"Catholic" Boss Marrying at Botanical Gardens

[Zahmir]

I have a dilemma and I just want some extra support and advice.

My boss is a self-proclaimed Catholic who practices Reiki and is skeptical of the Church and her hierarchy. She is not an extremist and is actually a very pleasant lady. My understanding of her is that she is severely confused. She has not been educated to believe what she believes; she just kinda *feels *that way.

My boss recently got engaged to an atheist who happens to be very spiritual. (I really don’t understand it myself so don’t ask.) She wants to be married with the blessing of the Church, eventually, but she doesn’t want to get married in the Church because it might make her future husband feel uncomfortable. Their plan is to get married at the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis and then go back later and ask to get it blessed.

She talks openly about this, so making conversation about it would not be difficult. Also, I’m not one to be overly shy and I am more than willing to go outside my comfort level to share with her some information.

Question: Is there anything short and sweet I could tell her that could help her question her decision to get married at the Botanical Gardens? I remind you that she’s skeptical of the Church so it might be best to stay away from arguments dependent on the Catechism or the sayings of popes. What I need is just a brief explanation for why it is necessary to get married in the Church to have a “Sacramental Wedding”?

Thanks!

 

[1ke]

Question: Is there anything short and sweet I could tell her that could help her question her decision to get married at the Botanical Gardens? I remind you that she’s skeptical of the Church so it might be best to stay away from arguments dependent on the Catechism or the sayings of popes. What I need is just a brief explanation for why it is necessary to get married in the Church to have a “Sacramental Wedding”?

Thanks!

She is marrying an atheist. Therefore, she will not be having a “sacramental wedding” (assuming he is unbaptized, although it’s possible he was baptized as a child or infant). A Sacrament can take place only between two baptized persons.

It is necessary that she get married according to the laws of the Church if she wants to participate in the Sacraments. If she marries outside the Church she cannot receive Communion.

She should make an appointment to talk to her priest. To marry this atheist in the Botanical Gardens, but still within the laws of the Church, she needs two things:

1. dispensation from disparity of cult
2. permission to marry outside Catholic form (in a location other than a Catholic Church)

It is possible for permission to be granted.

She and her fiance will need to go through Catholic marriage preparation (which they’ll have to do anyway when she wants it convalidated), and she must make promises regarding the baptism and raising of children in the Catholic faith.

Tell her to go talk to the priest before she goes off and marries thinking she can just get it convalidated later. That may not be the case. She should at least get all the relevant info straight from the priest in order to make an educated decision.

 

[Tom]

My boss is a self-proclaimed Catholic who practices Reiki and is skeptical of the Church and her hierarchy.

What is a “self proclaimed” Catholic? Isn’t Reiki a Japanese relaxation technique? Am I wrong? What does this have to do with the Catholic faith? Sorry, I’m confused.

 

[Tom]

My understanding of her is that she is severely confused. She has not been educated to believe what she believes; she just kinda *feels *that way.

I agree. Very confused, kinda like me… LOL

 

[Tom]

What I need is just a brief explanation for why it is necessary to get married in the Church to have a “Sacramental Wedding”? Thanks!

Doesn’t sound like she wants a Sacramental wedding. She probably doesn’t even know the difference.

 

[Zahmir]

No, she does want a “sacramental wedding” but perhaps not a “Sacramental” one. She believes that living out the **spirit **of the Sacrament makes her marriage more valid than others who get married in the Church just for the pretty pictures.

 

[Joe_5859]

1ke gave a pretty good breakdown of things. One thing you might let her know is that, if she goes to get the marriage convalidated later, she’ll have to do the exact same thing she’d have to do to get permission before the wedding (talking to a priest, getting the proper permission from the bishop, taking marriage prep courses, etc.). So, from a purely practical standpoint, her net effort is not reduced by waiting. Actually, if anything, there may be more hoops to jump through after the fact.

The difference is, if she takes care of this stuff beforehand, she can get married knowing that the Catholic Church is behind it from the get go. Even if she’s going more on feeling than doctrine, I would hope that would make some sort of difference to her.

 

[jln]

What is a “self proclaimed” Catholic? Isn’t Reiki a Japanese relaxation technique? Am I wrong? What does this have to do with the Catholic faith? Sorry, I’m confused.

Tom, I’m so relieved to finally (after searching these forums for an hour or so) find a reference to Reiki. On my first trip to these forums, I found a discussion about Reiki, and now I’ve lost it and can’t reply to any of the posts.

Anyhow, you’re right, at least in part, that Reiki is a relaxation technique. One of the many benefits of Reiki is that it relaxes both the practitioner and the recipient. It has nothing to do with the Catholic faith or any other religion. However, it can be a wonderful complementary practice for any religion.

I’ve been Catholic all all my life, and have been attuned to Reiki since this past February. I can’t find any disparity between the two practices. The abiding mantra of Reiki is “for the greatest good.” In my mind and spirit, that’s the same as saying, “if it’s according to God’s will.”

I’m sure there are Reiki practitioners who delve into anti-Christian theologies. There are those in any number of philosophical or religious organizations. But Reiki itself isn’t a theology. It’s a system of using Universal energy to bring balance to dis-eased beings and situations. Reiki can do no harm. It’s completely ineffective as a tool to produce or introduce anything harmful to bodies or souls.

Reiki can have or can lead to deep spiritual ties. But how that happens and what effect it has is up to the spiritual basis already present in the practitioner or recipient.

I hope that Reiki will no longer be seen as a threat to Catholicism or any other established religion. It’s a completely separate entity.

 

[allhers]

What is a “self proclaimed” Catholic? Isn’t Reiki a Japanese relaxation technique? Am I wrong? What does this have to do with the Catholic faith? Sorry, I’m confused.

It has nothing to do with our Catholic faith and is to be avoided.
When aware that it is offered in your Parish, notify the Bishop so it can be stopped!!!

…But like mushrooms, these weird programs keep popping up. A year later at a parish near the one that had the “God is female” program, an ex-nun offered a “healing touch” seminar. Here’s the kicker: At the seminar she elevated her Hindu “guru,” Si Baba, next to Jesus Christ.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, at the next seminar, this misguided ex-nun taught how to “channel spirits.” Two concerned Catholics contacted the Archdiocese about this disaster, and the program was cancelled that very day.

  Whenever you spot a “New Age” program in a parish or at a retreat center or at a Catholic school, I recommend that you contact the bishop about it. The bishops who know the faith are serious about eliminating all the demonic “New Age” programs from their dioceses – if only someone draws it to their attention.

source:lhla.org/appeals/appeal_form-july-2007.htm?PHPSESSID=3569a458d675db6da049758d05dcc340
From Johnnette Benkovic’s site, Women of Grace (Living His Life Abundantly)

As for the boss, tell her to take Ike’s advice in post # 2.

 

[allhers]

Tom, I’m so relieved to finally (after searching these forums for an hour or so) find a reference to Reiki. On my first trip to these forums, I found a discussion about Reiki, and now I’ve lost it and can’t reply to any of the posts.

Anyhow, you’re right, at least in part, that Reiki is a relaxation technique. One of the many benefits of Reiki is that it relaxes both the practitioner and the recipient. It has nothing to do with the Catholic faith or any other religion. However, it can be a wonderful complementary practice for any religion.

I’ve been Catholic all all my life, and have been attuned to Reiki since this past February. I can’t find any disparity between the two practices. The abiding mantra of Reiki is “for the greatest good.” In my mind and spirit, that’s the same as saying, “if it’s according to God’s will.”

I’m sure there are Reiki practitioners who delve into anti-Christian theologies. There are those in any number of philosophical or religious organizations. But Reiki itself isn’t a theology. It’s a system of using Universal energy to bring balance to dis-eased beings and situations. Reiki can do no harm. It’s completely ineffective as a tool to produce or introduce anything harmful to bodies or souls.

Reiki can have or can lead to deep spiritual ties. But how that happens and what effect it has is up to the spiritual basis already present in the practitioner or recipient.

I hope that Reiki will no longer be seen as a threat to Catholicism or any other established religion. It’s a completely separate entity.

What’s Reiki? It’s one of the things I’ve warned against on television, radio, and in public forums.

 It claims to be a harmless method of healing. But it isn’t. It can be a portal to demonic influence. 

 The problem is that many religious sisters have been taken in by the new age and its false spiritualities. And because many pastors aren’t aware of the dangers of New Age occultism, spiritually dangerous programs often sneak in to parishes and retreat centers under the radar. 

  And that’s why you and your loved ones could be placed in a position of spiritual peril.

From Johnnette Benkovic’s site, Women of Grace (Living His Life Abundantly)
Scroll down and read about it.
lhla.org/appeals/appeal_form-july-2007.htm?PHPSESSID=3569a458d675db6da049758d05dcc340

 

[JoeBlow]

Question: Is there anything short and sweet I could tell her that could help her question her decision to get married at the Botanical Gardens?

Reminds me of a line from the Simpsons: “I told you we should have gotten married in a church, instead of out here in the cheap showiness of God’s creation!”

 

[jln]

What’s Reiki? It’s one of the things I’ve warned against on television, radio, and in public forums.

 It claims to be a harmless method of healing. But it isn’t. It can be a portal to demonic influence. 

 The problem is that many religious sisters have been taken in by the new age and its false spiritualities. And because many pastors aren’t aware of the dangers of New Age occultism, spiritually dangerous programs often sneak in to parishes and retreat centers under the radar. 

  And that’s why you and your loved ones could be placed in a position of spiritual peril.

From Johnnette Benkovic’s site, Women of Grace (Living His Life Abundantly)
Scroll down and read about it.
lhla.org/appeals/appeal_form-july-2007.htm?PHPSESSID=3569a458d675db6da049758d05dcc340

Where did you ever hear that Reiki is a portal to demonic influences, Father John? It isn’t that, nor is it a spiritually dangerous program, nor is it an occultism.

I have to respectfully disagree with everything you’ve said in your post. I’m second-level Reiki, and I know in my heart and spirit that I’m still a good-standing Catholic. If anything, my spirituality is much stronger since I found Reiki.

If you can point to one thing (one PROVEN thing) about Reiki that isn’t in line with Catholic teaching, I’ll revise my opinion of your post.

 

[allhers]

Where did you ever hear that Reiki is a portal to demonic influences, Father John? It isn’t that, nor is it a spiritually dangerous program, nor is it an occultism.

I have to respectfully disagree with everything you’ve said in your post. I’m second-level Reiki, and I know in my heart and spirit that I’m still a good-standing Catholic. If anything, my spirituality is much stronger since I found Reiki.

If you can point to one thing (one PROVEN thing) about Reiki that isn’t in line with Catholic teaching, I’ll revise my opinion of your post.

I gave the source in my post, did you read it?

 

[allhers]

Here is something else from the Vatican web site.
New Age are: ancient Egyptian occult practices, Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids, Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism, Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on.(15)

Here is what is “new” about New Age. It is a “syncretism of esoteric and secular elements”.(16) They link into a widely-held perception that the time is ripe for a fundamental change in individuals, in society and in the world. There are various expressions of the need for a shift:

– from Newtonian mechanistic physics to quantum physics;
– from modernity’s exaltation of reason to an appreciation of feeling, emotion and experience (often described as a switch from ‘left brain’ rational thinking to ‘right brain’ intuitive thinking);
– from a dominance of masculinity and patriarchy to a celebration of femininity, in individuals and in society.

In these contexts the term “paradigm shift” is often used. In some cases it is clearly supposed that this shift is not simply desirable, but inevitable. The rejection of modernity underlying this desire for change is not new, but can be described as “a modern revival of pagan religions with a mixture of influences from both eastern religions and also from modern psychology, philosophy, science, and the counterculture that developed in the 1950s and 1960s”.(17) New Age is a witness to nothing less than a cultural revolution, a complex reaction to the dominant ideas and values in western culture, and yet its idealistic criticism is itself ironically typical of the culture it criticizes.
SOURCE: vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html

 

[CentralFLJames]

My boss recently got engaged to an atheist who happens to be very spiritual. (I really don’t understand it myself so don’t ask.) She wants to be married with the blessing of the Church, eventually, but she doesn’t want to get married in the Church because it might make her future husband feel uncomfortable. Their plan is to get married at the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis and then go back later and ask to get it blessed.

You have a profoundly irrational, and if I might add “whacked” condition here. How does desiring “the blessing of The Church” not make her atheist fiancee feel uncomfortable but having the marriage inside a building that reveres the God he does not believe in make him uncomfortable? And on top of all that the atheist is “spiritual”.

Ask her why getting married in the Botanical Gardens does not make her fiancee uncomfortable by calling to mind visions of the Garden of Eden.

Sorry, this wedding does not need a blessing - it needs an simultanious double exorcism…

James

 

[ChrisWRIT]

Where did you ever hear that Reiki is a portal to demonic influences, Father John? It isn’t that, nor is it a spiritually dangerous program, nor is it an occultism.

I have to respectfully disagree with everything you’ve said in your post. I’m second-level Reiki, and I know in my heart and spirit that I’m still a good-standing Catholic. If anything, my spirituality is much stronger since I found Reiki.

If you can point to one thing (one PROVEN thing) about Reiki that isn’t in line with Catholic teaching, I’ll revise my opinion of your post.

I’m not a 2nd level anything, but fortunately I don’t think that is necessary to see that Reiki can be spiritually dangerous, as it is based on an idea about life that is contradictory to Catholic teaching.

From Reiki.org (reiki.org/faq/WhatIsReiki.html)

What is Reiki?
“Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by “laying on hands” and is based on the idea that an unseen “life force energy” flows through us and is what causes us to be alive."

[Emphasis added]

On the other hand, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 365 states (in an infallibly taught point of doctrine) that:

CCC 365
vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p6.htm#II
“The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.”

The soul is what causes us to be alive, not some type of energy. The soul is not the electricity that is found in the functioning of our nervous systems, or the heat generated by our bodies. The soul is spiritual, while heat & electricity are material.

When one compares what Reiki says about itself with Christian teaching makes it apparent that they are contradictory. As such, it is inappropriate for Christians to participate in.

Truth cannot contradict itself, but the principles of Reiki contradict the teachings of the Church. Which one do you want to believe?

God bless,

Chris

 

[ChrisWRIT]

I have a dilemma and I just want some extra support and advice.

My boss is a self-proclaimed Catholic who practices Reiki and is skeptical of the Church and her hierarchy. She is not an extremist and is actually a very pleasant lady. My understanding of her is that she is severely confused. She has not been educated to believe what she believes; she just kinda *feels *that way.

My boss recently got engaged to an atheist who happens to be very spiritual. (I really don’t understand it myself so don’t ask.) She wants to be married with the blessing of the Church, eventually, but she doesn’t want to get married in the Church because it might make her future husband feel uncomfortable. Their plan is to get married at the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis and then go back later and ask to get it blessed.

She talks openly about this, so making conversation about it would not be difficult. Also, I’m not one to be overly shy and I am more than willing to go outside my comfort level to share with her some information.

Question: Is there anything short and sweet I could tell her that could help her question her decision to get married at the Botanical Gardens? I remind you that she’s skeptical of the Church so it might be best to stay away from arguments dependent on the Catechism or the sayings of popes. What I need is just a brief explanation for why it is necessary to get married in the Church to have a “Sacramental Wedding”?

Thanks!

Hi Zahmir,

I suspect you are correct that she is quite confused as to what the Church teaches.

Her practice of Reiki implies that not only is she skeptical & ignorant of Catholic teaching, but apparently does not consider what she might know of the teachings of the Catholic Church to be valid.

No, she does want a “sacramental wedding” but perhaps not a “Sacramental” one. She believes that living out the **spirit **of the Sacrament makes her marriage more valid than others who get married in the Church just for the pretty pictures.

This sounds like she wants to get married in the Church for mental/emotional “pretty pictures” rather than for physical ones.

You may be limited to telling her why her “plan” to get married does not square with the reality of marriage. It doesn’t have to do with the venue, but the Sacrament. The “spirit” of marriage is not marriage. Two people shacking up can call themselves married because they made a youtube video of a “wedding”, but that doesn’t make them married.

Take care,

Chris

 

[allhers]

Another source: Reiki, A Catholic Perspective
in-unity.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=1

 

[jln]

I gave the source in my post, did you read it?

I did, Father. That’s not proof. That’s hearsay, all quoted from the remarks of one woman’s website (which, BTW, contains at least 50% of the text as pleas for money). That author also doesn’t say one thing against Reiki or other energy healing modalities. She talks about individuals who have gone against the Church. That’s up to the individual. It isn’t part of Reiki or any other such healing technique.

 

[Seatuck]

Reiki is not approved by the church.It’s a new age practice . We have been warned to steer clear of these new age practices. See the Vatican Document Jesus The Bearer of the Water of Life

cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=200

Reiki and similar New Age spiritual practices are neither medically credible practices, nor are they compatible with Christianity; indeed, these practices pose serious spiritual risks for those who participate in them. Given the nature of Reiki and similar practices, they cannot be adapted to conform with Christianity. Jesus Christ the divine Healer is the true of source all spiritual healing and freedom (cf. Jn. 8:32), whether that pertains to life on earth or preparing us for life eternal with Him in heaven. Indeed, it is Jesus Christ—“the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn. 14:6), the One came to provide us “life abundantly” (Jn. 10:10)—who should be sought for our spiritual well-being, now and forever.

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html#1.4.%20The%20New%20Age%20and%20Catholic%20Faith