Starting to question all the rules

  • Thread starter Thread starter cj76
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I would suggest to help your wife lose weight and improve her health. Try to get her to understand the importance of weekly Mass. Try to lead the family closer to God.

Then I would say, see if you can get the vasectomy reversed. Then be open to life.

What you did was steal at the supermarket. I would go to Confession for that and try to make some sort of amend, like donate money to the food bank at ten times the price of what you stole.

It’s not a competition to get into heaven, but at the same time, it should be your goal. Remember the people who mugged, abused, murdered might be contrite and they might get into heaven.
 
Most definitely, for the supermarket thing I am truly sorry and it was a stupid thing to do just because money was tight. It was only a $1.99 frozen roll of store brand ground turkey.

After 12 years of Catholic schools, yesterday was the first time I ever heard or read that annual confessions were required. My wife grew up going every December and she went to public schools. I consider my parents very religious but they don’t go to confession and I’m shocked. Perhaps they are unaware of the requirement and didn’t pass that along to me. It’s about time I inform them since my mom says it makes her sick worrying about my soul if she knows I miss a Holy Day. (Yes that is a quote directly out of her mouth!)

My wife is pretty good about getting to mass weekly. Like I said, we’ve only missed twice the past year and one of those times I had a fever/sore throat the night before so I’m ok on that instance.

I do most of my praying on the way home from work since it’s the only quiet time I have (we have 2 kids, 6 pets, and a mother in law in poor health living with us.) I’ll do some soul searching about the vasectomy. Before that, we had used condoms. Unfortunately I still don’t regret it at the moment.

Thanks to all for the great responses! I am determined to try to be a better person, a better Catholic, and a better role model for my kids.
 
We were left very confused about NFP after our pre-Cana. The speakers promoting NFP had 5 kids. Not to make excuses, we made our decision and must live with the consequences. Perhaps that couple wasn’t the best to be speakers. They did nothing to explain that they wanted a big family and then wanted to stop after 5 kids.
 
Interestingly 5 children was the average birthrate per woman in Roman times. Although part of that is due to the fact that women had a 10% chance of dying in childbirth.
 
cj76 said:
After 12 years of Catholic schools, yesterday was the first time I ever heard or read that annual confessions were required. .
Click to expand...
No, that’s not correct. The annual requirement for confession is only for those conscious of having committed mortal sin. It’s not a blanket requirement - unlike the ‘Easter Duty’ of receiving Holy Communion ‘at Easter or thereabouts’ which seems to be confused with having to go to confession.
 
Where did He say mutilate yourself for the sake of pleasure, bringing no further children into the world? Where did He say limit your act of giving to your spouse? Where did He say raise up two and no more children? Careful of your argument here.

It’s called a reproductive system, not a recreational system.
 
Catechism 2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.

2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
 
So basically you can’t justify your original statement in the way you initially claimed so you attack my personal choices.
 
I think that the preoccupation with hell is
ingrained into the Catholic dimension of
Spirituality. But when you look at Jesus
mixing w/ Prostitutes and Betrayers(Tax
collectors) and telling parables about
God’s INFINITE treasure of Mercy, you
realize that you have to Balance Church
Teaching w/ God’s Grace for those who
fall short. WE, the baptized, Catholics are
part of God’s family, if we have left Home
or gotten lost, God, like the Good Shepherd
is ALWAYS seeking us, pleading w/ us to re-
pent and humbly ask for forgiveness in the
Sacrament(s)!!
 
Last edited:
You do not have to have the vasectomy reversed. You do have to confess that you did it and that you know it is against church teaching and because of that you repent. You DO NOT have to feel sorrow, you do have to confess.

I agree with the earlier poster that you are suffering from a spiritual attack. Keep praying and researching what is bothering you.

Is it possible for you to attend a daily Mass on your own? Maybe at lunch? or before work? It could really make a difference.
 
Blessedwithfive said:
You DO NOT have to feel sorrow, you do have to confess.
Click to expand...
Just to be clear, repentance requires genuine regret of sin. Feeling sorrow is unnecessary because we don’t have control of our feelings. Confessing without actual repentance would not be sufficient.
 
I think you are splitting hairs. You do not have to feel sorrow. Simply acknowledging that you understand it offends God is enough. We do not all have the understanding of all the rules to be able to have true repentance. Plus it is obvious from the OP that he did not fully understand the implications of having a vasectomy at the time and he most likely was under some outside pressure in making his decision. (worried about the health of his wife, possibility of raising children alone, etc)

I have been told by holy priests that regret doesn’t mean if you had to do it all over again that you wouldn’t do it. Just accepting that it is wrong in the eyes of the church/God is enough.
 
I read it. Interesting. I believe what my priest was referring to was that you can’t control how you feel or what you believe but you have to conform to the rules of the Church. I can accept that the Church is correct but I do not have to feel it. It is the difference between intellect and emotions. I think we are saying the same thing with different words…or we will just have to agree to disagree…
 
I’m curious if you already knew when you got married that you would stop at two kids. If so, I can better understand your reaction to the NFP speaker. Of course, they didn’t have to explain the size of their family. Perhaps, they were still open to life when you met them.

I’ve also noticed that NFP speakers do tend to have larger families.

I don’t quite get why healthy couples with reasonable incomes are averse to having say, three, four, or five kids. You don’t get them all at once, in most cases. And with NFP, you could actually take some risks, occasionally pushing the rules to see how far you can play with those rules.

All of my siblings are so special to me. (I’ll say greater than four siblings and less than nine to give you some idea of my family’s size.) I’ve borrowed money from them, received help moving, relied on them for emotional support, learned from them, enjoyed them, and helped them as well. I can’t see why people would want to have only two kids when they could have more.
 
In many – though not all – cases, people who practice NFP have lots of kids because of how wonderful it is to make love at a woman’s peak fertility, not because they don’t know how to use NFP to avoid having kids. When you get into the swing of things, that time of month is the most fun, even though it’s the most fertile.
 
Lara,
My wife and I hoped to have 2 kids when we got married. She’s one of two and I’m one of two, and we were in our mid 30’s when we got married.

After our son came along, that’s when my wife cut her hours at work since our babysitters (parents) were starting to have issues of their own. The issue of not wanting a 3rd was part financial, part health related on my wife’s part, and part health related for our parents.

My mother in law is living with us now, and is like our 3rd kid. My wife drives her to her appointments, which will soon include dialysis. I’m constantly picking up after her. We have to tell her not to feed our animals too much, not to give our kids too much candy, when to change her clothes because her pants are wet and she’s going to ruin all our furniture, etc. We have our hands full and my wife gets stressed out on a weekly basis if not more often. She sometimes regrets the decision to have her mom come live with us, but it was the only solution short of sticking her in a nursing home. She hates that our kids spent 1-2 days per week last summer going to hospitals/doctors.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top