“The Eucharist is the heart and the summit of the Church’s life, for in it Christ associates his Church and all her members with his sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving offered once for all on the cross to his Father; by this sacrifice he pours out the graces of salvation on his Body which is the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1407).

Marriage is a “covenant or partnership of life between a man and woman, which is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children. When validly contracted between two baptized people, marriage is a sacrament” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1601).

In the Catholic Church, the spouses are the ministers of Christ’s grace and mutually confer upon each other the Sacrament of Matrimony by expressing their consent for one another in the presence of the Lord, His Church, and the world. The priest and the assembly witness the vow of Christ-like love.