Message for the Marriage of Mentor

This is the foreword of the liturgy I am preparing for Miss Moran who was my mentor for SY 2007-2008. This is where people with units and people without units differ. Mas malandi ang liturgy, may foreword pa. Hahahaha.

Marriage as a Living Witness to Christ

In his letter to the Ephesians, Saint Paul urges married couples to love their spouse as Christ loves his Church. The Church is the Bride of Christ and he showed his love on the cross, when he offered his very body and blood for the salvation of this Church. No other sacrament of the Church shows this most wonderful reality than Christian Marriage. In Christian Marriage, two baptized individuals commit to offer themselves to each other out of love for the rest of their life. They enter into a covenant with each other and become united in love.
The minister of Christian Marriage is not the priest but the couple. Not like other marriages which are simply contracts, two Christians stand before God and the People of God as baptized members of the Body of Christ and conformed by Confirmation in the image of Christ, to enter into a covenant to love one another as Christ did. The People of God, represented by the sponsors, accept the couple, pray for them and help them later on in their married life. The priest, as representative of God and the Church, will ratify and bless this union.
The Rite of Marriage is situated within the Eucharistic Celebration because it is the source and summit of Christian Life. In it, we remember and make present the loving act of God through Christ who offered himself on the cross, an example couples are to live out in married life. By our participation in the Eucharist, all Christians are called and obliged to offer themselves in service of others and by the Body and Blood we receive, we get the strength to do what is asked of us.
Finally, Christian Marriage is a sacrament, a transformative encounter with God and thus, married life should be seen as an encounter with God, a living out of our dignity as creatures in the image and likeness of the God who is love, and living the divine life which Christ gained and gave to us. In the love between husband and wife, the world sees the truth of Christ’s live. By their sacrifices and struggles in their life together, they witness to Christ who gave his life out of love for us. In the Sacrament of Christian Marriage within the Mass, the transformative power of the Lord is made present and effected. Just as ordinary bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, the ordinary love between humans become divine. May the power of the same Christ who transformed water into wine be the source and strength of those married in him.
This Order of the Mass and Celebration of Christian Marriage has been prepared from the pertinent liturgical books that have been approved by the Church. Through the full, active and conscious participation of all in the celebration, this will be a fruitful one and a good start for a long and happy married life. With the Christian community, I pray that you will be blessed by God who is love

In Christ,

Jeffrey Velasco