Outdoor wedding with no father of the bride--can you help?

[ProWifeMom]

(This is very long - sorry!)

I am so heartsick! My family is falling apart right before my eyes and I don’t know how to stop it. Please help me to help us!!

My daughter is 27 and has been living on her own since she was 21. She used to be our one child that followed the faith most “religiously.” One thing that I’d hoped would change as she grew up was the fact that she has NEVER wanted to have children - she hasn’t .

We now are faced with our daughter choosing to NOT be married by a priest for 2 (possibly 3) reasons:

(1) Since she truly believes she never wants children, she intends to use artificial birth control (in spite of knowing there are natural birth control methods equally “reliable”. She does still hold the church in highest esteem so she could never ‘lie’ about what she intends to do.

She knows that “disqualifies” her from being married by a priest and, because she does not believe it’s a sin so couldn’t very well ask forgiveness for it, she could never again receive holy communion.

(2) She insists on having an outdoor wedding and does not believe that a ceremony MUST take place inside a church. She and her fiance believe God is everywhere and, therefore, they fully believe He WILL approve of their marriage.

My husband suggested they be married in a very private ceremony inside the church beforehand. She said she and her fiance would not believe THAT ceremony will be their “real” ceremony but she did, VERY reluctantly, agree to do that (tho I don’t know how - refer back to reason #1).

(3) The man she intends to marry (also baptized Catholic) was married before by a Justice of the Peace and, in spite of HIS trying his best to remain married, his wife left him for another man after their 7 years of marriage AND left him with their 2 children (aged 2 and 5).

Both my daughter and her husband-to-be believe that, because he had not been married in the church AND because his wife left him and their children, he should be viewed “automatically” by the church as having never been married. They were not planning to actually get the Declaration of Invalidity but (I’m hoping) they may have changed their minds about that.

Here’s where I desperately need your help, please.

Our family is breaking up because, unless our daughter does get married inside the church FIRST, my husband will not attend EITHER the wedding or the reception. While I absolutely understand his reasons, our children are not supporting that decision (our oldest daughter is so furious with him she isn’t even speaking to him now!) I am so very upset - do you have any advice that could help our family come back together?

How could I convince my daughter to NOT use artificial birth control?

Why does the Church NOT allow outdoor weddings??

Please, please help.

Thank you.

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Dear friend,

Your family is not breaking up before your eyes. It apparently has been in disarray for quite some time. Pressuring her to marry in the Church when she refuses to obey the Church’s teachings is pointless. What isn’t pointless, is focussing on the only One who can help. Here is a reflection on His passion. In focussing on how much He loves you and your children, lay the problem at His feet and trust that all will eventually be well. And most of all, TRUST Him–particularly in the midst of what seems to be such a mess. Nothing was ever more of a mess than Calvary. You are in our prayers.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.

Reflection on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ +

The agony in the garden was really the agony in His mind. He suffered the passion in His mind before He suffered it in His body—to the point of actually affecting the latter by sweating blood. But from then on, it was His bodily suffering that affected His mental suffering.

At the base of all His suffering was the one thing that human beings dread the most: rejection. He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and abandoned by all the rest of His Apostles; those He had hand picked as His closest intimates. He was most rejected by those who put Him to death. They not only wanted Him dead, they wanted Him to suffer. They not only considered Him to be worth nothing, they considered Him to be worth minus nothing! This significance was not lost on Him. He felt fully the rejection as each physical agony reminded Him.

So we thank Him for joining us on our human journey and actually choosing to experience what we fear the most.

We thank Him for enduring the arrest and the cruelty of the guards and the Sanhedrin. We thank Him for enduring the cruelty of Pilate who allowed Him to be executed rather than risk his own political ruin—and for the cruelty of Herod who wanted to be entertained by having Him work a miracle. We thank Him for all the time He spent satisfying their preoccupation with themselves, just delaying His ultimate death. We thank Him for the anxiety of that night in a cell.

The next morning He was brutally scourged with such intensity and violence that He became as an aged man in a matter of minutes. His multiple wounds bloodied His entire body. The loss of so much blood not only severely weakened Him; it also caused a severe, throbbing headache that remained with Him for the duration.

We thank Him for this and for the mockery He received when they put a purple cloth on His shoulders and pushed a crown of thorns down into His head which intensified His headache. They blindfolded Him and slapped Him, insisting that He ‘prophesy’ who had hit Him. They spat on Him and beat Him.

He stood at the praetorium in utter disgrace according to the attitude of the crowd—while in reality, He stood in utter glory: almighty God, being present to every person who has ever suffered rejection, joining them in their moment of pain. It was there that He was sentenced to death by crucifixion. Physically, He was utterly miserable. He revealed to St. Bernard that carrying the cross was His most painful agony. He was so weak, He could hardly walk. Nauseous and thirsty, He found the weight of the cross on His shoulder almost unbearable. It most likely dislocated His shoulder. It is not surprising that He fell down on the stone streets that were filthy with animal dung—with the cross on top of Him. And He got up each time.

It was only with the help of Simon of Cyrene that He made it to the top of Calvary. There they drove the nails into the carpal tunnels of His hands, causing pain throughout His upper body. The nail in His feet registered great pain through all the sensitive nerves there. When the cross was righted, His up-stretched arms squeezed His lungs and He began to pant for lack of oxygen. So He had to push down on His crucified feet to push His body up in order to fill His lungs with air. This took great effort because He was so weak. Yet He managed to maintain such effort for three hours of agony which increased gradually as He became weaker moment by moment.

By the end of the third hour, His agony was at its peak. He had come to the point where His strength simply gave out and He suffocated. In this eternal moment as He died, He gave us His life. Transcending time, this moment of divine love is present to us in the tabernacles of the world.

Thank you, Lord. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.