Right. The rest of us continue to get cold bbureaucracy and one small group gets warmth and light.
I don’t mean to sound jealous or anything, but J have spent over 20 years not being jealous. Not complaining, instead offering things up, struggling alone, and why should I continue that road? Hey, Pope Francis, the people in irregular marriages who can’t receive communion are not the only ones out here crying! Its just that the rest of us are crying quietly, privately, the way the Church tells us to. You know people who are in these situations and your heart went out to them, what about the rest of us?
Our Holy Father has never for a moment suggested that a single member of the faithful deserves “cold bureaucracy” under any circumstances. He has repeatedly and clearly told his priests exactly the opposite.
Since you yourself could not receive Holy Communion for six years, you know what that is like! Saying that members of the faithful in that situation are in particular need of “accompaniment” does not say for a second that you were not. It does not say the accompaniment that is the ideal is always going to happen, either.
I don’t think your children are the only ones in need of counselling or spiritual direction to get beyond the residual hurt you feel from the sufferings you went through and the intense loneliness you felt. There are many of us who had to raise our children Catholic without the help of our spouses, but not everyone had the same experience. Realize that you went through something very hard with less help than you needed. Realize that even children from families with two well-formed Catholic parents who were pillors of their parish sometimes leave the Church, much to the great sadness of their parents, while children from families with much more difficulty are stalwart Catholics when they become adults. There are many things luring people away, not just the difficult situation you went through.
You didn’t get the help you needed when you needed it, but it is not too late to find the help you need to help you through what you are suffering
right now. It is very clear that you are still suffering right now. If you read the Pope’s pronouncement as some indication that you have no real needs and the priests can just ignore you, get some help! That is not at all what he meant! He would say, however, that he is not the one who needs defending but you are the one who needs comfort and healing. Yes, though, because of the shortages we have, you have to be proactive and go out and look for it until you find it. Ask God to send you this help. Be as insistent as the widow who badgered the unjust judge in Our Lord’s parable!! In my experience, my prayer did not always supply what I wanted, but it has always supplied what I needed, often from a source I did not expect but sometimes directly from Heaven itself. Be willing to take whatever help is sent, whether it is what you envisioned or not, trust that help will come. It will come.
