Toledo Nuptial Rite: A Glimpse into Regional Variety

Last July in Spain, I had the great joy of meeting a priest from a Spanish family, albeit born in Chicago (and thus perfectly fluent in both English and Spanish), who now happily ministers in the traditional rite to faithful of the Asturian diocese of Oviedo.

I share with readers of NLM the comments and photos he shared with me some months ago.

“This afternoon I celebrated a beautiful TLM Wedding, according to the venerable Toledo usage contained in an appendix to the 1897 Rituale Romanum for dioceses in Spain. At the head of the appendix is a prayer that a priest is to say privately before administering any sacrament:

One finds an admonition in Castilian which describes the essence of the sacrament of Marriage. Great material therein for a homily or catechesis.

Particularly interesting from a linguistic perspective is the usage of medieval and renaissance Castilian – the “Vos” to refer to a singular person “you”, but not like the formal “usted”, it’s rather a more elevated form used to address royalty, even today for those well-mannered enough. As to the verb form for “Vos”, the plural you (“vosotros”) is used, that is, the verb form used commonly in Spain for informal plural you (not so much in Spanish America), but used in the context of “Vos,” referring to a singular “you” in a distinguished manner. Think of this as Thee, Thou. From a grammatical point of view, it sounds old, venerable, and thus beautiful. Tolkien no doubt knew of it since he liked the sound of Spanish!

What surprises me about the Rituale Romanum I used is that provisions were made to do the marriage consent in Spanish, using this elevated and very respectful “Vos” for singular “you.” Then, according to the specific usage, during the consent the equivalents of English Thee, Thou, Thy can be found. Sounds absolutely wonderful.

A Spanish custom is the blessing of the “arras” / “arrharum” before the blessing of the rings. These are the thirteen coins the husband drops in his wife’s hands—though the priest does give them their rings to put on each other’s fingers first. Another Spanish custom is, after the Pater noster, during the nuptial blessing, the wife covers her husband’s shoulders with her long white veil.”

Some photos of that last custom. The bride arranges the veil prior to the couple kneeling:

To this couple: Ad multos annos!

My comment: This is the kind of liturgical pluralism that is and can be so beneficial to a healthy Catholic traditionalism, as Fr. Michael Rennier well explains in a Substack post, “What does it mean to be liturgically traditional?”