PreCana

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dragonfly85

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Sorry, I didn’t know where else to post this…

Hi, I live in MO, USA, and my husband and I just got married in May '08. We did not attend any PreCana classes when we we’re asked to. We we’re just too busy. Is our marriage legit? I read somewhere that you HAVE to attend, but I thought we we’re okay if we didn’t. Worried, please answer.

Thanks much!
 
If you are legally married by the state in which you live, and the union you and your husband have created has God in the middle of it, your marriage is legitimate and gives glory to God. Live your married life honoring God and His Word. Hope I was of some help. God bless and congratulations!!!
 
Hi, you were both married in the Catholic Church by a priest? It is wisdom to go to PreCana classes, not a condition of the validlity of marriage. It may be a rule, but it isn’t a condition. If the rule exists it does so in hope of helping people towards wiser handling of their relationships and better understanding of Christian marriage
 
dragonfly85 said:
Sorry, I didn’t know where else to post this…

Hi, I live in MO, USA, and my husband and I just got married in May '08. We did not attend any PreCana classes when we we’re asked to. We we’re just too busy. Is our marriage legit? I read somewhere that you HAVE to attend, but I thought we we’re okay if we didn’t. Worried, please answer.

Thanks much!
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you did not give enough info
are you Catholic? if so, you were bound by Catholic law on marriage, which means to marry another Catholic, in the Catholic Church, witnessed by a Catholic priest or deacon, following suitable preparation that has as its purpose establishing as far as possible your readiness to marry and that the conditions for valid marriage are present, and that you are free to marry and are doing so with full free will consent. Did you marry in the Church?

That preparation can take various forms. One wonders if you were to busy to prepare for marriage how you plan to find time to meet the demands of marriage and family.
 
Thanks for all your replies! I feel better now.

Yes, I got married in a Catholic church by a priest. I am catholic and my husband is catholic. I remember how our priest kinda made a big deal out of going at first, but he didn’t say anything to us afew months later when we met with him again…
So I thought either it wasn’t a big deal or he forgot.

We were too busy with wedding things and work at the time. The wedding is over now and we are less busy. I get plenty of time with my husband, and we do not plan on adopting a child anytime soon.
 
Twenty One years ago, is it really that long,😃 my soon to be wife and I met our parish priest to ask about pre-marriage courses which we were told were mandatory. After talking to him for an hour or so, he told us not to bother. Don’t go hitting your heads over this, just remember, “The family that prays together stays together.”
 
My wife and I married in 1961. I came home on University break and on Saturday night we met with the priest ( my wife had set up every thing else ahead of time,) He knew we were both Catholic School and College educated and knew my wife to be as she had attended highschool in the parish. At 6:30 we met with him. He talked to each of us separately as to our freedom to marry and whether we were entering marriage of our own free will. He then brought us together and said he had to be at the schools basketball game as he was athletic director (the parish had nearly 30 priests in residence) and that all we needed to know was that after the wedding, “Anything goes.” That was it. That was nearly fifty years ago and pre Cana, engaged Encounter, etc. were not yet in place and required.🙂
 
I only post this for others who have not yet married but find themselves in a similar situation.

How can you have time to plan a wedding (a single day), but not find time to plan a marriage (a sacramental lifetime)?

May those of you who did not attend classes and find that you are no worse for wear continue to be blessed by God in your unions.

…flame away if it will make you feel better, but I stand by my question…
 
I feel like we were prepared to spend our lives together. We didn’t need a class to tell us how to live it. We’ve been together 6 years and we have helped each other through good times and bad, we know how to make it work.
 
We didn’t need a class to tell us how to live it.
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Ah, such respect for the accumulated wisdom of the centuries, and the humility involved, is inspiring…:tiphat:
 
dragonfly85 said:
I feel like we were prepared to spend our lives together. We didn’t need a class to tell us how to live it. We’ve been together 6 years and we have helped each other through good times and bad, we know how to make it work.
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If you have all the answers, then why did you bother to post here?
 
You really cheated yourself by not taking advantage of going to the precana classes. However, you can do several things to make your marriage even better…consider a marriage encounter retreat…just plug in Marriage Encounter in your search engine and you can probably find a nearby one to attend to.

Visit the www.foryourmarriage.org website for lots of ways to benefit your marriage as well.

We have been doing marriage prep for couples all the time. And we remind couples that the church is exceedingly wise in expecting couples to first of all marry in a church, because it means that you invited God to the marriage every day of your lives. He makes the same vow to be with you in good times and bad etc…when it feels like the wine has run out as in Cana etc.
And you receive this sacrament every morning you wake up…more often than probably Eucharist…because you are married every day.
So when the church asks you to do marriage prep…they call it marriage prep, not WEDDING DAY PREP, because your marriage is more than just one day…and your wedding is just the first day.

If you want to be good at anything and the best at it, you either practice, rehearse, study,train etc and not just for an hour a day You must dedicate your life to it. So if you want the best in your marriage, you invest the same energy you would into anything else that means the most to you.
So for those couples who think they pulled a fast one with the church…you are the one who lost out. Sadly. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a successful and life long marriage if you make a covenantal committment. The key word here is covenant. That’s what PreCana teaches…the covenantal committment of a marriage.
 
We are adopting because I have a heart condition that my doctor said could get worse if I have them, plus there are thousands of children out there who need a family and the security of a home.

I never said I have all the answers. I just wanted to make sure that our marriage was legit if we did not attend those classes.

Thanks.
 
dragonfly85 said:
We are adopting because I have a heart condition that my doctor said could get worse if I have them, plus there are thousands of children out there who need a family and the security of a home.

I never said I have all the answers. I just wanted to make sure that our marriage was legit if we did not attend those classes.
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Hmmmm, I seem to recall a somewhat different tone:
dragonfly85 said:
I feel like we were prepared to spend our lives together. We didn’t need a class to tell us how to live it. We’ve been together 6 years and we have helped each other through good times and bad, we know how to make it work.
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I never said I had all the answers, but I knew that if we made it 6 years without any problems not attending any kind of class, then we didn’t need to take a class. I’m not saying that I was right with the decision, and I’m not saying I was wrong.

Leave it to God to judge, and please stop judging my husband and I. I was brought up to never judge anyone for what they do or decide to do… but most of you have just shown me that other catholics we’re not brought up the same.

I just was asking one simple question, it was answered, so please stop and leave it at that.

Thank you.
 
dragonfly85 said:
Sorry, I didn’t know where else to post this…

Hi, I live in MO, USA, and my husband and I just got married in May '08. We did not attend any PreCana classes when we we’re asked to. We we’re just too busy. Is our marriage legit? I read somewhere that you HAVE to attend, but I thought we we’re okay if we didn’t. Worried, please answer.

Thanks much!
Click to expand...
Don’t worry…your marriage is valid. The validity is not dependant on following the directives before the event. However if the Diocese requires the attendance- and you promise to attend and don’t then you most likely are guilty of the sin of disobedience…Mortal sin if you intentionally “thought it was ok” to disobey the Church.

In our Diocese the requirement is either attending pre-cana conferences with the pastor or a weekend at “Engagement Encounter” at the Diocesean Center. The “pre-cana conference” requirement was lifted in lieu of our attending Natural Family Planning classes…lot of good that did- we now have four children and on your fifth in five years…all the classes were good for was to teach us how we must perform the marital act (all emissions must be inside the woman’s vagina to be frank and real here)- and that really was news to me- I never knew that and neither did my wife. With my wife’s thyroid condition it makes NFP impossible- we either have to live as brother and sister or have many kiddies…

Ken
 
kleary said:
All the classes were good for was to teach us how we must perform the marital act (all emissions must be inside the woman’s vagina to be frank and real here)
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We don’t do that, and still wouldn’t even if we went to the prep class.
 
dragonfly85 said:
I never said I had all the answers, but I knew that if we made it 6 years without any problems not attending any kind of class, then we didn’t need to take a class. I’m not saying that I was right with the decision, and I’m not saying I was wrong.

Leave it to God to judge, and please stop judging my husband and I. I was brought up to never judge anyone for what they do or decide to do… but most of you have just shown me that other catholics we’re not brought up the same.

I just was asking one simple question, it was answered, so please stop and leave it at that.

Thank you.
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The way you were brought up?

True, other Catholics were not brought up the same. Many of us had authentic Catholic teaching, but most in this day and age have had erroneous teaching.

I can place moral judgement - that does not violate Catholic teaching- only if I condemn you to hell and usurp the judgement seat of Christ would I or others be wrong. In fact, I can say that in your last post, if you meant to say you do not perform the marital act correctly- that you are committing sin- particularly if you know the Church teaches it to be wrong and you do it wrong anyway. Call the NFP office in your Diocese and they will set you straight…and if you would have attended the Pre-Cana classes they would have told you what I was told.

Ken
 
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