Glad to hear you got a call back. Even if you aren’t Catholic, or planning on becoming one, it is good that you are willing to learn more about her faith. If nothing else, understanding where she is coming from will be helpful even if you don’t agree. I wish you the best of luck and pray that you both continue to grow both in faith and understanding.
It’s easy.
Couldn’t actually type the quote/unquote to demonstrate because I kept ending up with quotes that didn’t make sense.
Exactly. One reminder, though: the process – even to the “judge and jury” – isn’t like a secular court: you’re never trying to prove your innocence (or on the other hand, your ex’s guilt). You’re trying to help the tribunal answer the question, “was this couple in a valid marriage?” Sometimes, the answer deals with issues on one spouse’s side, sometimes the other spouse’s, and sometimes, on both. It’s never about pointing a finger and saying “it’s their fault, not mine!”. Sometimes, though, it’s about admitting that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t enter into the marriage with the right mindset. And, however the process goes, your priest (and whomever gets assigned to your case as your advocate) is there to help you through the process…
But what if the secretary was really, really cute?
In my eyes there isn’t anyone better and never will be. She has changed my life and feel I owe her the world. No other woman’s appearance matters anymore. She ask me sometimes if I think so and so is attractive and I can honestly say to her that I have no opinion. I think she is stunningly beautiful and I feel like the John Hiatt song “Angel Eyes” is playing in my head all the time when I think about how we ended up together.
Seriously, though… marriage vows are “till death do us part”, and not “till someone better comes along”… right?
I know you are not Catholic, but SHE is, no? It’s not right to cohabitate, especially if she’s really Catholic, putting herself in occasion of sin.
Seems to me you’re putting yourself in the occasion of sin as soon as your start dating someone that you find attractive enough to someday marry and have sex with. The desire is there and there is an opportunity to falter anytime you’re in the physical presence of the other person.
OH yeah, I definitely missed that part! Sorry about that.
It’s good for you to come to this forum and learn about the faith of your fiancee.
Well, you are asking for permission to marry in this Church, so it seems logical to give the Church the authority to see if you are actually free to marry.
The Church presumes that all first marriages are valid, until given a reason to determine it was not valid.
And that’s precisely what the Christian definition of marriage includes: till death do us part. Here’s the thing, though: it doesn’t just hold while “Angel Eyes” are playing; it holds, too, while the theme to “Married… with Children” is playing and the marriage isn’t the “rainbows and butterflies” experience the couple might have expected. It holds while “Fatal Attraction” and “Unfaithful” are playing, too – begging these characters to remember their vows and not stray.
Except that you need to consider the situation, don’t you? If you’re sitting across from one another at a table in a restaurant, are you in a context that leads to sin? (Probably not, I’d hope.) On the other hand, if the two of you are back in your apartment, alone, with the lights down low and ‘Angel Eyes’ playing on the stereo, then are in a context that leads to sin? (Very possibly.) The notion of “the near occasion of sin” urges us to avoid situations like the latter, not ones like the former. It’s not the “desire”, so much as it’s the act of intentionally putting oneself in a situation which could reasonably be expected to lead to sinful acts.
If you’re out in public and each going home to different places, it’s less likely to happen than if you’re home all weekend together, with neither of you having anyplace else to go.