Q: I have a wedding early in the afternoon of Saturday June 24, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. My assumption is that we are required to use the readings and prayers for that day. Is that correct? If so, may one be traded out or not?
Thanks for your help. Hopefully, one day I will get all these things figured out.
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A: The Nativity of St. John ranks #3 on the table of liturgical days. OCM 34 says that weddings taking place on a day that ranks within #1-4 on that table use the readings of the day, not of the ritual Mass. The permission to exchange one reading at a wedding is found in the last paragraph of OCM 34, but it applies to the second paragraph: parish Sunday Masses in Ordinary Time. (See also OCM 56.)
For a wedding Mass during the day on June 24, the readings and presidential prayers properly come from the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.