards wedding ceremony did little to entrench the notion of marriage as sacred, and certainly gave no indication of Christ�s presence. Paradoxically, the setting trivialised the sanctity of matrimony while at the same time it advocated marriage as desirable (if not necessarily permanent).

The question of appropriate settings for weddings is one that vexes many pastors. It is becoming increasingly fashionable, even for Catholic couples, to locate the ceremony outside church buildings. Many priests receive requests to officiate at weddings on wine farms or at upmarket hotels.

Some priests are happy to oblige, others insist that the only proper place for a Catholic wedding is in the House of God.

The Catechism counsels that Catholic weddings should take place in churches, and in the context of a Mass, if both partners are Catholic.

It is fitting, it says, �that the spouses should seal their consent to give themselves to each other through the offering of their own lives by uniting it to the offering of Christ for his Church made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice, and by receiving the Eucharist so that, communicating in the same Body and the same Blood of Christ, they may form but �one body� in Christ�.

Much time and money � though sometimes too much � is expended on the wedding reception, and it is right that the event be marked with a joyful celebration. However, it is not the party that should be the focal point but the ceremony at which Christ is present.

It is this essential element of weddings which must be respected and preserved, regardless of prevailing fashions and the examples provided in the media.