Are there just a few of us?

  • Thread starter Thread starter PeterC
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

PeterC

Guest
I am among the millions of Catholics who have divorced and remarried. My first marriage was for 19 years while my present marriage has been for over 20 years and will last forever. My first marriage was, indeed, a true marriage. I am who I was and I was who I am. I know a marriage that was not a true union can be annulled. I was a bad guy and left the marriage. I make no excuse that I was not really married.

I do not receive Holy Communion. Tears stream down my face every Sunday as the faithful receive. I don’t budge but I pray to receive Jesus in spirit. I feel the pain of His physical absence. I feel the joy of receiving Him is spirit.

I look around this fairly large church and watch the faithful receive. It seems like almost all of those in attendance receive. Maybe there are two or three like me who abstain.

Where are all the others like me? In a different church? I do not want to deny them and I don’t resent them. I just wonder where the millions of Catholics like me are. Are they receiving anyway? Are they compounding a sin every week by receiving?

What should a person like me do who will not have a marriage annulled? What circumstances must exist for me to receive Holy Communion?
 
40.png
PeterC:
I am among the millions of Catholics who have divorced and remarried. My first marriage was for 19 years while my present marriage has been for over 20 years and will last forever. My first marriage was, indeed, a true marriage. I am who I was and I was who I am. I know a marriage that was not a true union can be annulled. I was a bad guy and left the marriage. I make no excuse that I was not really married.

I do not receive Holy Communion. Tears stream down my face every Sunday as the faithful receive. I don’t budge but I pray to receive Jesus in spirit. I feel the pain of His physical absence. I feel the joy of receiving Him is spirit.

I look around this fairly large church and watch the faithful receive. It seems like almost all of those in attendance receive. Maybe there are two or three like me who abstain.

Where are all the others like me? In a different church? I do not want to deny them and I don’t resent them. I just wonder where the millions of Catholics like me are. Are they receiving anyway? Are they compounding a sin every week by receiving?

What should a person like me do who will not have a marriage annulled? What circumstances must exist for me to receive Holy Communion?
Click to expand...
I’m curious why you won’t look into an annulment. It doesn’t change anything, it simply states what has always been. If you didn’t have a valid marraige the first time then you will be able to receive Christ in the Eucharist and have a husband/wife relationship with your current wife.

I applaud you for refraining from the Eucharist if you believe you cannot do so worthily. I believe there are many out there like you who are receiving unworthily. I am confused though about why you wouldn’t look into an annulment since it doesn’t actually change anything.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
my heart hurts for you. you are definitely in a predicament, with no easy solution.

it is, by far, most important that you put yourself in a position to be free of mortal sin, and to receive the graces that God has for you, most explicitly in the eucharist. most important. far more important than any other thing in your life, including your personal happiness, including your marriage.

the church teaching is clear - you must either annul your first marriage, or leave your second. if you don’t do the first, and continue to live in the second, you are in a state of mortal sin - in a state of adultery. this is an explicit teaching by Jesus.

i don’t know what ‘all of the others in your situation’ are doing. perhaps they have stopped coming to mass altogether. perhaps they are receiving while in mortal sin - compounding their condition. i pray for them.

i hope and pray that God gives you the grace and courage to do what He is calling you to. may God be with you.
 
I am one of the ones sitting in the pew while the rest are going up for Holy Communion. Hopefully soon I will be able to receive it once again. I pray for this.

You are not alone. If it helps: know that I am sitting in the pew like you and we can pray for eachother.
 
40.png
PeterC:
I am among the millions of Catholics who have divorced and remarried. My first marriage was for 19 years while my present marriage has been for over 20 years and will last forever. My first marriage was, indeed, a true marriage. I am who I was and I was who I am. I know a marriage that was not a true union can be annulled. I was a bad guy and left the marriage. I make no excuse that I was not really married.

I do not receive Holy Communion. Tears stream down my face every Sunday as the faithful receive. I don’t budge but I pray to receive Jesus in spirit. I feel the pain of His physical absence. I feel the joy of receiving Him is spirit.

I look around this fairly large church and watch the faithful receive. It seems like almost all of those in attendance receive. Maybe there are two or three like me who abstain.

Where are all the others like me? In a different church? I do not want to deny them and I don’t resent them. I just wonder where the millions of Catholics like me are. Are they receiving anyway? Are they compounding a sin every week by receiving?

What should a person like me do who will not have a marriage annulled? What circumstances must exist for me to receive Holy Communion?
Click to expand...
I am divorced, not remarried. I will not remarry. I believe that my marriage was valid, that is that there was no impediment at the time of my marriage (there is one possible impediment, a technical one) that would make my marriage null. I am simply afraid to persue the one possible impediment through a tribunal because I don’t trust the tribunals. They seem to give decrees of nulity for any and all reasons. God cannot be fooled and I don’t want some tribunal issuing a false decree of nulity thus possible leading me into a state of perpetual adultry.

You ask what you can do to recieve Holy Communion. Well, you must look at the underlying reason for not being able to receive Holy Communion. The reason is not, ‘because it’s the rule.’ The reason is because for you to receive Holy Communion would be a mortal sin of sacrilege. Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things, or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present for us. (CCC # 2120).

What would be the profanation? It would be the reception of the Eucharist while in a state of mortal sin ie adultry. What you must do is eliminate the state of mortal sin, adultry. You could do this several ways. You could ask the Church to examine your first marriage and determine if it was valid or null. You could separate from your “second wife” thus eliminating the adultry and then confess this in a good confession and reconcile with the Church. You could stay with your “second wife” by living as brother and sister in a chaste relationship (probably very hard to do, but possible with God’s grace), and then confess your past sin in a good confession and reconcile with the Church. Those are the only three courses of action that I know of that would allow you to return to the Sacraments. None of them are easy, but consider this. Why do you not go to Communion unless you recognize that you are in a state of sin? If you recognize this, what is your destiny if you should die? Is this the destiny that you desire? If it is not the destiny that you want (and I presume that it is not since you are conscientious enough to not receive Euchrist) then it is time for you to resolve the issue before judgment day.

I doubt this post will give you a “good” feeling, but I have tried to be honest with you. Remember, you did ask.
 
Uhh the church is pretty easy post vatican 2 on the annullment process of one marriage gone wrong there are many things taken into consideration.

Before judging the church why don’t just go through the proper channel she is far more forgiving than your painint her to be.
 
What should a person like me do who will not have a marriage annulled? What circumstances must exist for me to receive Holy Communion?
Click to expand...
Peter, there are only two circumstances that will allow you to receive Holy Communion, if you will not even try to have your first marriage annulled: either you separate from your current “wife” or you and she must live like brother and sister - separate rooms, no sort of contact that can lead to intimate relations. Why? Because you are living in a state of adultery. That means that, objectively, you are living in a continuing state of mortal sin.

The truth is very difficult to face, but this is the truth. The only way you can receive absolution in confession is to stop living in your present circumstances. And the only way you can worthily receive Holy Communion is to be in a state of grace, which, at present, you are not.

Why do you not at least consult with a good priest to determine if there are any grounds for annullment?
 
While I cannot feel your pain, since I was never married before my current marriage, I cannot help but think how unfair and arbitrary our system of deciding who should go to Holy Communion and who shouldn’t. While I’m not advocating going against the teachings of the Church, it hurts to see certain sins, especially the “more visible” ones, enforced while others, possibly much more heinous, ignored.

If rules were really centered around the “New Testament interpretation” of the OT rules Jesus gave us, there would be very few of us who ever approached the Eucharist. Today’s gospel, for example, is about the pharisee and the tax collector. There are lay ministers of Holy Communion who voice a similar attitudes as the pharisees in parish meetings, then go receive and hand out communion. Similarly, Jesus said anyone who says to his brother “you fool” is liable to fiery gehenna. Similarly, I have seen even the parish leaders display anger, intolerance and name-calling toward others and then present themselves for Communion. If those of us who broke rules that Jesus seemed to consider at least as serious as those that are defined as “mortal sins” didn’t go to Communion, you could do away with practically the whole wafer budget.

You are bound by something that happened 20 years ago, and probably causes no on-going unhappiness for anybody. All things are possible with God. There has to be a way to get on with life short of leaving your current wife, which undoubtedly will add additional injury to that which already exists. Maybe there is a way to get an annulment. Then again, what do I know? I’m just whining.

I will keep you in my prayers.

Alan
 
40.png
Carolyn:
I am one of the ones sitting in the pew while the rest are going up for Holy Communion. Hopefully soon I will be able to receive it once again. I pray for this.

You are not alone. If it helps: know that I am sitting in the pew like you and we can pray for eachother.
Click to expand...
I am in RCIA.

I don’t sit in the pew. I go up (with arms crossed) and get a blessing.

I understand that sacramentals can incline and make reception of the sacraments more likely. CCC 1670 in part reads “Sacramentals … prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it.”

Sometimes the blessing I get really seems to be such a powerful blessing.

PeterC: You aren’t the only one being harmed in your current situation (your 2nd wife is in your current marriage too). Please talk with your priest and see if you can get your first marriage annulled.

PeterC: Sure, you left your first marriage and say you are the bad guy. But if there was a reason why your first marriage wasn’t really a marriage, then it may have contributed to why you left. And if your first marriage can be annulled, then doesn’t that make it more possible that God will work with your present wife? And perhaps you have children also? So do it for them. Get the annullment if you can.
 
40.png
All4lifetoo:
I am divorced, not remarried. I will not remarry. I believe that my marriage was valid, that is that there was no impediment at the time of my marriage (there is one possible impediment, a technical one) that would make my marriage null. I am simply afraid to persue the one possible impediment through a tribunal because I don’t trust the tribunals. They seem to give decrees of nulity for any and all reasons. God cannot be fooled and I don’t want some tribunal issuing a false decree of nulity thus possible leading me into a state of perpetual adultry.
Click to expand...
I am only in RCIA. It seems to me that if the tribunal is valid then their decisions are valid. It seems to me that you are being too hard on yourself. It seems to me that you need to be truthful to the tribunal and accept their decision.
 
40.png
PeterC:
My first marriage was, indeed, a true marriage. I am who I was and I was who I am. I know a marriage that was not a true union can be annulled. I was a bad guy and left the marriage. I make no excuse that I was not really married.
Click to expand...
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Sunday Tears for 3 years.

Painful as it is, your doing the right thing.

Now finish the job!

Go through the annulment process. Do it now.

Let the Church decide if your marriage was a “true marriage” or not, and then take appropriate action.

If you were a “bad guy” how can you be so sure that you were capable of making a valid sacramental mariage vow?

It’s not an “excuse” that lets you off the hook for being a “bad guy”. No one will deny that you were “married”.

The question is were you married, in the eyes of God and his church. How many participants were there in your marriage? If the answer is two. You were one short.

Let the Cannon Lawyer’s do their job.

Go through the process. Find out what those who knew and loved you (and maybe some who knew but didn’t love you), thought about the ability of you and your spouse to make such a commitment at the time of your marriage.

Get started now. It could take another year to complete the process.

Worse case scenario, perhaps you can close some old wounds. Though I warn you. You may have to open them up and pour some salt into them before they get closed for good.

God bless you,

If you’d like to chat some in detail feel free to let me know.

Chuck
 
40.png
PeterC:
My first marriage was, indeed, a true marriage. I am who I was and I was who I am. I know a marriage that was not a true union can be annulled. I was a bad guy and left the marriage. I make no excuse that I was not really married.
Click to expand...
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Sunday Tears for 3 years.

Painful as it is, your doing the right thing.

Now finish the job!

Go through the annulment process. Do it now.

Let the Church decide if your marriage was a “true marriage” or not, and then take appropriate action.

If you were a “bad guy” how can you be so sure that you were capable of making a valid sacramental mariage vow?

It’s not an “excuse” that lets you off the hook for being a “bad guy”. No one will deny that you were “married”.

The question is were you married, in the eyes of God and his church. How many participants were there in your marriage? If the answer is two. You were one short.

Let the Cannon Lawyer’s do their job.

Go through the process. Find out what those who knew and loved you (and maybe some who knew but didn’t love you), thought about the ability of you and your spouse to make such a commitment at the time of your marriage.

Get started now. It could take another year to complete the process.

Worse case scenario, perhaps you can close some old wounds. Though I warn you. You may have to open them up and pour some salt into them before they get closed for good.

God bless you,

If you’d like to chat some in detail feel free to let me know.

Chuck
 
I think the key question is “Were you in a sacramental marriage?”, not “Were you in a true marriage?”

I would encourage you to explore the processes for determining the sacramental validity of your first marriage. Although I’ve never been through it, I understand that the process itself is very healing. The Church wants you in full communion, because if any member of the Body suffers, we all suffer.
 
Why do some of you keep telling Peter to get an annulment? He already said his first marriage was true. Stop with the annulment angle. Peter is being honest with himself and with God.

I am in almost the same boat as Peter. I was the bad guy and now I am doing pennance for it and will be for the rest of my life.
 
PeterC,

I will pray for you. There are a couple of things for you to consider in terms of an annulment. You and your first wife may not have a sacramental marriage. If this is the case, you owe it to both your current wife and your “first” wife to inquire about this. Your first wife suffers under the same burden that you carry. If the first marriage is not a sacramental marriage, and if it is because of something based on “your part,” then you are doing your first wife an even greater disservice and injustice by not pursuing the annulment.

You must place all of your trust in the Lord. I believe that your inquiry on this forum is because the Holy Spirit is placing a prompting in your heart. The fact that you still attend mass and do not partake of the Eucharist is a testimony to your character. This does not go unnoticed by the Lord. Pray constantly for guidance and seek out a good and holy priest for counseling.

Please be assured that Catholics on this forum will put you in their prayers.
 
I was in a related boat. My first marriage had lasted nearly 20 years, and I was sure it was valid. I was adamant about not obtaining an annulment, because it would be a lie. But I could not join the Catholic Church without obtaining an annulment, so I broke down and went to talk with the priest.

It turns out that my first marriage was null because of some obscure requirement in canon law that most people have never heard of, and my annulment went through in under a week. There was no question of whether the tribunal acted improperly, as it was a “documentary” case.

So it turns out that none of the feelings that I had about the validity of the marriage, nor the child the first marriage produced, had anything to do with it. Because of Vatican II, the one true Catholic Church, which has the power over all the sacraments, had introduced a rule which, without me even knowing about it, made my marriage invalid.

Now I could say that the rule doesn’t count, and my first marriage really was valid because of my feelings. But the reason I joined the Catholic Church was so that I could submit to her authority, instead of relying on my own feelings. So here I am.
 
40.png
chrisg93:
Why do some of you keep telling Peter to get an annulment? He already said his first marriage was true. Stop with the annulment angle. Peter is being honest with himself and with God.

I am in almost the same boat as Peter. I was the bad guy and now I am doing pennance for it and will be for the rest of my life.
Click to expand...
Well…let’s see because for 3 years I was “absolutely sure” that my marriage was valid.

In my case my ex was the “bad guy”. Of coures we had a valid marriage. “She” just blew it…

Then I went through the annulment process and saw what my family, and friends, and most importantly my ex-wife, were thinking when we got married.

And the process gave me the opportunitity to answer a list of questions that it had never even occured to me to ask myself.

When I was done “I was absolutely sure” that neither I nor my wife of 10 years were capable of making a valid sacramental commitment.

Took me 3 years to complete the process, because I didn’t like the answers it was giving me.

It was bad enough that my marriage had failed. I didn’t want to accept that, though I was a “Catholic” in name, God was never invited to participate in my life or my marriage (by me or my spouse.)

If I was that mistaken about something that important, how wrong could I be about other things?

I’ve learned a very valuable lesson. I may not always like what the Church tells me. But I’ll take what the Church has to tell me about Faith and Morals (and in this case my marriage) over my own limited and narrow understanding of the subject.

I’m through being my own pope (and sometimes god.)

In watching the care and effort that the cannon lawyers put into defending and prosecuting my marriage, I do not in any way accept the proposition that the Chuch grant’s annulments in some willy nilly fashion. Or based on technicalities.

If you have a valid Sacramental marriage, that is exactly what they will come back and tell you. If you don’t then they’ll tell you that too.

Well…you did ask…

Chuck
 
40.png
chrisg93:
Why do some of you keep telling Peter to get an annulment? He already said his first marriage was true. Stop with the annulment angle. Peter is being honest with himself and with God.

I am in almost the same boat as Peter. I was the bad guy and now I am doing pennance for it and will be for the rest of my life.
Click to expand...
Dear chrisg93,

I have a lot of respect for your comments. You seem to be looking at the spirit of the law, rather than the law itself. Legalists who teach strict obedience to the Church too easily can let the wordly Church give them license for something they want to do. Of the posters on this thread, I believe they are honestly trying to tell Peter that the Church may excuse him, and maybe that’s valid if you really believe that what the Church looses on earth is loosed in heaven. However, your point seems to be that we should follow Christ’s teachings even if we think we can “get away with it.”

On the other hand, all things are possible with God. What God has joined let no man separate. If the Church is acting in God’s behalf, I would suppose that God, through His Church can separate the two. It would seem that the Church restricting herself to only separating the two if they were never actually joined in the first place, is an unnecessary restriction of her powers; therefore I’m tempted to say why not go for it?

The problem I have, is that I can argue practically everything into seeming moral. Sometimes I think that’s how Christ can forgive sins; he has an open enough mind to conjure up a scenario in which any given act, though evil in its appearance, is committed by a good person who is innocent, or at least ignorant. If we keep an open mind we, too can forgive sins by recognizing that we cannot read hearts but only outward appearances. Exception to every rule: that is, if you’re not a saint with the gift of reading souls.

Alan
 
'Why do some of you keep telling Peter to get an annulment? ’

well, basically the answer is this: because we want our friend to be free of the state of perpetual mortal sin in which he is living. it’s not just that he has to miss the eucharist, while that’s painful enough. he is living in a state of sin. he is not receiving the graces of God. this is a very dangerous place to live.

we want our friend to move out of this place, and into a life of grace and mercy. to do so, he must either leave his current wife or have his first marriage annulled. most people i know find the idea of leaving their wife very difficult, painful, and impossible. so the alternative is annullment.

in any case, we are praying (i prayed for you both (peter and carolyn) in mass tonight) for these folks to move out of sin and into the light and grace that God freely offers us every day.

may God be with you.
 
This all brings up an interesting point. Interesting to me, anyway.

If the Tribunal finds in favor of an annulment, I understand that means the prior “marriage” wasn’t valid to begin with.

If the Tribunal finds that the prior marriage was valid, then it will deny the annulment.

Unless I am mistaken about the above two facts, it would seem the function of the Tribunal is not to forgive or otherwise change one’s status before God, but to ascertain one’s status before God.

What spiritual good, then, can going through the Tribunal possibly do, unless in the case of a valid prior marriage you are actually willing to leave your current wife, and simultaneously urge your ex-spouse to break up with her current lover?

If you aren’t going to do that, why bother? Your status before God isn’t going to change; only your status before men. Sure, those men can refuse you Communion but if it was a valid marriage then the Tribunal can’t change it. If it was an invalid marriage then you are being punished unjustly by being denied the Eucharist and will be blessed in heaven.

Alan
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top