C
casachess
Guest
Hi everyone – this is actually my first ever post here!
SO, here’s our situation. DH and I have known each other since middle school. He joined the military at 18, met and married a girl within a few months of knowing each other. It was a civil marriage. DH is not Catholic, and actually has never been baptized and was barely raised as a Christian at all. He has basically no knowledge of anything, except that Jesus existed and was crucified this one time. His ex-wife is Jewish. They divorced because she was consistently unfaithful during their five years of marriage, the last straw being that she got caught cheating with several men while he was deployed. She wanted an open marriage, so I guess it was to be expected.
Anyway, they divorced, we got together after I don’t know how many years of friendship. We got married in a JOP ceremony – we actually wanted to get married in the Church, but we did not have the time for an annulment before he deployed to Afghanistan, and we wanted to be married before he left. We now have three children. We actually did try to get the marriage annulled and our marriage convalidated, and we had a priest working to help us, but he got sent to another diocese, leaving us with the pastor of the parish who… well, he refused to help in any way, pretty much. He said the only way that we could get the annulment is for DH to be baptized, but he CAN’T be baptized until he gets the annulment! :banghead:
DH got out of the service last year. We moved back to our hometown. We have FINALLY started the annulment process and DH is going through RCIA. I cannot take the Eucharist until all of this is over and our marriage is convalidated, which is difficult, but I’m hanging in there.
ANYWAY, that’s the story. I really am hoping that the annulment will be completed by Easter so that DH can be baptized and confirmed with the rest of his RCIA class – long story short, it has been a long road to get him here, where he’s willing to go through RCIA and start opening his heart to God, and I really worry about him being discouraged at feeling left behind or left out. We have been told by pretty much everyone that the marriage being declared invalid shouldn’t be an issue, being that DH has never been baptized and his ex-wife was (is) Jewish.
My question is, does anyone have any recommendations for a novena for our situation? Especially for the annulment to be processed quickly? If it isn’t, it won’t be the end of the world – our pastor said we would just do the baptism, confirmation, and convalidation all in one big ceremony, which would actually be kind of nice – but still. A novena to pray for the annulment and for our marriage to be convalidated would be much appreciated (or any other prayer recommendations).
SO, here’s our situation. DH and I have known each other since middle school. He joined the military at 18, met and married a girl within a few months of knowing each other. It was a civil marriage. DH is not Catholic, and actually has never been baptized and was barely raised as a Christian at all. He has basically no knowledge of anything, except that Jesus existed and was crucified this one time. His ex-wife is Jewish. They divorced because she was consistently unfaithful during their five years of marriage, the last straw being that she got caught cheating with several men while he was deployed. She wanted an open marriage, so I guess it was to be expected.
Anyway, they divorced, we got together after I don’t know how many years of friendship. We got married in a JOP ceremony – we actually wanted to get married in the Church, but we did not have the time for an annulment before he deployed to Afghanistan, and we wanted to be married before he left. We now have three children. We actually did try to get the marriage annulled and our marriage convalidated, and we had a priest working to help us, but he got sent to another diocese, leaving us with the pastor of the parish who… well, he refused to help in any way, pretty much. He said the only way that we could get the annulment is for DH to be baptized, but he CAN’T be baptized until he gets the annulment! :banghead:
DH got out of the service last year. We moved back to our hometown. We have FINALLY started the annulment process and DH is going through RCIA. I cannot take the Eucharist until all of this is over and our marriage is convalidated, which is difficult, but I’m hanging in there.
ANYWAY, that’s the story. I really am hoping that the annulment will be completed by Easter so that DH can be baptized and confirmed with the rest of his RCIA class – long story short, it has been a long road to get him here, where he’s willing to go through RCIA and start opening his heart to God, and I really worry about him being discouraged at feeling left behind or left out. We have been told by pretty much everyone that the marriage being declared invalid shouldn’t be an issue, being that DH has never been baptized and his ex-wife was (is) Jewish.
My question is, does anyone have any recommendations for a novena for our situation? Especially for the annulment to be processed quickly? If it isn’t, it won’t be the end of the world – our pastor said we would just do the baptism, confirmation, and convalidation all in one big ceremony, which would actually be kind of nice – but still. A novena to pray for the annulment and for our marriage to be convalidated would be much appreciated (or any other prayer recommendations).