婚配聖事禮儀的精神

最近幾個月忙著預備婚禮，確是很久沒有寫過網誌了。

在搜尋婚配聖事的各種資料中，一部信友用的舊版彌撒經書內容，吸引了我的注意。當中的圖片十分有意義。

這幅圖的文字部分，引用了聖保祿宗徒致厄弗所人書的名句：「Sacramentum hoc magnum est ... in Christo et in Ecclesia」（「這基督和教會內的奧秘，確是偉大」－－Eph 5:32）。這經文的確是婚配聖事本質的最佳闡釋。

「Lapides vivi」意指「活石」。這裡用的是眾數：意謂基督化的家庭生活，是教會的搖籃。我們的生活須被基督的愛情滲透，並藉著具體見證，不斷拓展基督的國度。

夫婦的牽手，乃表示兩人同心合意下所作的婚姻盟誓；而神職的聖帶，亦顯示教會的見證和祝福。兩隻戒指，表示「忠貞的連繫」。

該頁關於婚配聖事禮儀的簡介，亦可謂語重深長、發人深省：

Christian Marriage is the permanent union of husband and wife for the procreation and education of children and for their own mutual assistance.

This union was made sacred when Christ raised it to the dignity of a Sacrament and entrusted its keeping and administration to His Church.

Marriage is God's plan for peopling the earth, and by it He invites His creatures, through the love they have for each other, to share with Him in the great work of procreation. He entrusts to the married couple the children born to them, that they may bring them up in the knowledge and love of almighty God, and gives them the graces necessary for that work.

The marriage service is a solemn and moving ceremony in which the two partners pledge their word to God and to each other to be loyal and faithful. Whenever both partners are baptized Christians the grace of the Sacrament is conferred. When both are Catholics the marriage ceremony may be followed by the Nuptial Mass during which a special blessing is given to them.

The beauty of the ceremony which follows here shows the Church's wish to bestow an abundance of grace on those who contract marriage in accordance with her mind.

縱然歲月流轉，古老的禮儀亦已經歷不少改變和適應，但上述的闡釋從現代的角度而言，仍可說是非常準確。

也許這就是禮儀和信仰精神的延續性吧？