How to Respond Gracefully - Gay Friend Getting Married

[HomeschoolDad]

cecilia56:

being at the wedding would mean I am celebrating and being witness to what I believe is wrong, destructive, and ultimately a path to unhappiness.

We all have our own beliefs about what is right and wrong, but how can we know what is going to make someone else happy or unhappy? I doubt that marrying someone of the opposite sex is going to make a gay man or a lesbian happy. And remaining single and celibate is unlikely to be a source of happiness either. But what do I know about what makes someone else happy. Maybe some people are happy being married to another person to whom they are not sexually attracted. And maybe some people are happy living alone and not being in an intimate relationship for their entire life.

Happiness, as in a feeling of being satisfied and untroubled in the temporal realm, is not the be-all and end-all of everything. It may not be God’s Will for you to be happy in this life, or probably better put, as “happy” as you would be, if you could have that thing that you really, really want. Our Lady of Lourdes told St Bernadette “I do not promise you happiness in this world but in the next”. The faithful Christian will seek and find great joy in knowing that God’s Will is being done regardless of one’s own wishes, but not everybody is at that point in their spiritual life. I myself have failed to do this at times in my own life. One other book my catechist had me read in my baptismal preparation was Power in Praise by Merlin Carothers. (Incidentally, it is not specifically a Catholic book.) In a nutshell, Carothers points out how we must praise God for all things, even those things that are against our wishes. I heartily recommend it.

https://www.christianbook.com/power-in-praise-merlin-carothers/9780943026015/pd/222003

 

[27lw]

Thorolfr:

cecilia56:

being at the wedding would mean I am celebrating and being witness to what I believe is wrong, destructive, and ultimately a path to unhappiness.

We all have our own beliefs about what is right and wrong, but how can we know what is going to make someone else happy or unhappy? I doubt that marrying someone of the opposite sex is going to make a gay man or a lesbian happy. And remaining single and celibate is unlikely to be a source of happiness either. But what do I know about what makes someone else happy. Maybe some people are happy being married to another person to whom they are not sexually attracted. And maybe some people are happy living alone and not being in an intimate relationship for their entire life.

Happiness, as in a feeling of being satisfied and untroubled in the temporal realm, is not the be-all and end-all of everything. It may not be God’s Will for you to be happy in this life, or probably better put, as “happy” as you would be, if you could have that thing that you really, really want. Our Lady of Lourdes told St Bernadette “I do not promise you happiness in this world but in the next”. The faithful Christian will seek and find great joy in knowing that God’s Will is being done regardless of one’s own wishes, but not everybody is at that point in their spiritual life. I myself have failed to do this at times in my own life. One other book my catechist had me read in my baptismal preparation was Power in Praise by Merlin Carothers. (Incidentally, it is not specifically a Catholic book.) In a nutshell, Carothers points out how we must praise God for all things, even those things that are against our wishes. I heartily recommend it.

Power in Praise: Merlin R. Carothers: 9780943026015 - Christianbook.com

All things? Really - praise God even for sin? Overt sin? The devil? Are you saying we should praise God for sin and the devil? This sounds almost like the New Age philosophy of Marianne Williamson and “A course in miracles”.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

All things? Really - praise God even for sin? Overt sin? The devil? Are you saying we should praise God for sin and the devil? This sounds almost like the New Age philosophy of Marianne Williamson and “A course in miracles”.

No, not sin, I would think obviously not. I mean praising God for misfortune, loss, injury, poverty, loneliness, anything you can imagine, that is not sin. I have found great power in that throughout my life, and I have borrowed myself a lot of trouble and heartache when I failed to do it.

I’m deeply thankful I read that book.

 

[porthos11]

In college, I became close friends with a small group of girls. After college, one of them came out as lesbian and began dating another girl. They just got engaged, and I am expecting to be asked to be a bridesmaid or participate in the wedding in some way.

My friends know that I am a devout Catholic, but I think they may expect me to put my beliefs aside in the name of friendship. Of course, if I only act out my beliefs when it’s easy, they mean nothing. I know I cannot participate in this wedding.

Does anyone have any advice about how to handle this situation? What words to use, ways to explain it, etc.? I know this is going to hurt my friends’ feelings, but I don’t want to totally destroy our friendship or make them hate Christianity.

Loss of friendship (and even family) is a cost many of us may have to face when we choose Christ. The Lord himself told us that. A gay “wedding” is a celebration of a sinful situation. Catholics are best reminded that we incur guilt by cooperating in others’ sins. Remember these nine ways we can sin by cooperation in the sins of others:

• By counsel
• By command
• By consent.
• By provocation
• By praise or flattery
• By concealment
• By partaking
• By silence
• By defense

Attending such an event may cause you to incur guilt by cooperating in at least three of these criteria: by consent, by praise, and by partaking.

Staying away from such an event is not because you hate them or even because you disapprove of them. It’s because you want to prevent yourself from falling into sin. It is your soul you are looking out for in the first place.

 

[Thorolfr]

27lw:

All things? Really - praise God even for sin? Overt sin? The devil? Are you saying we should praise God for sin and the devil? This sounds almost like the New Age philosophy of Marianne Williamson and “A course in miracles”.

No, not sin, I would think obviously not. I mean praising God for misfortune, loss, injury, poverty, loneliness, anything you can imagine, that is not sin. I have found great power in that throughout my life, and I have borrowed myself a lot of trouble and heartache when I failed to do it.

I’m deeply thankful I read that book.

My Dad has Alzheimer’s. Should I praise God for that? I don’t think so.

 

[27lw]

Exactly – sometimes there’s a silver lining in a situation, but that doesn’t mean we praise God for evil.

 

[Irishmom2]

My Dad has Alzheimer’s. Should I praise God for that?

What would the alternative to not praising him be?

 

[TheLittleLady]

Remember these nine ways we can sin by cooperation in the sins of others:

• By counsel
• By command
• By consent.
• By provocation
• By praise or flattery
• By concealment
• By partaking
• By silence
• By defense

Source for this? I hear it often, yet, cannot find that list in an official document. Catechism uses the word “flattery” twice, once in the section on lying

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a8.htm#2480

and again in the section about the desire to see God:

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a0.htm#2550

 

[porthos11]

It’s pretty much stated there in #1868. May not be enumerated in the traditional 9, but it’s still all covered.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Philippians chapter 4, verse 4 - 13

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bible.usccb.org

 

[TheLittleLady]

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them :

- by participating directly and voluntarily in them; so we are responsible for sins if we enter voluntarily into a same sex marriage. That makes sense

- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; “Hey Dan, I want to hook you up with Brian” “Hey Brian, you are a legend at fornication! Way to go!!” “Dan, I approve of you dating my brother, Herman.”

- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; The qualifier there is “when we have an obligation” this speaks to our authority over that person.

- by protecting evil-doers. Before/where secular laws permit marriages between two same sex persons, running a protected undergroundd gay marriage chapel?

 

[porthos11]

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them :

- by participating directly and voluntarily in them; so we are responsible for sins if we enter voluntarily into a same sex marriage. That makes sense

- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; “Hey Dan, I want to hook you up with Brian” “Hey Brian, you are a legend at fornication! Way to go!!” “Dan, I approve of you dating my brother, Herman.”

- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; The qualifier there is “when we have an obligation” this speaks to our authority over that person.

- by protecting evil-doers. Before/where secular laws permit marriages between two same sex persons, running a protected undergroundd gay marriage chapel?

#1868 is about your personal culpability in participating in the sins of others. This is not about the gay couple themselves, who don’t sin according to this framework, but rather against the Sixth Commandment, dealt with elsewhere. This section applies to those who attend.

Attending a gay “wedding”, according to the framework of #1868 makes you guilty of cooperation in the sins of others (thereby resulting in you also incurring sin):

By participating. When you attend such an event as a bridesmaid, for example, that is a direct participation. When you officiate, or serve in some essential role that brings the event to completion.

By approval. You sin by approval when you stand up and raise your glass to them. When you congratulate them. And merely by being there, you show you approve of what they’re doing.

When you make a nice speech for them, you also participate in their sin by praise.

And if your example sends the wrong message to others, like your children, then your sin takes on the additional element of scandal.

You don’t necessarily have to meet all of these criteria to be guilty by cooperation. One is already culpable when you cooperate through one.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

27lw:

All things? Really - praise God even for sin? Overt sin? The devil? Are you saying we should praise God for sin and the devil? This sounds almost like the New Age philosophy of Marianne Williamson and “A course in miracles”.

No, not sin, I would think obviously not. I mean praising God for misfortune, loss, injury, poverty, loneliness, anything you can imagine, that is not sin. I have found great power in that throughout my life, and I have borrowed myself a lot of trouble and heartache when I failed to do it.

I’m deeply thankful I read that book.

My Dad has Alzheimer’s. Should I praise God for that? I don’t think so.

I wouldn’t go to the cross telling another person that they should praise God for the illness of a loved one — others will have to do as they see fit. I can tell you that I just got back from the medical center where I’d taken my father to see if he had cancer or not. He didn’t. Apparently just nerve damage from an injury (he had bitten his tongue a few weeks ago and hasn’t been able to talk plain since, also swelling) — not fun, but not fatal either. We first ruled out a stroke, and now cancer has been ruled out. It doesn’t get much better than that! Admittedly it’s easier to praise God for good outcomes, than for bad ones, but I was prepared to offer praise either way. My mother has been inconsolable and she is having her first “good” day in weeks.

One flaw I see, if you can call it that, is that it kind of feels like trying to “play reverse psychology on God”, which is inherently unappealing. The key is to get to the point of not having any preferences on anything, and being resolved to accept whatever God sends, good, bad (to our lights), or indifferent. The Jesuits approach this from one angle (detachment) and the Buddhists approach this from another angle (renunciation of craving). Both are right. We can learn much from Buddhism. (I think I’d better keep that sentiment to myself the next time I go to the diocesan TLM, too.)

I’ll just put it this way — whenever I have failed to praise God for whatever comes my way, I have done nothing but damage to myself. I have had to learn this the hard way.

 

[jeannetherese]

“when we have an obligation” this speaks to our authority over that person.

Upon what are you basing this opinion regarding authority?
If we see wrongdoing, are we not obligated to try to prevent it? If we are brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t we have obligations to each other? The analysis seems off.

 

[Thorolfr]

Thorolfr:

My Dad has Alzheimer’s. Should I praise God for that?

What would the alternative to not praising him be?

How about, “Why have You allowed my father to be afflicted with this terrible disease?” I might even tell God how angry I am with Him.

And there’s nothing wrong with being angry at God. In Jeremiah 15:18, the prophet says to God:

Why is my pain unceasing,
my wound incurable,
refusing to be healed?
Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook,
like waters that fail.

That’s pretty strong telling God he’s like a “deceitful brook” and like “waters that fail.”

 

[Rau]

Go and celebrate your friend.

What does that mean? The celebration arranged for the couple us to mark an event, not simply the people concerned. How does the OP - holding a catholic view on the nature of same sex intimate relationships - have cause to celebrate this event? There’d be something dishonest in that wouldn’t there?

 

[Irishmom2]

How about, “Why have You allowed my father to be afflicted with this terrible disease?” I might even tell God how angry I am with Him.

You do you then.

As for myself, I don’t question what God sends me. I don’t get angry at him. I accept that it is part of his plan. Yes, I have had sad, bad, upsetting things happen in my life before you ask. Being angry at God doesn’t change any situation.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Through years of spiritual direction, instruction and reading. A Bishop has authority over all of the people in his Diocese. A Priest over his parishioners. Parents over their minor/dependent children. We are also to obey civil laws, so, the civil authorities have authority over us. In school, our Teachers have authority.

I do not have any authority over you, nor of my grown child. Actually, I have no authority over anyone at this stage of my life.

My siblings, extended family, friends, I can give them advice if they wish, however, I have no authority over them.

 

[jeannetherese]

Through years of spiritual direction, instruction and reading

In other words, you are sharing what you teach as official church teaching without documentation? This seems to run counter to your previous insistence that that which is authoritative should be locatable in the catechism.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Thorolfr:

How about, “Why have You allowed my father to be afflicted with this terrible disease?” I might even tell God how angry I am with Him.

You do you then.

As for myself, I don’t question what God sends me. I don’t get angry at him. I accept that it is part of his plan. Yes, I have had sad, bad, upsetting things happen in my life before you ask. Being angry at God doesn’t change any situation.

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www.mysticsofthechurch.com

Her Miraculous Cure- The second miraculous intercession of Therese of Lisieux
On May 17, 1925, when Therese of Lisieux was canonized and became officially recognized as a saint of the Catholic Church, Therese Neumann heard her voice. Softly and distinctly, the saint said to her, "Therese, do you not want to become well?
Therese answered, ''Anything is all right with me: to be healthy, to remain sick, to die, whatever is the will of God.”
The voice continued, "Therese, would it not cause joy to you if you received some relief of your suffering, at least to be able to sit up and walk again?”
Therese answered, "Anything that comes from God causes joy in me.”
Again the voice said: "Therese, I shall obtain for you a small joy. You shall now be able to sit up and to walk, but you will still have much to suffer. However, be not afraid; you have received help through me in the past and I will also help you in the future.”

As St Therese of Lisieux was speaking, it was as though two strong hands lifted Therese from her bed, and after being paralyzed for six and one half years, she found herself completely healed. Not only was she healed of the paralysis, but of the gaping bedsores on her body as well. According to medical reports, some of those sores were deep enough to expose her bone. In a matter of seconds, the sores were completely healed and were covered with a fresh layer of skin.