Am I not in a state of grace?

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GerardAubyn

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I have two daughters who will be eight and nine this month. They were born out of wedlock, and their mother and I planned our first born, but not our second born. I remember after our first daughter was born we planned to get married, even met with a priest, but we ended up not going through with setting a concrete wedding date.

Obviously we were both committing sin, having premarital sex, using birth control, even using “Plan B” once. In late 2012, she called our relationship off. I’ve been single since. We are on good terms, though, and I had both of my daughters baptized in the Catholic faith last year in January. Their mother didn’t attend as she made it clear that she doesn’t believe in Christianity, although she’s a baptized Catholic who made her first communion. My priest knows their mother and I are not together and that we had our daughters out of wedlock, had premarital sex and so on.

I haven’t been in a relationship since she called it off in 2012, and I often tell her I’m willing to try to make it work, to get married and raise our daughters together, under the same roof. Now that I’m older and wiser since I’ve had kids, I realize that this is the ideal way of life, that marriage is a beautiful vocation and raising children and only having sex while in matrimony for unitive and procreative purposes is the only good way for sex.

If I were to marry another woman, would I be committing adultery? I know I was never married, but we did live together for years and we had children. Would the sex we had be a form of consummation of a marriage that may have taken place?

I understand that these may appear to be silly questions, but I’m growing in my faith and I want to know with 100 percent confidence what our beautiful church teaches. Thanks for any advice!
 
I would schedule an appointment with your pastor to talk about this and to go to confession. It’s the best way to get the answers you need.
God Bless.
 
@GerardAubyn

A marriage has to be declared annul - not a valid marriage - before entering into the sacrament of matrimony, but you say you never even had a secular marriage. Conjugal relations (having sex) is the way to consummate a valid marriage but it isn’t itself a form of marriage.

So having already confessed any past mortal sins, there is nothing in the way of eventually getting married in the Church.

Peace.
 
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Thanks. That’s right, I’ve never even had a secular marriage. Although, we both promised to each other to be together for life. Does that constitute a form of marriage in the eyes of the church? I’ve confessed the use of plan B to a priest, and I’ve been to confession maybe 10 times in the last year. Although I don’t think I’ve directly said I’ve committed the sin of fornication, although it has been implied and the priest same priest knows I have children.
 
I think it’s great that you have a priest that knows the situation and that you have been to confession. Make an appointment and ask him the specific questions. You did mention you did not specifically confess one type of sin. Might want to mention that at confession. You are the only one who knows; intentionally withholding a sin presents real problems with the sacrament and absolution.
 
Thanks. I’ll be sure to mention it this Saturday during the scheduled confession timeframe. My priest usually doesn’t get to me to say my act of contrition during confession, is this normal? But he still absolves me and most often gives me penance. Perhaps that a topic for another thread.
 
Thanks for confirming. I’m pretty confident, just want to be 100 percent sure.
 
I would directly confess the fornication in case the Priest assumed you were married.
 
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