Receiving Graces in an "Irregular Marriage"

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doanli

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After being told by 2 priests that I could still go to Confession though my husband’s and my first marriages haven’t been annulled, I was told by another 2 that I cannot go to ANY of the Sacraments until the Church blesses our marriage.

This was like a punch to the stomach to me because I was lead up until yesterday that I was receiving graces and in a state of grace because I was in the process of my first marriage being annulled and I was going to Confession.

I cried all the way home and felt like a damned soul. I felt like God may not be hearing my prayers.

I don’t want to go to any other church, if not the Roman Catholic Church, where am I to go?

I’ve worked so hard in the past year to return to the Church and am in love with Christ as well as several devotions.

Does this mean my soul is dead?

My (non-Catholic) husband is livid because I have been in such a state but at least he is going to get to work on his part (his annulment). I don’t know how he is ever going to convert now, but I trust the Lord.

But he did say something that I thought could have come out of the mind of God: Men’s ways are not God’s ways.

I should have sought an annulment, the both of us years ago, but my Faith didn’t matter to me that much until my Mom passed away a year ago, and something inside of me awoke again.

Every devotion it seems includes Communion and Confession---- I cannot do these things so what do I do?

I have a very good case for an annulment and we were both married briefly; he was married to a woman who had 2 husbands before my husband. My husband was an alcoholic, who didn’t want to be married, was gone most of the time, and threatened to throw me out everytime I disagreed with him. (He eventually did one day, where the night before I prayed very hard to God to save the marriage.)

I am beside myself with grief because I love the Church and feel so alone now.

Can someone please help me?
 
you can always go to confession
even those who have been excommunicated can go to confession, which usually is the first step back into communion with the Church

however, if you do go to confession, you should go on to live a life according to standards of the Church. which would mean putting a breaks on any marital relations with your current husband until the first one has been annulled and your current marriage convalidated by the Church. if you don’t, then you’ll be committing the sin over and over again
 
Here is what Pope John Paul wrote about people in your situation (see here):
  1. Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new union, obviously not with a Catholic religious ceremony. Since this is an evil that, like the others, is affecting more and more Catholics as well, the problem must be faced with resolution and without delay. The Synod Fathers studied it expressly. The Church, which was set up to lead to salvation all people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon to their own devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will therefore make untiring efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.
Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.

Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God’s grace. **Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them in faith and hope.
**
However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children’s upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they “take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.”(180)

Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.

By acting in this way, the Church professes her own fidelity to Christ and to His truth. At the same time she shows motherly concern for these children of hers, especially those who, through no fault of their own, have been abandoned by their legitimate partner.

With firm confidence she believes that those who have rejected the Lord’s command and are still living in this state will be able to obtain from God the grace of conversion and salvation, provided that they have persevered in prayer, penance and charity.
 
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church;
[1431](javascript:openWindow(‘cr/1431.htm’)😉 Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of his grace. This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart).24
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One cannot be absolved of a sin if one intends to continue to commit it.
 
Contact the Bishop office within your diocese and request a contact for resolution between the two contradictory positions.
 
doanli said:
After being told by 2 priests that I could still go to Confession though my husband’s and my first marriages haven’t been annulled, I was told by another 2 that I cannot go to ANY of the Sacraments until the Church blesses our marriage.

This was like a punch to the stomach to me because I was lead up until yesterday that I was receiving graces and in a state of grace because I was in the process of my first marriage being annulled and I was going to Confession.

I cried all the way home and felt like a damned soul. I felt like God may not be hearing my prayers.

I don’t want to go to any other church, if not the Roman Catholic Church, where am I to go?
👍:thumbsup:your soul is not dead to think this would be a sign of despair, stop beating yourself up and depend on the Mercy of God. calm yourself down and have a good and honest talk wit your conffessor.
I’ve worked so hard in the past year to return to the Church and am in love with Christ as well as several devotions.

Does this mean my soul is dead?

My (non-Catholic) husband is livid because I have been in such a state but at least he is going to get to work on his part (his annulment). I don’t know how he is ever going to convert now, but I trust the Lord.

But he did say something that I thought could have come out of the mind of God: Men’s ways are not God’s ways.

I should have sought an annulment, the both of us years ago, but my Faith didn’t matter to me that much until my Mom passed away a year ago, and something inside of me awoke again.

Every devotion it seems includes Communion and Confession---- I cannot do these things so what do I do?

I have a very good case for an annulment and we were both married briefly; he was married to a woman who had 2 husbands before my husband. My husband was an alcoholic, who didn’t want to be married, was gone most of the time, and threatened to throw me out everytime I disagreed with him. (He eventually did one day, where the night before I prayed very hard to God to save the marriage.)

I am beside myself with grief because I love the Church and feel so alone now.

Can someone please help me?
Click to expand...
 
Pope John Paul II is truly John Paul the great!

Thank you everyone. I am feeling much better today.

At least I found the devotion I have been looking for…the Divine Mercy of Jesus. 🙂
 
Don’t let yourself get so upset over what people say! Remind yourself that God showed you how much he loves you by taking the punishment on the cross for whatever you do wrong, and that you are trying to do right! 🙂

God judges our hearts. That’s why Jesus was so pleased when the widow gave two pennies: It was all she had; the fact that it was so little was of no consequence.

It’s not clear to me from your original post that you’ve done anything wrong, either – you’re repentant of your sins and are seeking an annulment, to discern whether you are free to engage in sexual relations with your current legal husband, and if you’re currently refraining from the marital act meanwhile, then you should be “in the clear” …
 
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