Congraulations, if you have recently gotten engaged!

If you have, this is certainly an exciting time for you, and we are here to help you through the marriage process.

If you are checking this site because you are thinking about getting married, let us explain the process:

Prior to speaking with the pastor, you will need to read the Marriage Guidelines and complete the form on the last page. Once you completed that form, you can register for Marriage Preparation Classes. Marriage Preparation Classes is a requirement to get married in the Catholic Church and you begin classes at least 6 months prior to the wedding. Below are the links to get you started. Once again congratulations on your engagement!

Three intitial steps: 

1.Download:  Marriage Guidelines | Read and complete form

Each couple must read the Marriage Guidelines booklet and complete the form before your wedding can be scheduled. Once you complete form, please call and speak with the pastor about your future marriage. The form can be found on the last page of the Marriage Guidelines pdf.

2. Call: St. Ann Parish to schedule initial meeting.

Contact Fr. Jim – 513-521-8440
Marriage Preparation Classes are required in order to get married in the Catholic Church. Please call the parish office to schedule your first meeting with Fr. McCarthy. It will be at this meeting that you will discuss the marriage preparation process, set the date for the wedding, and fill out the necessary paperwork.

3. Download: Mass Planning Booklet

This booklet is given to help you plan the marriage ceremony. Included are the appropriate readings and music for weddings in the Church.

4. Watch and Discuss: Mentoring Sessions and Videos

Marriage is a Covenant

The Sacrament of Marriage is a covenantal union in the image of the covenants between God and his people with Abraham and later with Moses at Mt. Sinai. This divine covenant can never be broken. In this way, marriage is a union that bonds spouses together during their entire lifetime.

The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life. (CCC 1661)

 

The love in a married relationship is exemplified in the total gift of one’s self to another. It’s this self-giving and self-sacrificing love that we see in our other model of marriage, the relationship between Christ and the Church. Marriage is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually and definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love. (CCC 1662)

The Church takes the lifelong nature of the Sacrament of Marriage seriously. The Church teaches that a break in this covenant teaches goes against the natural law of God: The remarriage of persons divorced from a living, lawful spouse contravenes the plan and law of God as taught by Christ. They are not separated from the Church, but they cannot receive Eucharistic communion. They will lead Christian lives especially by educating their children in the faith. (CCC 1665)

Marriage Reflects the Holy Trinity

We believe that God exists in eternal communion. Together, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are united in one being with no beginning and no end. Human beings, likewise, were created by God in God’s image for the purpose of communion with another human being.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Christian family is a communion of persons, a sign and image of the communion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit” (CCC 2205). The Sacrament of Marriage is “unitive, indissoluble and calls us to be completely open to fertility.” Christian marriage at its finest is a reflection of God’s self-giving love expressed between the love of two people.

 

“God created man and woman out of love and commanded them to imitate his love in their relations with each other. Man and woman were created for each other…Woman and man are equal in human dignity, and in marriage both are united in an unbreakable bond.” (United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, Ch. 21, p. 279)