Should Communion Sometimes Be Eliminated to Avoid Sacrilege?

In a post at his Substack entitled “Nobody is talking about this in the Catholic world,” Patrick Giroux has the courage and good sense to raise the issue of the indiscriminate reception of the Lord at weddings and funerals where many attendees are not Catholics, or, if Catholics, not practicing, not in accord with Church teaching, or not in a state of grace (or all of the above)—all of whom go up and receive anyway, with priests, deacons, and lay “ministers” handing out the Body of Christ as if it meant, and was, nothing more than a potato chip (we can’t even say it’s a sign, because if it were a sign, it would be a sign of membership in the Church, and, by definition, the foregoing categories are not actually members). Giroux suggests a fairly radical solution: do not distribute Communion at weddings and funerals.

It is hard not to sympathize with this suggestion. It is wrong for anyone who is not properly disposed for receiving the Lord to receive Him: objectively sinful and displeasing to God, wreaking havoc on souls and on the Church. Giroux implies that the current sick and dying condition of the Church is in part caused by an epidemic of sinful communions. This, after all, is the view of the Apostle: “For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor 11:29).

I posted this article on social media with the following caveat:

The “solution” proposed here—to discontinue Communion at weddings and funerals—is too radical. However, his “second best” idea is perfectly right: a clear announcement should be made from the pulpit about who should and who should not receive. This is not only owed in justice to Our Lord but is also an act of charity to the attendees. I have found that something like this is done universally at TLM locations.

A long-time friend of mine, seeing the article I shared, was obviously not in sympathy with the author’s suggestion, writing to me as follows.

Dear Peter,
       I hope you’re doing well. I want to ask you to consider writing an article about the problem with suggesting that the answer to sacrilegious communions is to straight across reduce the number of communions. The “solution” in Giroux article you shared just after Christmas was profoundly disturbing, and the comments perhaps more so. I saw you agreed it was too radical, and had hoped you might post more fully about this. The idea that we should categorically reduce Communions by forbidding them at, e.g., weddings and funerals so as to counteract the grave problem of sacrilegious Communions misses the whole problem. Sacrilegious communions are a spiritual problem. The most effective weapon against them is good Communions. We go from the altar “like lions breathing forth fire.” Christ was willing to risk having a whole twelfth of His first congregation make a sacrilegious Communion in order to give the gift of that first Communion of the Apostles to them, and to the Church forever.
       There is a whiff of sulfur (unintentional, I’m sure, but nonetheless there) in the suggestion that we should be so focused on sacrilegious Communions that we be willing to give up good Communions. I certainly understand people being concerned and grieved over bad Communions. Still, aside from other considerations, it’s myopic to think that all weddings or funerals lack the needed announcements about fitting reception. But besides acknowledging that fact, it’s more important for people to realize that to categorically reduce the Mystical Body of Christ’s access to the Eucharistic Body of Christ directly vitiates our power to fight the darkness. It’s very Jansenistic; and Jansenism is finally not only a prideful reliance on one’s own powers, but a total lack of appreciation of God’s power. It’s Jansenistic to think that God is so weak in the Eucharist that we need habitually to take Communion away from good communicants in a desperate attempt to stop bad communicants.
       When Our Lord instituted the Eucharist, He foresaw untold numbers of sacrilegious Communions. Yet He still said, “Take and eat” to us. For sure, He didn’t say, “Take and eat, and don’t bother telling anyone that they should be believing Catholics in a state of grace.” But He also didn’t say, “Don’t take and eat, because someone might choose wrongly and receive me sacrilegiously.” If that was His greatest concern, He wouldn’t have bothered instituting the Sacrament. Setting up excessive barriers between the faithful and Christ in the Eucharist is a Jansenistic attempt at hyper-control. In both cases, the effect is alienation from the desperately needed good God is offering us. I’d note, too, that removing Communion from weddings would habitually deprive all married couples of the huge graces which come from the good Communions made at their wedding. I remember at our wedding, as I marveled a bit over how long Communion went on, thinking that one of the great things about having many good guests at one’s wedding was having so many good Communions made at this pivotal time.

My response:

Dear Friend,

I haven’t written further about this but I have written in defense of frequent communion in a number of articles, against neo-Jansenists. I’m not at all friendly to Jansenism, as my articles on dancing indicated.

Generally, I would agree with you about not discouraging reception of communion for those who are well-disposed. Giroux did not say Catholics should be habitually denied opportunity for Communion, and I am not sure many people hold that view. Rather, he said on occasions when there will be a lot of non-Catholics or non-practicing Catholics, and this can be known relatively easily ahead of time.

What I think you are not taking into account is that most weddings and funerals are, sadly, not like the ones where Thomas Aquinas College or Christendom College or Wyoming Catholic College alumni get married and their devout friends and families come, most of them in a state of grace (indeed, probably having been to Confession in the recent past). Rather, according to priests I know, these are the occasions when the highest number of fallen-away Catholics, Catholics living in states of sin, and clueless unbelievers attend. Moreover, it is in fact not at all common for clear announcements to be made; once again, this tends to be done at more conservative or traditional events, where, ironically, the announcement is less needed. Giroux’s proposal was not to abolish communion tout court so that no sacrilegious communions are ever made, but rather, to consider doing so for weddings and funerals of that sort.

The weakness in his article is that he does not make any distinction between different kinds of congregations and the discernment a priest would have to make. He also errs in depriving (at least by implication) the wedding couple itself of Communion. Instead, they should be shriven shortly before the wedding, and then receive the Holy Eucharist. The Eucharist, after all, is, like Christian marriage itself, sign of the nuptial union between Christ and His Church, and effects that union in us, so it would be perfectly absurd not to have the couple receive.

More generally, I would say that your comments may reveal an insufficient appreciation of the gravity of sacrilegious communions, as we find this highlighted in saints from St. John Chrysostom to St. John Vianney. Our Lord does tolerate this evil, as He does many another evil, from the Holocaust to the dire plague of abortion; but as John Paul II and Benedict XVI acknowledged, the indiscriminate reception of the Lord without due preparation and even in a state of sin—which is, as you know, an additional sin for the one receiving, at least objectively speaking, something displeasing to God and worthy of damnation—is practically an epidemic at this point.

We need, in fact, to reinstall some “barriers,” both physical and moral, to make sure that people do not stupidly eat and drink their own condemnation. We need communion rails to be put up again, and even rood screens; we need to abolish Communion in the hand and standing, replacing it with Communion kneeling and on the tongue, assisted by a server with a paten; we need to abolish “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion” altogether; and have Confessions going on during Masses whenever possible. (On these matters, see my book Holy Bread of Eternal Life.)

I appreciate your concerns, but I wanted to push back just a bit in defense of Giroux, while also agreeing that orthodoxy and Jansenism have to be separated (they seem to share a razor-sharp border).

Yours in Christ,

Peter

Care-Cloths: The Mystagogical Value of Traditional Wedding Customs, Part II

Last week, we looked at the use of coins in traditional Catholic weddings. Now, we look at an ancient veiling ceremony and some of its later usages.

Contributors to the New Liturgical Movement have already enriched our understanding of what is variously known as the carecloth, cerecloth, velatio nuptialis, pallium nuptiale, etc. (see here, here, here, and here). The following reflections and overview are offered as a supplement to these contributions--and possibly a clarification about its origins.

A French medaille de mariage, nineteenth century, depicting the carecloth during the Solemn Nuptial Blessing. 

A History of the Care-Cloth

A reader who sees the above illustration might be tempted to conclude that the custom being depicted was inspired by the Jewish wedding canopy or chuppah. The Christian care-cloth or wedding veil, however, is derived from or at least partially inspired by the marriage customs of ancient Rome. A flammeum (so-called because of its fiery red color) was a veil worn by a Roman bride during the torchlit procession from her father’s home to her husband’s known as the deductio; it was this veil and this procession that marked her transition from betrothal to wedlock. The flammeum is mentioned several times in Latin literature and even became proverbial: Juvenal uses the phrase “she wears out veils” (flammea conterit) for a woman who changes husbands repeatedly. Moreover, the taking of the flammeum is responsible for one of our English words for wedding. The verb nubo/nubere, from which comes the adjective “nuptial,” originally meant to cover or veil oneself as a bride in order to wed; only later was its meaning broadened to signify the bridegroom’s marrying as well. Curiously, then, a couple’s “nuptials,” their “crowning,” or their chuppah—words for a wedding in the Western Church, the Eastern Churches, and the Jewish synagogue, respectively—are all derived from ceremonies not of the hands or the ring but the head.

Tertullian (160-225) rejected a Roman custom of wedding crowns as idolatrous, but he accepted the veil on the grounds that it accorded with the Pauline teaching on women in church and with the exemplary modesty Rebecca showed in veiling herself before Isaac; he subsequently writes of a lex velaminis and a disciplina velaminis for betrothed and married women lasting even after the ceremony. Tertullian uses the word flammeum only once, when contrasting a wedding done properly, which involves torch and flammeum, with what he suspects is the fiery nuptial eschatology of the Valentinian heretics. It is possible that Tertullian is merely invoking well-known wedding props that, because of their use of or association with fire, can be neatly juxtaposed with the Valentinians’ incendiary version of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. As David G. Hunter notes, “it was a common rhetorical pattern in Tertullian’s thought to contrast pagans and Christians by re-describing the Christian in pagan terms” without implying that Christians actually engaged in those practices. Nevertheless, Hunter concludes that the evidence in Tertullian’s writings points to Christians in North Africa celebrating “their betrothals and nuptials with the same rituals as… non-Christians.”

An unadulterated use of pagan customs by the Church would not last long, but the exact metamorphosis is difficult to reconstruct. By the end of the third century the word flammeum had been dropped from the Christian lexicon (if it had ever really been picked up in earnest at all), but Church Fathers continued to praise the veiling of a betrothed woman or of a bride; indeed, the nuptial custom of “taking the veil” also came to designate the religious life of consecrated virginity. Moreover, the ceremonial act of veiling occurred along with a blessing from a priest or bishop, not only conferring grace but sealing, from the Church’s perspective, the promises of betrothal or wedlock. In A.D. 385, Pope Siricius answered a question about conjugal veiling (conjugalis velatio) posed by Himerius, the Archbishop of Tarragona, as to whether someone can take to wife a girl (puella) who has been betrothed to another. Siricius replies in the negative on account of illa benedictio quam nupturae sacerdos imponit, “that blessing which the priest placed on the fiancée,” thereby implying a link between the veiling and the priest’s blessing. At the very least, both correspondents knew of Christian betrothal (which in some places was almost as binding as matrimony) as a velatio.

The same year that Pope Siricius was writing to Himerius, St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397) was writing to St. Vigilius of Trent and asserting that it “behooves [the priest] to sanctify the marriage with a priestly veil (velamen sacerdotalis) and blessing.” Ambrose’s diction suggests that both the bride and the groom were veiled, since it is the marriage and not the bride being blessed. In another writing Ambrose describes the indissolubility of the marital bond regardless of whether the husband is present or away; his description is of interest because it may also echo the Christian wedding of his time:

The same law connects those who are together and those who are apart; the same bond (vinculum) of nature has bound tight the rights of conjugal charity between the absent as well as the present; by the same yoke (jugum) of blessing are both necks joined together, even if one should go out a long way away to distant regions; for they have received the yoke (jugum) of grace not by the neck of the body but by that of the soul.

It is possible that Ambrose is not merely speaking metaphorically about the yoke of marriage but alluding to a wedding veil that acted as a yoke and bound the couple at the neck (i.e., was placed over their shoulders). This veil, in turn, would be associated with the grace their souls received at their nuptials, mostly likely from the priestly blessing that he mentions to Vigilius. Lastly, there may be an additional ceremonial element with the vinculum that is related to the marital act and to the conjugal rights of the spouses.

What remains ambiguous in Ambrose becomes clearer in St. Paulinus of Nola (354-431). Around A.D. 400, Paulinus describes the wedding of two people from prominent clerical families:

He [Bishop Aemilius], joining the heads of them both under a nuptial peace,

Veils them with his right hand, sanctifying them with prayer.

Whereas Ambrose speaks of a jugum on the necks of the bride and groom, Paulinus speaks of a pax jugalis over or on their heads that is presumably identical to the veil associated with the bishop’s sanctifying prayer or blessing. Pope Pelagius I (556-61) employs similar language when discussing the case of a woman who was veiled with a man (cum alio velata) during their betrothal and who died before their wedding.

To what degree the Christian velatio nuptialis—as the early sixth-century Leonine Sacramentary calls it—emerged from the Roman flammeum is a matter of dispute. Kenneth Stevenson, following Anné, writes that the “Roman blessing of the bride, duly veiled, is a superb example of the Christianizing of a pagan custom, the old flammeum.” But Philip Reynolds contends that the Christian “veil, which the priest applied with his blessing, was distinct from the” flammeum. The Church Fathers would probably have been content to let it remain a moot point. Before describing the veiling of the couple by the bishop, Paulinus of Nola declares in the same poem that he wants no “profane pomp” or “alien smells” from heathen sources to spoil this Christian wedding. Clearly, he saw the velatio as either purely Christian in origin or at least thoroughly purged of any objectionable pagan residue, and for him it probably did not matter which.

St. Isidore of Seville’s witness to the Spanish liturgy of the sixth century also provides data that can be interpreted in a number of different ways. He mentions two nuptial objects: 1) a veil called a mavors in the vulgar tongue (an old Latin name for the god Mars) that is worn by the bride as a sign of her subjection to her husband in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 11, and 2) a vitta, the Latin word for a fillet or headband such as those worn by the Vestal Virgins as symbols of their chastity but used here as something by which the priest, after the blessing, joins (copulare) the couple in a single bond (unum vinculum). Isidore adds that the vitta is a mixture of white and the color purpura: the white signifies the periodic continence that Paul allows for married couples (I Cor. 7:5) and the purpura the times when the couple may render to each the conjugal debt for the sake of offspring or “the posterity of blood” (sanguinis posteritas). (Given Isidore’s pairing of the family bloodline with purpura, the color in question was probably more of a deep scarlet than purple or violet.)

As for the vitta, Reynolds thinks of it as a second veil, but Stevenson refers to it as a garland. Oddly, both may be right since, as we will see later, in early modern Spain there was a veil that went over the couple as well as a long cord or jugale. Whatever it was, Isidore’s vitta was a vinculum that bears significant similarities in meaning to the vinculum naturae characterized by Ambrose in terms of conjugal rights. Lastly, it is my conjecture that the mavors worn by the Spanish bride was the flammeum or a direct descendant of it, named by the common folk after the god of war because its color reminded them of Mars, whose bright color was that of freshly spilled blood. If my interpretation is correct, then the use of the mavors would indeed be an instance of a Christian use of the flammeum, since Isidore assigns to it a Pauline meaning. On the other hand, Reynolds would be correct in distinguishing the Christian velatio of both bride and groom from the flammeum, since the mavors pertains only to the bride and is distinct from the mysterious vitta—although it does not rule out the likelihood that the velatio was in some way inspired by the flammeum. In any event, there may be several correct answers to these questions since Christian adaptations of Roman customs (or their wholesale replacements) did not always occur uniformly throughout the different regions of Christendom.

The veiling of the shoulders of the bride and groom, however, invites further inquiry and reflection. If the Christian care-cloth was not an adaptation of the flammeum, why did it develop? And if it was, why “veil” the bridegroom? Ambrose, Paulinus, and Isidore speak of a yoke-like quality to the veil and its blessing, which could easily hearken to the yoke of Christ (Mt. 11:30) and, more specifically, to the couple’s new shared labors and responsibilities as husband and wife. These shared responsibilities, moreover, include prescriptions on Christian chastity, prescriptions that are equally binding on both. The Latin Fathers departed sharply from their pagan counterparts in their rejection of a double standard. Roman law only recognized the adultery of a married woman as a crime and as grounds for divorce; men were only culpable if they slept with another man’s wife or were conspicuously indiscreet with their extramarital affairs. The Church, on the other hand, expected husbands and wives to be equally faithful to their marital vows. One possible reason for binding both the man and the woman under the yoke of the wedding veil, then, may have been as an instruction in total monogamy and fidelity. That the vinculum in Ambrose and the vitta in Isidore are understood as pertaining to sexual matters would support this reading.

The first extant liturgical manuals from the seventh and eighth centuries as well as Pope Nicholas I’s letter to the Bulgarians place the velatio in the nuptial Mass rather than at a betrothal, and it is relatively safe to assume that the ceremony almost always included both the bride and the groom, as Nicholas’ letter explicitly attests. By the twelfth and thirteen centuries the wedding veil was known by a variety of names, such as velamen caeleste, velum, pallium album, linteus, pannum, and mappa. In French, it was called the voile sur les époux or the poêle nuptiale. In English, it was a “care-cloth,” a term that may be derived either from the French carré for square or from the old English “carde,” a fabric used in making canopies, curtains, and linings.

As this diversity of nomenclature would suggest, the custom of the wedding veil was widespread throughout Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. The veil was used during the solemn nuptial blessing which, fittingly, includes the line sit in ea jugum dilectionis et pacis—“may [her wedlock] be for her a yoke of love and peace.” The blessing was typically given either before the Pax or after the Pater Noster of the nuptial Mass (it was assigned the latter place in the 1570 Missale Romanum). No official reason was given for either position, but we may speculate that bestowing the blessing in the wake of the Consecration, with the risen Christ now present on the altar, was considered an especially auspicious time to call down an abundance of grace on the new marriage. Piously looking upon Christ’s Body and the Precious Cup at the elevations, the reception of the Pax, and the reception of Holy Communion were all considered significant moments of grace and blessing; it was a tribute to the dignity of matrimony and to the power of the solemn nuptial blessing that the latter would be inserted into this array. And the solemn nuptial blessing was most likely given after the Our Father because it was the first place after the Consecration that the blessing could be added without disrupting the integrity of the sacrificial action that began with the Preface. Unlike the Eastern rites, the Our Father in the Roman liturgy does not appear to have been viewed as the introduction to the Communion rite but as the epilogue to the Canon, just as the Preface was its prologue. The “book-end” function of the Preface and the Pater Noster may also be gleaned from their similar execution: the celebrant intoned both the Preface and the Pater Noster alone and was followed by the choir or congregation with a response, be it the Sanctus or Sed libera nos a malo.

The wedding veil, which was usually white in color and made of silk or linen, continued to be placed on the shoulders of the couple (or the head and shoulders of the bride and the shoulders of the groom) in Spain, central France, and other parts of Europe. In northern France and England, however, it came to be held over their heads by two or four canopy-bearers, either clerics or witnesses or sometimes children. Additional significance was attached to this variation of the custom. Because the veiling partially obscured or hid the couple, it signified that they should be discreet and modest, careful to avoid untoward public displays of affection and cognizant of the “importance of secrecy in family affairs.” But the care-cloth also betokened the marriage bed and its sheet, and thus it tied into the solemn nuptial blessing’s prayer for a marriage fruitful in offspring as well as the Patristic associations of the veil with the virtuous regulation of the marital act. Finally, according to medieval canon law, there was an additional benefit to the suspended care-cloth that links it to the marriage bed: placing any children born out of wedlock under it during the solemn nuptial blessing automatically legitimated them. Indeed, some dioceses in the seventeenth century added a special prayer imploring God for pardon and for the legitimation of the child. 

Beginning in the same century, however, the care-cloth went into gradual decline. The 1584 Rituale Romanum of Gregory XIII had mentioned it, but it was not included in the 1614 Rituale of Paul V. “Indeed,” writes J. Wickham Legg, “so forgotten was the custom in Italy that when in 1789, at the marriage of a prince of the house of Savoy, the practice was restored, it was denounced as an innovation, and a pamphlet had to be written in proof of its antiquity”— M. Gianolio’s De antiquo ecclesiae ritu expandendi velum super sponsos in benedictione nuptiarum. In England the custom had fallen into oblivion by the mid-nineteenth century and had to be explained to English readers, although there is a report of an Anglican wedding in the late nineteenth century involving a blue silk veil held over the heads of the bride and groom. On the Continent, the custom fared in France into the late nineteenth century and was included in most diocesan manuals, despite a reproving decree from the Congregation of Rites in 1850. (In the diocese of Bourges, it survived into the twentieth century. ) The custom also appears to have been practiced in Spain well into the twentieth century, though not universally and not without adaptation. A liturgical manual in Salamanca in 1532 instructs the priest to cover the man’s shoulder and the woman’s head with a linen cloth and to place over the cloth a girdle or cord called a cingulum benedictum. A similar custom is mentioned in southern France around the same time, where the cord is called a jugale or jugalis.

Mexican lasso rosary

As with the coin ceremony, the wedding veil thrives mostly in Spain’s former colonies, where it is still practiced in areas of Central and South America. In Mexico, the veil is less common while the cord has become a lasso or lazo rosary, a large set of double-looped rosary beads placed on the couple by a pair of elder sponsors or padrinos. The lazo is then kept by the couple as a keepsake of their wedding, sometimes displayed in the home by itself on the wall or next to an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  n In Cuba, there is a wedding shawl called a manteleta.

Filipino veiling

And once again, it is the Philippines that has best preserved the ancient nuptial rituals mentioned by the Church Fathers. The Filipino velo is made of white tulle (no doubt a prudent adaptation to the islands’ steamy climate) and is placed onto the groom’s shoulders and the bride’s head and shoulders by two specially designated sponsors, a ninong and ninang. It is said that the veil represents the bride and groom or their families becoming one, as well as hope for the couple’s health and protection. After the veil is pinned in place, another pair of sponsors places the cord, or yugal, in the shape of a figure eight over the heads of the couple to symbolize the infinite bond of married love. The yugal is usually a white silk rope, although it can also be made of flowers, links of coins, and even diamonds.

A Theology of the Care-Cloth

The wedding veil or care-cloth mystagogically invites the couple to make sense of their own story in light of the biblical narrative and to model their behavior on biblical protagonists. The scriptural image of a yoke is rich and polyvalent, providing much fodder for pious rumination, as does the story of the veiling of Rebecca. Further, the care-cloth symbolizes aspects of married life that are as relevant to a new couple today as they were in the Patristic and medieval eras, aspects such as: a single standard for both sexes regarding the vows of fidelity and chastity; the Pauline parameters for periods of sexual abstinence; the purity of Christian marital love and the sanctity of the marriage bed; the yoking of two souls who will now labor in the Lord’s field together as one; the hope for protection; the need for discretion, modesty, and appropriate public displays of affection; and the goodness of (legitimate!) offspring and of the continuation of the family name or bloodline. The veiling ceremony as it has come to be practiced also serves to highlight the Roman rite’s solemn nuptial blessing, drawing the couple and congregation’s attention to it in much the same way that a baldachin guides the eye to the altar. Such an emphasis, which underlines the importance of having one’s marriage not only ratified or recognized but blessed by the Church, further conditions the faithful to take this blessing and its content seriously.

An earlier version of this article appeared as part of article entitled, “Coins and Care-Cloths: The Mystagogical Value of Traditional Wedding Customs,” Antiphon 18:2 (Summer 2014), pp. 115–143. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its publication here.

Coins: The Mystagogical Value of Traditional Wedding Customs, Part I

Las arras matrimoniales

Traditional wedding customs have a mystagogical value, teaching and initiating bride and groom into different aspects of the mysterion mega that is Christian matrimony. (Eph. 5, 32) Aside from the wedding ring and the nuptial blessing, both the 1962 and 1970 liturgical books are relatively silent about specific wedding ceremonies, in large part because both make generous allowance for local “praiseworthy customs” that vary according to time and place. In this article, we explore the theological meanings of one such praiseworthy custom that is prominent in the annals of Western liturgical nuptials but less known today: wedding coins.

Historical Overview

The long history of coins in Christian weddings is a testimony to the lingering power of economic considerations in contracting marriage, as well as the importance of local codes of honor. At least in some historical contexts, money was transferred from one party to another not simply for the sake of economic gain or financial security, but as an affirmation of the dignity and self-respect of one’s own family or clan as well as that of the other. Consequently, betrothal and nuptial dotation often involved elaborate gifts and counter-gifts from both families rather than a unilateral “payment” or donation. In the same vein, dotation could be an acknowledgement of the bride’s dignity rather than—as terms like “bride-purchase” and “bride-price” might imply—a reflection of her status as chattel. Among the Franks, for example, dotation was one of the two sine quibus non that distinguished a wife from a concubine.

Money or its equivalent (e.g., jewelry) was especially important for matrimony in Germanic lands, for while Roman law considered the couple’s consent essential for making a marriage, Germanic law laid stress on the betrothal and the dotation. The money in question could be for the husband’s parents, the husband, the wife’s parents, the wife, the wife’s future sons, or a combination thereof. Further complicating matters is that dotation could appear in either a betrothal or in a wedding, each with its own meaning. At a betrothal, coins from a groom could serve as earnest money or a pledge (arrha) to fulfill his promise to marry; should he renege, he would most likely have to forfeit his gift. Coins given after the exchange of marital vows, on the other hand, could either be a down payment or the full sum of what the husband owed his new wife or her parents—or what the bride’s family owed the husband’s. Both practices, which were known as a subarrhatio, were inherited by the Church as she converted the peoples of Europe. It would be left to medieval canonists to sort out the differences between the subarrhatio of a betrothal and of a wedding just as they would be forced to distinguish between the vows of betrothal and those of matrimony.

The most common dotation substitute for coins, both among the Romans and the Germanic tribes, was a ring: for the Visigoths, it could even substitute for a written contract. In the ninth century, Pope Nicholas would use the term arrha in reference to the “ring of faith” (fidei annulum) rather than to the dos (dower or dowry) that he mentions separately; and the subarrhatio often appears in ecclesiastical texts as the subarrhatio cum anulo (sic) or subarrhatio annuli. Nevertheless, the early Christian tendency—as evidenced in St. Isidore et al.—to see the ring as a symbol of the union of two hearts and of the spouses’ mutual fidelity lent to the ring a symbolic significance that went beyond the pecuniary. [1]

It is therefore not surprising to find the ring and coins emerging as two distinct nuptial objects in some of the first fully integrated marriage rituals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. That said, rings and coins continued to be interchangeable items for centuries thereafter. In some parts of Europe, a couple would break a coin in half and each would keep a piece when they could not afford a ring.

It was customary for the groom to give his bride thirteen coins, thirteen being an auspicious number because it was the number of Christ and His apostles. Deniers (the rough equivalent of a U.S. dime) were the standard coins to use in pre-Revolutionary France, although beginning in the fourteenth century special commemorative medals, which were stamped with loving inscriptions and symbols of love (such as two hands joined), increasingly gained popularity. A single medaille de mariage could also be used. The custom of commemorative coins survives today, among other places, in the minting of special coins on the occasion of a royal wedding.

Coin commemorating the wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria (“Sissi”) 1854

In those locales where rings and coins were differentiated, each object assumed its own symbolic importance. The ring, as we have seen, was interpreted as a symbol of mutual fidelity and loving union. It was either placed on the right hand to affirm the dignity of marriage (the right hand being higher in standing than the sinister left); or it was placed on the ring finger of the left hand because of a Renaissance belief that a vein ran from this finger straight to the heart. In areas where the priest gave the ring to the groom before the groom gave it to the bride, the ring could also signify that the Church approves of and seals the love of this couple.

As for the coins, during the age of feudalism they denoted the arrha, with the arrha defined not as the bride’s dowry or a bride-price but the “dower,” the portion of the husband’s estate which was guaranteed to the wife in the event of his death. (It is from the dower that we have the English noun “dowager” for a wealthy widow.) As economic and legal systems changed, however, so too did the meaning of the coins. In seventeenth-century France, the thirteen deniers or treizain de mariage were seen as a ritual acknowledgement of the groom’s obligation to provide for his wife and their future family. The money also reminded the newlyweds that God rewards His faithful, while the relatively low value of the coins’ currency admonished them to hold spiritual goods higher than temporal.

The coins were usually kept by the couple as a precious memento of their wedding. In some parts of France they were placed in a purse: in others, in a box of silver or enamel that would have an inscription on it such as “United forever” or “One faith from two hearts.” Sometimes, this box was kept under a glass in the hearth of the home to remind the couple of fiscal responsibility and to protect them from misfortune. It was also customary in several regions for at least some of the coins to be given away either to the poor or to the priest for his services. At Amiens and Rheims in the sixteenth century, the priest kept ten of the thirteen coins, while in Bordeaux the priest took one. In the monastery of Lyre, the coins were distributed to the poor, and in pre-Reformation England, the money was “given to the clerks or poor according to the custom of the country.” This stipend would survive in the rubric of the Book of Common Prayer: “And the man shall give unto the woman a ring, laying the same upon the book, [along] with the accustomed duty to the Priest and Clerk.” [2]

The blessing of thirteen coins was a common feature of French Catholic weddings, especially in rural areas, until around the First World War; but by 1936 they were being studied as mostly a thing of the past. The Catholic Rite of Marriage in Scotland still includes an optional if rarely used ceremony in which the groom gives coins to the bride and says, “This gold and silver I give you, tokens of all my worldly goods.” A similar custom is also available in Ireland. According to the guidelines for marriage in the Diocese of Cork and Ross, the coins are “a symbol of your commitment to complete sharing.” The diocese adds:

You may use small gifts which are known only to the couple. Traditionally, a coin was used and was given by the groom to the bride. It is now considered more appropriate to have two coins and to have a two-way exchange. [3]

In Spain it was once customary for the groom to give the bride thirteen commemorative arras (as they are known in Spanish) immediately before the wedding at the doors of the church so she could carry them with her in procession up the aisle and have them blessed during the ceremony. This custom, however, is less prevalent today, and when it is observed, the coins are usually exchanged as a symbol of shared wealth.

The ancient liturgical use of wedding coins thrives mostly today not in Europe but in the Hispanic New World and in the Philippines, where commemorative coins remain almost as iconic a nuptial symbol as the ring itself. Isidore of Seville mentions the arrha in the sixth century, and the Mozarabic and Visigothic liturgies, as we will see, included a nuptial blessing for coins. The Spanish took the custom to their colonies in the New World and Southeast Asia, where it continued to develop. In Mexico, the new husband takes the coins and says: “Receive these coins; they are a pledge of the care I will take so that we will not lack what is necessary in our home.” The woman, in turn, receives the coins and says: “I receive them as a sign of the care I will take so that our home will prosper.” [4] Such rituals, which are prevalent throughout Central and South America, are becoming increasingly common in the United States due to immigration.

The coin ceremony that has arguably reached the greatest stage of development is the one conducted in a Filipino wedding. The priest empties thirteen loose coins into the groom’s open hand, who then does the same to the bride. The bride, in turn, gives the coins (usually, commemorative medals representing different virtues) back to the groom, who then hands them to an acolyte. The coins cascading from one hand to the next, it is said, represent the bounty and grace of God poured forth on His children, as well as hope for prosperity and security. The handing of coins back and forth between husband and wife symbolizes not only the husband’s obligations but the wife’s as well, who in a traditional Filipino household manages the estate and finances. The ritualized flip-flopping of funds also dramatizes that whatever one of them earns becomes the other’s, thereby teaching the equality of sharing and responsible co-ownership. Filipina bridal processions even have a coin-bearer along with the more familiar ring-bearer.

Filipino arrhae

Lastly, coins often reemerge in some other part of the wedding in places where they have ceased to be a formal part of the nuptial liturgy. In Hungary, the groom would give the bride a bag of coins at the same time that the bride gives the groom three or seven handkerchiefs (lucky numbers). In Poland, brides to this day approach the altar with “some money tucked in their shoe, their bodice or within their wedding wreath.” [5]  And, of course, the coin custom would survive after it was dropped from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer in the heel of every English bride. Hence the wedding rhyme:

Something old, something new;

Something borrowed, something blue;

And a sixpence in her shoe.

Not to be outdone, the traditional Swedish bride had a silver coin from her father in her left shoe and a gold coin from her mother in her right as a guarantee of financial solvency.

English sixpence (minted from 1551 to 1970)

A Numismatic Nuptial Theology

Given the decline of coin usage as a universal wedding token and given their historical association with economic and domestic protocols that are now outdated or no longer practiced, it may be reasonably asked whether coin blessings have any value in a contemporary Catholic wedding that is not Hispanic or Filipino. I believe that we can answer in the affirmative, and for four reasons.

First, the coin ceremony affirms the goodness of material prosperity but not as the highest good. Both points are important for a Christian marriage. There will always be marriages and families threatened by a dearth of finances, lacking “the means necessary for survival, such as food, work, housing and medicine”; and there will always be marriages and families threatened by “excessive prosperity and the consumer mentality, paradoxically joined to a certain anguish and uncertainty about the future.” Both situations, Pope St. John Paul II concludes, “deprive married couples of the generosity and courage needed for raising up new human life,” not to mention militate against several other spiritual goods. [6]  It is therefore appropriate that the Church pray for the financial necessities of the new couple while simultaneously warning them to keep temporal goods in proper perspective, all for the sake of their authentic “blossoming” as human beings and icons of Christ. Each of these elements (including the floral metaphor just used) may be found in a blessing from the eleventh-century Sacramentary of Vich, variations of which can be found in the Mozarabic rite and several French manuals from roughly the same period.

Bless, O Lord, this earnest money, which today Thy servant N. hands over to Thy handmaiden N., as Thou didst bless Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel. Grant them the grace of Thy salvation, an abundance of things, and persistence in [good] works. May they flower as the rose planted in Jericho, and may they fear and adore our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen. [7]

The blessing combines petitions for material and spiritual gain but without falling into the heresy of a “Prosperity Gospel” or the Weberian Protestant work ethic. The following blessing from fourteenth-century Cambrai, France is even more explicit:

Bless, O Lord, these coins, which we bless in Thy name, entreating Thine immense clemency: that whoever is endowed with them, may be divinely endowed with the riches of grace and glory—here, in eternity, and forever and ever. Amen. [8]

No sooner are the coins, the necessary mammon of this world, put into the hands of the bride and groom than their thoughts are turned to everlasting riches, yet not in a way that vilifies money per se or belittles the concern for it. The coin ceremony reminds the newlyweds that for them to be poor in spirit and to reject the false gods of consumerism and materialism, they need not and should not take a vow of poverty.

This latter point brings us to our second and related affirmation of the coin ceremony, namely, that this numismatic tradition teaches several honorable qualities of a successful marriage that do not appear elsewhere in the Rite of Marriage. The ring has long ceased to function as an arrha with monetary connotations and has instead become a symbol of fidelity, union, and love—especially nowadays, when two rings are typically exchanged by the spouses. As such, it is fitting that a second symbol be used for good habits befitting the married life that concern money, habits such as fiscal responsibility, a shared stewardship of their common estate, and a generosity to the Church and to the poor. An inability to handle money prudently and virtuously can harm the freshly-minted union of man and wife, even when that union is sacramental. In 2012, a U.S. study concluded that arguments about money—especially early in the marriage and regardless of a couple’s income, net worth, or debt—were by far the top predictor of divorce, exceeding adultery and substance abuse. [9]

Third, just as the traditional coin ceremony teaches generic lessons that apply equally to bride and groom, it likewise provides a sex-specific template of the husband as the family’s provider and protector and the wife as the family’s treasurer and keeper. In an age of two-income households in which married women (at least in the United States) are now on average more educated than their husbands, this model will no doubt seem obsolete, even constricting and suffocating. It should be noted, however, that the categories of this template are not mutually exclusive: in some sense, a husband also needs to be a responsible keeper and treasurer and a wife also needs to be a responsible provider and protector. Moreover, like any generalized template, the model proposed by the arrha ceremony is one that needs to be worked out by the virtues of prudence and charity in response to particular circumstances, beginning with the individual temperaments and talents of the man and woman in question. Finally, the model needs to be adjusted over the course of a marriage as conditions change, which they can very much do in a protean job market such as ours, rife with career changes and upheavals.

ABC News graphic, 2013

The model remains valuable as a model, however, for at least two reasons. First, it ably targets specific postlapsarian temptations that, even in the face of changing societal gender roles, tend to assault one sex more than the other. The temptation not to be a provider is generally greater in a father than in a mother, as the statistics on “deadbeat dads” and court-ordered alimonies would suggest. Conversely and secondly, the template supplies a basic sex-specific image that, when followed properly and in the right spirit, brings out what is noblest in each sex and actuates their natural gifts. Even in a household in which the woman earns more than the man (an increasingly common phenomenon), a man is more inclined to reject the adolescent Island of the Lotus Eaters (e.g., playing video games all day in his Man Cave) when he is animated by a chivalrous sense of self-sacrifice and a protectiveness concerning women and children, a sense that can be cultivated in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ without succumbing to the lamentable distortions of male chauvinism, machismo, or sexism. Simply put, a man is less likely to become a playboy or a predator when he sees himself as called to be a provider and protector. And similarly, a woman is generally more inspired when she sees herself as the unique keeper of her husband’s trust, as the nurturer of something precious and indispensable, as the maternal center of warmth and life and flourishing that, like the good and faithful servant in the Gospel, turns five talents of gold into ten. (Matt. 25, 16)

Claims about a sex-specific template in marriage are, of course, increasingly unpopular in a society such as ours, but that may be all the more reason to make them. Rather than devalue the traditional coin ceremony with a doctrine of radical egalitarianism or eliminate it altogether, the ceremony should be used as a window into an authentically Catholic theological anthropology and as an opportunity to discuss the non-interchangeable dignities of Christian husbandhood and Christian wifehood. In this respect the Filipino coin ceremony is particularly commendable because it retains the symbolism of the husband and wife’s different obligations as well as their equal co-ownership.

Issac and Rebecca, by Lambert Lombard, 1530-35

Fourth, the traditional liturgical use of wedding coins provides an additional way of locating the new couple’s life together within the biblical narrative. The medieval blessings, such as those cited above, typically invoke figures from the Hebrew Bible (Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel) or use metaphors from the deuterocanonical books, such as the rose planted in Jericho (see Ecclesiasticus [Sirach] 24, 18). Among other things, these instances of intertextuality invite the new husband and wife to find the meaning of their own “story” within that of the Sacred Scriptures, much like St. Augustine does with his life in the Confessions. And while such an invitation occurs in a privileged way during the Liturgy of the Word/Mass of the Catechumens through the proclaimed scriptural readings, it is fitting that the invitation also be extended through ritual enactment; for the goal of the invitation is ultimately a mystagogical participation in the mystery of the union of Christ and His Church. 

An earlier version of this essay appeared as part of an article entitled, “Coins and Care-Cloths: The Mystagogical Value of Traditional Wedding Customs,” Antiphon 18:2 (Summer 2014), pp. 115–143. Many thanks to its editors for allowing its publication here.

Notes

[1] See Isidore of Seville, De ecclesiasticis officiis 2.20.8 (PL 83:812).

[2] J. Wickham Legg, “Notes on the Marriage Service in the Book of Common Prayer, 1549,” in The Library of Liturgiology & Ecclesiology for English Readers, ed. Vernon Staley (London: Alexander Moring, Ltd., 1905), 188-89.

[3] http://www.corkandross.org/html/sacraments/marriage/marriage_ceremony.jsp, retrieved 27 February 2014 but no longer online.

[4] See Timothy S. Matovina, “Marriage Celebrations in Mexican American Communities,” Liturgical Ministry 5 (1996), 23.

[5] Sophie Hodorowicz Knab, Polish Wedding Customs and Traditions (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1997), 76.

[6] Pope St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio 6.

[7] See also J.B. Molin and P. Mutembe, Le rituel du mariage en France du XIIe au XVIe siècle (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), 319-20.

[8] Ibid., 320.

[9] Jeffrey Dew, Sonya Britt, and Sandra Huston, “Examining the Relationship Between Financial Issues and Divorce,” Family Relations 61:4 (October 2012), 615–628.

Another Sighting of the “Care Cloth” at a Recent Solemn High Nuptial Mass

Back in September, I published here an article called “The Return of the ‘Care Cloth’ at the Traditional Nuptial Mass.” It turned out to be one of our most popular articles in 2021, with off-the-charts views and shares. It occasioned some sad remarks: “My fiancee and I were hoping to have a TLM wedding, but now it seems we can’t because of Traditionis Custodes and how it’s being implemented locally.” But there have also been heartening signs that TLM weddings are here to stay, as photos continue to be posted here and there of such events taking place in every month since the motu proprio. The time that has passed since July 16 has been a time of gradual awakening on the part of priests to the necessity of “just saying no” to unjust restrictions and policies, even if it means doing things like TLM weddings with more circumspection—and perhaps without sharing photos on social media!

That being said, we are grateful to the wonderful photographer Alison Girone for sharing once again a magnificent batch of photos of a recent Solemn High Latin Mass wedding. While there are very many gorgeous pictures we could share (see here for the full album), here I would like to draw special attention to the appearance once more of the “care cloth” or velatio nuptialis, a custom that is making a return as young people reach ever deeper into the treasury of the Faith. Our congratulations to the newlyweds!

Epistle

Gospel

Elevation

Care cloth during nuptial blessing

The Return of the “Care Cloth” at the Traditional Nuptial Mass

On May 1, 2021, I had the great privilege of leading the choir and schola for the wedding of a dear friend and former student of mine, who used to sing in my college choir. The liturgy was a Solemn High Nuptial Mass—the kind of thing one could barely imagine back when I first got involved in the movement for the restoration of the Roman Rite. (My own Nuptial Missa Cantata was difficult enough to pull off back in 1998!) The church where the Mass was held, St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Fennimore, Wisconsin, was a perfect home for this grand event.

The bride and bridegroom took great care in planning their wedding—so much so, in fact, that they chose to incorporate into the ceremony an old custom called the “care cloth.”

The velatio nuptialis is an ancient tradition of the Catholic Church, well established since at least the fourth century. During the nuptial blessing, which is said between the Canon and Communion, a white cloth (pallium) is held over the couple. St. Ambrose, fourth-century bishop of Milan, writes, “It is fitting that the marriage be sanctified by the imposition of the veil and the blessing of the priest.” The white cloth signifies the bright cloud, which is at once a sign of God’s protection accompanying the chosen people wandering in the desert (Ex. 13:20–22), the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary (Lk. 1:35), and the bright cloud of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Lk. 9:28-36; 2 Pt. 1:17–18). It also signifies that the couple becomes one flesh through marriage. In France, the poêle, which is another word for the veil, is also used to honor the Blessed Sacrament on the feast of Corpus Christi, which appropriately connects the wedding of the couple to the wedding feast of Christ and the Church, represented and effected by the Blessed Sacrament. While the velatio nuptialis experienced widespread use in the Middle Ages in the Roman Rite, it fell out of use almost everywhere outside of France, although the tradition is seeing a slow revival.

As for where the name “care cloth” comes from, we read in Michael Foley's book Wedding Rites:

The couple’s wedding veil, or carecloth, was once so important in the Western imagination that it literally gave the wedding event its name. When a woman in ancient Rome was married, she put on a fiery red veil as a sign of the new obligations and dignity she was taking on as a matron. In Latin this act of covering oneself with a veil was known as nubere, from which comes our word “nuptial.” Latin Christians adopts the veil in the 300s (or perhaps earlier) but put the man under it as well, to stress the fact that both bride and groom were expected to live up to their marital obligations. This explains why it came to be called a carecloth in English, as “to care” once meant “to lay a burden on.” After the Renaissance, the carecloth was itself overshadowed by the bridal veil in most parts of Europe (a pale substitute, in our humble opinion), though it continues to be used in several areas of the world today. (p. 77)

After the Lord's Prayer, the bride and bridegroom ascend the steps into the sanctuary and kneel; the priest stands at the corner of the altar to say the nuptial blessing, during which the cloth is held above the couple by two altar servers:

Let us pray. Be gracious, O Lord, to our humble supplications: and graciously assist this Thine institution, which Thou hast established for the increase of mankind: that what is joined together by Thine authority, may be preserved by Thine aid. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. 

Let us pray. O God, who by Thine own mighty power, didst make all things out of nothing: who having set in order the beginnings of the world, didst appoint Woman to be an inseparable helpmate to Man, made like unto God, so that Thou didst give to woman’s body its beginnings in man’s flesh, thereby teaching that what it pleased Thee to form from one substance, might never be lawfully separated: O God, who, by so excellent a mystery hast consecrated the union of man and wife, as to foreshadow in this nuptial bond the union of Christ with His Church: O God, by whom Woman is joined to Man, and the partnership, ordained from the beginning, is endowed with such blessing, that it alone was not withdrawn either by the punishment of original sin, or by the sentence of the flood: graciously look upon this Thy handmaid, who, about to be joined in wedlock, seeks Thy defense and protection. May it be to her a yoke of love and peace: faithful and chaste, may she be wedded in Christ, and let her ever be the imitator of holy women: let her be dear to her husband, like Rachel: wise, like Rebecca: long-lived and faithful, like Sara. Let not the author of deceit work any of his evil deeds in her. May she continue, clinging to the faith and to the commandments. Bound in one union, let her shun all unlawful contact. Let her protect her weakness by the strength of discipline; let her be grave in behavior, respected for modesty, well-instructed in heavenly doctrine. Let her be fruitful in offspring; be approved and innocent; and come to the repose of the blessed and the kingdom of heaven. May they both see their children’s children to the third and fourth generation, and may they reach the old age which they desire. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth God.

The couple return to their kneelers and the priest continues into the embolism.

The care cloth used in this nuptial Mass, which was sewn and embroided by a close friend, is fittingly made from linen, the same material used for altar cloths. Pope John Paul II describes the family as the ecclesia domestica (the domestic church), so the cloth symbolizes that the family coming into being is a participation in the fruitful union Christ and His Church. The veil is, as it were, the altar cloth of the new family. The Marian auspice is embroided on the cloth in blue; the design includes symbols from Mary, Star of the Sea, who “makes our way secure till we find in Jesus joy forevermore,” as the ancient prayer says. The auspice is flanked by lace, which belonged to the bridegroom’s grandmother.
 

The "auspice"

For more information on the care cloth, see M. Henri de Villiers, “The Velatio Nuptialis: An Ancient (and Forgotten) Part of the Latin Marriage Rite.”

Although it was not in itself the most important moment in the ceremony (there are surely several others that would, theologically, lay superior claim to that honor), it was for me the most strikingly beautiful; the photos will, I think, suggest just how special a custom it is. I hope others who are planning their Latin Mass weddings will take it up, as well. To my mind, in this period of new incomprehension and persecution directed at our patrimony as Latin rite Catholics, young people must bend the stick in the opposite direction and go for uncompromising maximalism: a Solemn High Nuptial Mass with polyphony and pipe organ—and a care cloth. That is a beautiful and decisive way of saying: I choose the old ways, and I am content with them, in fact, they lift my soul. Introibo ad altare Dei, ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.

(All photos by Mattson Photography LLC.)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A New Online Resource for Researching and Preparing a Latin Mass Wedding

A young, enterprising, very organized and well-informed lady named Sharon Kabel has put together a fantastic website dedicated to “the Latin Mass Wedding.” This is a resource that has long been urgently needed, with the growing number of “Benedict XVI” and “Francis Effect” Catholics who are interested in tying the knot with a ceremony and Nuptial Mass in the usus antiquior or Extraordinary Form. Years ago (as when my wife and I got married with a Missa Cantata on the feast of St. John, December 27, 1998), this was still fairly far-out, in the misty fringes of possibility, but nowadays one reads about it happening pretty often, and pictures and videos are abundant. Nevertheless, it should be much more frequent than it is, and I wonder if the lack of easily accessible information is part of the problem.

After all, there are a LOT of differences between the Novus Ordo approach and the traditional approach. In the Novus Ordo, the vows are sandwiched into the Mass between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, in a pattern that Nicola Bux complains about as depriving both the Mass of its integrity and the inserted item [sacrament, commissioning, exercise, etc.] of its own dignity. In the old way of doing things, in contrast, the bride and bridegroom exchange their vows at the foot of the altar prior to the start of Mass — almost, you might say, their own version of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar — and then they assist at Mass for the first time as husband and wife. (I remember how special it was at my own wedding to kneel with a ring newly on my finger, with my wife next to me, and hear the priest say: “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Introibo ad altare Dei...,” knowing that we were going unto the altar of God, united by the God of Israel about whom the schola was singing: “Deus Israel conjungat vos.” As always, the timing of things in the traditional liturgy is magnificent.)

This preceding matrimonial ceremony is usually more elaborate, with some very beautiful prayers (though these have varied and still vary a great deal from country to country, and from century to century); for its part, the ancient Nuptial Mass is extremely rich in its antiphons, readings, and prayers — all of which are required, none optional.

The Nuptial Mass, especially in the form of a Missa Cantata or a Solemn Mass, can be a particularly splendid and festive way to introduce family and friends to the traditional Roman liturgy, a real opportunity for “evangelizing through beauty.” If a young man and woman are serious Catholics, they will already seem strange to many of their relatives and acquaintances, so they might as well go all out rather than trimming the liturgy down to the imagined expectations or tolerance threshold of attendees. You can count on there being many more guests who afterwards say they were moved by the beauty and solemnity of it than there will be grumblers and complainers. No matter what your congregation will be like, it is helpful to provide a missallette or a handout that helps those in attendance to have some clue about what is unfolding before their eyes and ears.

Sharon understands all these things, and she is thorough in providing resources and references. The page “Rite of Marriage” talks about the history of the ceremony and furnishes a full text of the rite found in the 1962 Rituale Romanum for the region of the United States. The page “Wedding Mass” gives in full the English texts of the Missa pro sponso et sponsa. Then comes the page “Resources,” which is fun to explore:

Note that Sharon provides ample information about and links to the text of the traditional Rite of Betrothal, which is also happily returning to the Catholic world after a long period of desuetude. (Just recently, NLM published a piece on it, with photos: check it out.) Betrothal can best be understood as a solemn promise to marry, made before God and His minister, and asking of the Lord the grace of a chaste engagement blessed by His favor. It is really worth doing; my fiancée and I, and many of our friends, and now the children of our friends, have done it. It fits into the general pattern of the Church wishing to bless all created realities: homes, fields, animals, equipment, wine, throats, candles, and the rest. In addition, it serves as a countercultural witness in our times of a serious intent to lead a life in accord with the commandments and virtues. (The U.S. bishops not long ago cobbled together and published a “blessing of an engagement,” but, like all postconciliar liturgical rites, its lameness beggars belief. It will deserve a proper dressing-down someday, not right now.)

Sharon provides a page of FAQs that assume no prior knowledge, so if you are new to all of this, you have found a good place to go.

The website will also be valuable to priests; among other things, Sharon has included Haydock and Catena aurea commentaries on the Scriptural texts of the antiphons and readings of the Nuptial Mass, which could be mined for homilies.

On the website Sharon says she wants feedback about any ways to improve her site, or any further resources to include. Please take her at her word! Let’s make this the single best go-to place on the web for traditional Roman-rite weddings.

(Other wedding-related articles that may be of interest to NLM readers:

• Problems with Weddings and How We Might Remedy Them
• Solemn Music for a Wedding
• The Velatio Nuptialis: An Ancient (and Forgotten) Part of the Latin Marriage Rite
• The New Lectionary and the Catholic Wedding
• When in Florida: The Priest Who Refused My Wedding
• The Wedding: How to Be a Catholic Music Patron, at Least Once)

Problems with Weddings and How We Might Remedy Them

Now that we are turning the corner into May, we are entering into the main season for weddings, most of which take place on Saturdays in the warmer months.

The Catholic Church has been known throughout the ages for the strong, unambiguous stand she takes on the sanctity and indissolubility of marriage and of the naturalness, goodness, and social priority of the family that emerges, by God’s blessing, from the union of man and woman.

There is, nevertheless, a monumental disconnect between this exalted doctrine and the disgraceful, if not sacrilegious, manner in which weddings are often conducted. [1] Experience, records, and anecdotal evidence suggest that far too many Catholic weddings are not conducted as befits a holy or sacred occasion, but rather, are turned into carnivals, with the officiant acting as ringmaster. At times, the giddy banter in the church before or after Mass is so loud that an organist playing at full volume can still hear it. Sermons can become the priest’s own version of a wedding reception toast or a sentimental fireside chat with the couple, complete with reminiscences, chestnuts, and down-home advice. “The kissing of the bride” can be a real performance, complete with whistling and clapping; needless to say, everyone goes to Communion! A beautiful and sacred space is turned into a sports arena and a fashion show.

One thinks in this connection of Ratzinger’s rebuke:

Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly — it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation. [2]

If we actually believe in the “sanctity of marriage,” this kind of Hollywood travesty has to be stopped, and if we do not do all in our power to stop it, we are effectively endorsing a secular redefinition of marriage and allowing the faithful to be formed by it and in it. Clergy should take as a model the Lord Jesus expelling the money changers from the temple: “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves” (Matt. 21, 13). He didn’t set up a Pontifical Committee for Relations with Thieves, or make a public apology about how badly thieves have been treated over the centuries; he simply drew a line between sacred and profane, and threw them out. God’s house is, first and foremost, a house of prayer. The prophet Isaiah says: “The Lord of hosts, Him you shall honor as holy. Let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread” (Isa. 8, 13). The prophet Malachi likewise: “The son honoreth the father, and the servant his master: if then I be a father, where is my honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 1, 6).

Connected with the fear of the Lord and respect for His temple is the evangelistic opportunity presented by a beautiful liturgy. I do not mean, of course, that the liturgy should be turned into an occasion for catechesis or apologetics, but rather, that simply by being as it should be, dignified, expressive, and noble, it will touch the hearts and minds of at least some of the non-practicing Catholics and unbelievers present. To cite Ratzinger again:

If the Liturgy appears first of all as the workshop for our activity, then what is essential is being forgotten: God. For the Liturgy is not about us, but about God. Forgetting about God is the most imminent danger of our age. As against this, the Liturgy should be setting up a sign of God’s presence. Yet what is happening, if the habit of forgetting about God makes itself at home in the Liturgy itself, and if in the Liturgy we are only thinking of ourselves? In any and every liturgical reform, and every liturgical celebration, the primacy of God should be kept in view first and foremost. [3]

I remember a priest in Ireland telling me that when he offered a Novus Ordo funeral Mass in English, but merely prayed slowly, chanting the texts, and keeping silence at appropriate points, and generally acting as if he believed in what was happening and was earnestly praying for the deceased, a number of people said to him afterwards: “My goodness, Father, if every Mass was like that one, I’d start coming to church again.”

Has there not been an incredible failure to face the obvious fact that treating the most sacred mysteries casually and horizontally necessarily leads to the eclipse of God? I speak of the eclipse of His transcendent fatherhood and His right to our total homage, intellectual and moral, as well as the eclipse of man’s own nature, his need for redemption, his capacity for the infinite and the eternal, and his heavenly destiny, with all the self-denial and self-mastery it demands of us here and now. The use of such completely foreign imports as “the unity candle” or jars of sand to signify the uniting of two families or two lives exemplifies the stress on horizontality that, together with inventing ritual whole cloth, is one of the worst legacies of the general agitation for liturgical reform that afflicted all the Christian churches and ecclesial communities in the twentieth century.

There will never be a renewed acceptance of the full truth about marriage and family, an adherence to divine and natural law, if there is not a renewed acceptance of the full truth about the sacred liturgy: an adherence to the natural law of religious homage (the obligation of creature to Creator) and to the divine law of Christian worship (the sacrifice of the Cross).

Here are a few ways in which weddings could be improved in the context of the Novus Ordo. (Some of these suggestions would also apply, mutatis mutandis, to Tridentine weddings.)

1. The most important precondition for resacralizing weddings is that those who are to be married understand ahead of time something of the beauty, holiness, and lofty demands of the sacrament, not as described in some wishy-washy pamphlet, but by reading together, in segments, a robust treatment of the subject. In all my years of teaching, the best document I have yet found is Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical Casti Connubii, which has the benefit of being relatively short, frank, and challenging. I imagine that some couples would never do the reading at all, but some others would, and it could at least spark honest, difficult conversations that need to happen, such as the reasons behind the Church’s teaching on the good of abstention before marriage and chastity during it, the corrosive evil of contraception, the inherent ordering of married life to the begetting and educating of children, and the distinct but complementary roles of husband and wife in the family.

2. The ceremony of betrothal should be restored as a sacred way of marking the period of engagement and preparation. Lest this suggestion be viewed as a form of throwback romanticism, it is worthy of mention that one sees betrothals happening quite regularly at the more traditional colleges listed in the Newman Guide. My wife and I were betrothed in a ceremony led by the priest who married us about six months later, and the idea occurred to us in the first place because we’d seen so many others doing it. However, the rite is still not known as well as it should be known, and the recent publication by the USCCB of a pathetic “blessing of engagement” could throw some people off the scent of the real deal. The traditional rite of betrothal is available in a number of places, e.g., here, here, and here. A Google search turns up a number of good articles on the subject.

3. The pastor or celebrant should insist on worthy music being utilized for the wedding: the Ordinary of the Mass and the Propers of the Nuptial Mass (perhaps in simple English psalm tones, if the choir cannot handle more) and additional pieces chosen from a list of suitable hymns and instrumentals.[4] A priest friend of mine told a delightful story. One day he was meeting with a lady to go over the plans for her wedding Mass. She listed off for him a number of popular songs she wanted to have performed at the Mass. The priest smiled and said: “I’ll let you have those songs, as long as you agree to one request of mine.” — “What’s that, Father?” — “That you play Gregorian chant at your reception.” — “But Father, that’s not appropriate for the occasion!” — “Right. Neither are these songs appropriate for the occasion of divine worship. Now let’s rethink the music for the Mass.”

4. Moving to the wedding itself, if one is working with Catholics who have a modicum of faith and open-mindedness, one could suggest holding a Holy Hour after the wedding rehearsal while the priest hears confessions, particularly those of the bride, bridegroom, and wedding party. Among other benefits, this practice would greatly increase the possibility of the bride and bridegroom marrying in a state of grace so that they actually receive the fruits of the sacrament of matrimony rather than being vowed to one another in a graceless state of mortal sin. (Theologians teach that when marriage is contracted in a state of sin, the parties are indeed indissolubly wed, but the grace of the sacrament is not actually received by the sinful party until he or she is restored, through absolution or perfect contrition, to a state of grace, and then the sacramental grace is said to be “revived.”)

5. At the ceremony itself, the priest should bring out the most beautiful vestments and vessels he has access to, chant his own parts of the Mass, avoid the pitfalls of showmanship, and see to it that the service is conducted with solemnity. Such an ars celebrandi, together with the aforementioned music and the Holy Hour and confessions of the evening before, would accentuate the sacredness of the great mystery being celebrated.

When I have discussed these matters with priests, I generally get two reactions (and usually from the same people): “You are right,” and “It’s impossible.” I think there is a lot of discouragement out there about weddings and funerals, because these occasions, more than any others, bring home to the clergy just how horribly lacking in basic Christian faith and morals most baptized Catholics actually are. Nowhere is the postconciliar collapse of the Church and the destruction of the liturgy more apparent.

Nevertheless, with St. Thérèse, I maintain that discouragement is a form of pride, and that Christ is looking for “a few good men” to make the strenuous efforts needed, “brick by brick,” to elevate the seriousness and beauty of all of our sacramental life — be it baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and funerals, or daily and Sunday Mass. This is obviously a long-term project, but it begins with making whatever improvements we can, here and now. With all the care and goodwill in the world, we will sometimes offend people who do not know better, but let us strive to explain clearly and patiently the rationale behind all that we ask or propose to do.

NOTES

[1] There is a similar disconnect between Catholic eschatology and modern-day Catholic funerals, which have degenerated into maudlin wakes of the Protestant “low church” kind. The primary purpose of the Mass for the Dead is to pray for the soul of the departed, that it may be saved and, if in need of purification (as the vast majority of saved souls will be), may be delivered soon from the fires of Purgatory. Hence the traditional Requiem Mass focuses all of its attention on the faithful departed: there is no homily; gone are blessings of certain objects or of the people; a special Agnus Dei begs for the repose of souls; the Propers are a continuous tapestry of prayers for the dead; and so forth. The way that modern funerals have been turned towards the emotional relief of the living and the “celebration” of the mortal life of the deceased is, in reality, a double act of uncharity: first, it deprives Christians of the opportunity to go out of themselves in love by praying for the salvation of their loved one’s soul, thus exercising a great act of spiritual mercy rather than being a passive recipient of an act of spiritual mercy; second, it deprives the departed soul of the power and consolation of collective prayer on its behalf. Of course, all of this presupposes an orthodox understanding of the Four Last Things.

[2] Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 198–99; also in idem, Collected Works, vol. XI: Theology of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 125.

[3] Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy: The Principles of Liturgical Reform and Their Relation to the Twentieth-Century Liturgical Movement Prior to the Second Vatican Council (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 13; also in Ratzinger, Theology of the Liturgy, 593–94.

[4] Fr. Samuel Weber’s book The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities has several settings of the Nuptial Mass propers, ranging from psalm-tone to melismatic.

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