Dear friend
,
First of all, you are not excommunicated. But you may not receive Holy Communion while living in a sexual union that is mortally sinful. It is not that the Church does not accept you; you have chosen to not accept the Church. I suggest that you see a priest about the possibility of getting an annulment, rather than merely relying on what you have read.
I realize that this is not easy for you. It was not easy for our Blessed Lord to suffer and die on our behalf, but in doing so, He showed us that the highest form of love is not measured by good feelings, but by sacrifice. From our own experience, we see that we can know how much we care for others by how willing we are to put ourselves out for them. God designed us to be able to love in this way. The more we do, the more loving we become. It is His desire that we grow as much as we can in this kind of love, so that when we die, we will be able to share in His eternal life to a greater degree that we otherwise could.
So the struggle is necessary. How I would like to be able to find better words that would immediately convince people of the truth of what I am saying. This isn’t easy to do. But the struggle is good for me because it draws the best out of me in causing me to labor for the good of others. But they are worth it and He is more than worth it. At any point as He hung on the cross, He could have come down from it and the agony would cease. But He chose to remain to the end for the likes of you and me.
Dear friend, you and I were designed to respond to that love by living according to what He requires of us as we follow Him in the only Church that He ever founded. There are other churches that don’t demand much, but we were made for more than that!
Seek to put Him first and you will know where He wants you. You are in my prayers. Feel free to contact me privately by clicking on my name above.
Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.
