Problem w/ Teachings on Marriage

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Seeking_Faith11

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Hello,

I have a problem. I am about to be baptized and confirmed this upcoming Saturday at Easter Vigil. But, I am struggling with the Church’s teaching about the purpose of marriage. Right now, at the young age of 21, I firmly believe that I do not want kids. I know that this desire can change, but if it doesn’t, I realize that means I can not get married. I am having a hard time accepting this fact. So my question is, should I wait to get baptized and confirmed? I really don’t WANT to wait as I honestly feel like there is not other way to go but to the Catholic Church. However, I still feel resist to this particular teaching. Also, does anyone have any advice to overcome this potential disobedience?

Thanks for the help!
 
One of the Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost is Chastity.

One of the Seven Deadly Sins is Lust.

One of the Sacraments is Holy Matrimony.

Chastity is also the Contrary Virtue to defeat Lust.

One of the Sins Against The Holy Ghost is Presumtion upon God’s Mercy.

One of the Sins Crying To Heaven For Vengence is The Sin of Sodom.

We have a choice. Accept the doctrine of Holy Mother Church, or put our souls in peril.

Blunt, but that’s how it is.

You will be in my prayers this evening.
 
Seeking_Faith11 said:
Hello,

I have a problem. I am about to be baptized and confirmed this upcoming Saturday at Easter Vigil. But, I am struggling with the Church’s teaching about the purpose of marriage. Right now, at the young age of 21, I firmly believe that I do not want kids. I know that this desire can change, but if it doesn’t, I realize that means I can not get married. I am having a hard time accepting this fact. So my question is, should I wait to get baptized and confirmed? I really don’t WANT to wait as I honestly feel like there is not other way to go but to the Catholic Church. However, I still feel resist to this particular teaching. Also, does anyone have any advice to overcome this potential disobedience?

Thanks for the help!
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You are at the right age to be discerning your vocation right now.
You aren’t married, and you didn’t say if that is in the near future for you, so you have time.

You post title was “Problem with Teachings on Marriage.” Usually people don’t really have problems, but they have a misunderstanding about the teachings of marriage.

Have you read “Good News for Sex and Marriage” by Christopher West? ascensionpress.com/shop/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=80
That will give you easy to access information on the Church’s teaching of the purposes of marriage. It will help you to discern your calling to the sacrament of marriage. It is a calling to communal living in a family. It is more than a remedy and outlet for our lust.
 
I agree with ‘graceandglory’ - read ‘The Good News on Sex and Marriage.’ Also, pick up ‘Theology of the Body for Beginners,’ also by Christopher West.

They are both great resources - especially the first one. It’s in a Q and A format that pulls no punches… seriously, it’s in your face. But it’s also well-documented and well explained. I read it before I got married and it’s great.

If you do read it, at least start it in the next few days - perhaps reading some after each day of the Triduum. See what you think afterwards.
 
Seeking_Faith11 said:
Right now, at the young age of 21, I firmly believe that I do not want kids. I know that this desire can change, but if it doesn’t, I realize that means I can not get married…So my question is, should I wait to get baptized and confirmed?
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It is great to see such deep thinking from a younger person, but I respectfully think you are trying to run before you crawl. Should you get baptized and confirmed? Let’s see:
  • Do you believe that Jesus was real, the second person of the Trinity, came to Earth, redeemed us by his sacrifice and left us a Church to carry on the work of salvation?
  • Do you believe that Chruch is the Catholic Church?
  • Are you ready to accept and follow, as best you can, the Church’s teachings, even the ones that don’t apply to you now or that you don’t fully understand, knowing that as sinners we all fall but carry on anyway?
    🙂 If you can answer YES to all three, I think Jesus is calling you to baptism and confirmation.🙂
As to the whole marriage/no kids thing: You are 21. Someone ask you to marry them? Maybe your feelings of not wanting kids is Jesus calling you to the religious life or to live your vocation as a single person. Maybe your feelings will change once you delve deeper into the mysteries of Christ’s love. Maybe your feelings are the Devil’s one last futile attempt to keep you from the true Chruch. I humbly suggest you put this out of your mind for now (give it to God in prayer).

On behalf of my fellow Catholics - WELCOME HOME!
 
brigid12 said:
Actually, as a woman I didn’t at all find Mr. West’s writings perverted (and I don’t know Mr. West at all). Also, I’ve spoken with other women about his writings and none of them have said anything negative!🤷
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I invite you to join a couple of Catholic wives groups I am on. He was a topic of conversation on both a few weeks ago. No one saw his “marital suggestions” in a positive light.

From the Remnant article:

*"On Page 93 of Christopher West’s troubling book “Good News About Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions about Catholic Teaching” (Christopher West, Charis Books, Servant Publications, Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), Mr. West presumes to dish out advice on a type of intercourse that’s unnatural even within marriage. I have no intention of quoting the man verbatim since that would constitute yet another scandal. Let it suffice to say that Mr. West teaches there’s nothing “inherently wrong” with this act within marriage so long as it’s used as “foreplay to normal intercourse” even though there are, according to West, “some important health and aesthetic considerations that can’t be overlooked.”

Readers will forgive me for going no further into the sordid details of Mr. West’s “advice”. As one good priest recently noted in reference to West’s “teaching” on the matter, however, “the act is quite literally contra-naturam!” and by giving it the green light in this way, Mr. West displays a “serious and fundamental confusion at the level of the natural law. How is it that a man who is incapable of giving the right answer with respect to sodomy—one of the few intrinsically evil acts around!—has become widely regarded as a trustworthy teacher of Catholic sexual morality?”*

I, for one, feel very sorry for Mrs. West.
 
brigid12 said:
Actually, as a woman I didn’t at all find Mr. West’s writings perverted (and I don’t know Mr. West at all). Also, I’ve spoken with other women about his writings and none of them have said anything negative!🤷
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I’m a woman too. I really thought that “Good News for Sex and Marriage” was an excellent book and everyone I know that has read it has given it “thumbs up”. I saw one of his talks and even the nuns liked it. These weren’t your liberal, wish-I-could-be-a-priest nuns, but full habit, full novitiate, traditional nuns. He is frank and a bit irreverent but I can’t think of anything he has said or written that isn’t elsewhere in Church teaching.

However, if CW isn’t your style, I also really liked Steven Kellmeyer’s “Sex and the Sacred City”.
 
I actually do know Christopher West, and I have spent some time with him and his wife, Wendy. You have no need to feel sorry for her. Do pray for her. God is using Christopher West mightily, and it would certainly please Satan to destroy him where it counts the most, his family.

Christopher West is one of the saintliest and purest people I have ever met.

While I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion, I don’t think you are being very holy in being so negative about someone you don’t even know.

Christopher West is a human like you are, and I bet you aren’t pleased with 100% of the words you speak, and perhaps someone might take issue with some of them. Perhaps even misconstrue them.

Christopher West is perhaps THE most influential Catholic speaker of Catholic youth today IN THE WORLD, bringing thousands of young people, old people, married, single, and clergy into a deeper relationship with the Lord, with Mary, and tens of thousands of people are committing themselves to purity of heart and chastity in their lives because of his witness.

Instead of dissing him, please pray for him.
 
marymonde said:
You must be a man. Most women I know, including myself, find Mr. West perverted. I am not kidding.

remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/archive-2008-theology_of_the_body.htm
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That was the most immature, intellectually bankrupt article I’ve read in a long time. :rolleyes:
I had more respect for the Remnant newspaper before I read that drivel. Was that a letter to the editor or an article?

Give me a break. Give me something substantial, a theological argument perhaps.
the best the article had to say was this:
Christopher West, a frequent guest on EWTN and a research fellow and faculty member of the Theology of the Body Institute in West Chester, PA (which he founded), is considered an authority on John Paul’s Theology of the Body. But for all of Mr. West’s good intentions, what does it say about TOB when one of its foremost experts—the man who understands it best!—is a “big fan” of rock ‘n’ roll who spent three years siphoning moral lessons from Spider-Man 2 and likes to ‘bang on the drum all day’?
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Since when does watching a Spiderman movie and/or playing an instrument make a difference in one’s theology?

It’s clear from the article, that the author has not spent probably even one hour studying Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
It is based largely on the works of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. It is mystical. It is poetic. It IS Catholic Theology.
 
Seeking_Faith11 said:
Hello,

I have a problem. I am about to be baptized and confirmed this upcoming Saturday at Easter Vigil. But, I am struggling with the Church’s teaching about the purpose of marriage. Right now, at the young age of 21, I firmly believe that I do not want kids. I know that this desire can change, but if it doesn’t, I realize that means I can not get married. I am having a hard time accepting this fact. So my question is, should I wait to get baptized and confirmed? I really don’t WANT to wait as I honestly feel like there is not other way to go but to the Catholic Church. However, I still feel resist to this particular teaching. Also, does anyone have any advice to overcome this potential disobedience?

Thanks for the help!
Click to expand...
Get confirmed and pray for discernment about your vocation. I don’t know anything about you, but just from my own experience…I felt the opposite. I wanted to be a nun and despised the thought of marriage and children because I felt I had a calling to be part of the church in a bigger way. So, I lived my life preparing myself for the convent and found myself miserable. What was wrong? I tried to listen to God and do everything to be a faithful Catholic. My prayer life was the richest it had ever been. I craved going to Mass. Why was I so conflicted? Then what I swore would never happen and I would never want happened. I fell in love and there was no turning back. I tried to fight my feelings in the beginning, determined to join a convent. I prayed that God would open my heart to his will, and everything in my life started to align. I knew I had been fighting to do my will, not God’s and that explained why so suddenly my life turned around. I found my life partner, my purpose, my calling. Marriage has been the most meaningful, spiritually enlightening experience for me.
My point in sharing all of this with you is I hope you will open your heart to God’s will and pray that He will guide you. Don’t let this reservation keep you from sharing in the the spiritual wealths the Catholic Church can provide.
God bless.
 
Thank you everyone for your help. I feel a lot better. Believe_85, thank you especially for your help. I think my problem was that I was thinking that I know what’s best for me instead of fully trusting in God. Your advice helped me realize the importance of praying for God’s will. Thanks again! 🙂
 
graceandglory said:
Christopher West is one of the saintliest and purest people I have ever met.

While I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion, I don’t think you are being very holy in being so negative about someone you don’t even know.

Christopher West is a human like you are, and I bet you aren’t pleased with 100% of the words you speak, and perhaps someone might take issue with some of them. Perhaps even misconstrue them.

Christopher West is perhaps THE most influential Catholic speaker of Catholic youth today IN THE WORLD, bringing thousands of young people, old people, married, single, and clergy into a deeper relationship with the Lord, with Mary, and tens of thousands of people are committing themselves to purity of heart and chastity in their lives because of his witness.

Instead of dissing him, please pray for him.
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This has gone off topic, and for that I am sorry.

I never claimed to be holy. I will speak up against something I think is a disorder in the marital life, like sodomizing your wife. I don’t know how one can misconstrue what the man plainly has written, so I am not “dissing” him. I am confused as to how you see that act bringing a married couple closer to Jesus and Mary.

If you don’t see at least SOME of his writing as perverted, I really do not know what to say, other than I will pray for you and Mr. West.
 
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