Posted on 11/04/2014 10:45:38 AM PST by sitetest
The day my soul became Catholic was the day I found out that as a divorced and remarried woman I could not receive Communion. Tears of sorrow and joy flowed. Sorrow because I had by then grasped the truth of transubstantiation, only to find I couldn’t consume, and joy because at last we found the ground of real authority—his Church, the one he founded, the one tasked to keep all he taught her Apostles.
I came to Catholicism from Calvinism. That’s a tough row to hoe if there ever was one. It was that prescient and beautiful encyclical Humanae Vitae which softened my heart to the Catholic Church. After that, I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to hear what the Church believed in her own words. And so I kept reading—Theology of the Body, Familiaris Consortio, Mulieris Dignitatem, and Church documents significant to those of us coming from the Reformed tradition.
Because I had been divorced, and because another family member recently left his marriage after forty-three years, our children had many doubts and questions about marriage. One day around the dinner table one of the kids voiced their anxiety, stating in our presence that “you never know” if both mom and dad will be there for you as you grow up.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
You see through nothing.
A person who repeatedly sins and shows no indication of any plans to ever stop cannot be said to be repentant.
Don’t forget - Jesus Himself told the adulterous nearly-stoned woman “Go forth and sin no more”.
You seem to be describing even the words of Jesus as “false choice bullshit”.
False and erroneous religious bigotry becomes you.
You are cherry picking - dismissing the entire concept of regeneration and grace. That’s a stretch to think the “go and sin no more” backs up your case. It does not.
of course, the treasury will decide who’s contrition is sincere, and who’s is “sponsored” shall we say.
You can never leave the mafia....
I just read the beginning of the article, but if a remarried person remains in a second marriage, and his original marriage was valid, and he is not living as brother and sister, then there is no objective evidence of repentance.
Now, individual cases can get very complicated, as in cases of conversion, where someone remarries for a second time in good conscience, before coming to understand the objective sinfulness of the second marriage. These cases represent pastoral gordian knots, especially with children involved.
So where is the Scriptural basis for this?
Does Jesus not forgive sin?
It's a fairly short article after the jump. You might want to take a look.
However, I'll provide the spoiler. The couple, married before she converted, have submitted to the tribunal for a declaration of nullity, and the author states explicitly that she will abide the by judgment of the tribunal.
Thus, she is in a state of ambiguity, reasonably having the subjective view that her first marriage was not valid, but not yet having received a declaration of nullity. In my own opinion, she shows good faith in her approach to the matter of the sacraments.
sitetest
yes, and then there’s the issue of unsaved spouses and thus unequally yoked marriages, etc. And let’s not forget Solomon, David, and numerous Old Testament men who led a very different life existence.
Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
I have to get my butt out of bed and actually drive a few miles to church to attend Mass and receive the Body and Blood of Jesus as He told us to do.....Who knew that I could do it myself in my own kitchen....thanks for the deep religious insight!!!
Ephesians 3:14-19 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Romans 8:10-11 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Colossians 1:24-27 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Jesus is not found in a church or wafer. Nobody has to go somewhere to encounter Him>
Jesus Christ dwells in the heart of the believer through faith, not the stomach by eating Him.
I was talking about the general case of a divorced and remarried Catholic, without a declaration of nullity, and the reception of Communion.
The prohibitions are in Canons 915 and 916:
Can. 915 Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.
Can. 916 A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass or receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession unless there is a grave reason and there is no opportunity to confess; in this case the person is to remember the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition which includes the resolution of confessing as soon as possible.
“And she's abstaining from Communion prior to the ruling of the tribunal, so there's no problem.”
Okay. I thought that you were making the argument that a couple of others have made in this thread that there is a problem that she isn't living continently at the present time.
I find that this topic gets very twisty and turny. It feels slippery and slidy, and sort of inside-out, like a mobius strip. It's a lot easier to just stay married to one’s spouse. That's been my strategy.
sitetest
And if they did it before they can to faith in Christ? What then? Did He not forgive them?
They can't go and get a divorce and remarry the former spouse.
God prohibits that. Deuteronomy 24:1-4
Right. Guess my ancestors should have bought those pardons that Rome was selling when Martin Luther nailed his demands on the church door. The Church is merely a conduit to God. It is NOT God, Any organization professing to be such is a false prophet. Christ did say “This is my body given for you and for all men so that sins may be forgiven”. I don’t remember there being any fine print.
King David.
Just a little jibe to our Catholic friends. Like Rodney King, I hope we can all get along.
Honor to you for your restraint. I don't know whether or not you actually attend Mass, but if you don't, if it's not too much, I encourage you to go. Pope Emeritus Benedict made clear that even those who must, for these circumstances, abstain from the Eucharist are nonetheless to otherwise fully participate in the life of the Church, including, and especially, attendance at Mass.
Have you privately discussed your situation with a good, solid priest? There is the possibility that your first marriage wasn't sacramentally-valid.
It might be worth the inquiry.
My best hopes and prayers for you.
sitetest
Kind of ironic, isn't it, that they can still SERVE communion, but someone who was divorced and remarried can't receive it. Even if that divorce and remarriage happened before they became Catholic.
Unless they live in a sexless marriage which is condemned in Scripture. (1 Corinthians 7:5)
The problem is, an ectopic pregnancy will result in the death of the mother anyway, which WILL result in the death of the baby as well (obviously).
It’s a lose/lose situation.
In that case, the morally acceptable thing to do is SAVE the life of the mother, and not at the expense of a gruesome death of the baby.
This clued us in to how deeply they had been affected by our choices and the culture that made them possible. As Christian parents we were keen to bring up our children in a Church unwavering on marriage. The Catholic Church offered a rich and beautiful doctrine of marriage in all its fullness, especially as a picture of Christ’s marriage to his bride, the Church. This vision was slowly leading us to consider the Church’s other claims.
But there’s more to coming to the Catholic faith than theological reading. As any convert can attest, there are many ups-and-downs during the journey: Struggling with doctrine followed by insights from magisterial passages coupled with Scripture, feeling still and alone followed by being overwhelmed by the presence of the saints before us, crying out to God for His presence and having Him answer in the Blessed Sacrament. Many times I woke up in the middle of the night thinking: How can I be considering Catholicism? But then in the morning at daily mass praying the liturgy, I experience the profound presence of God, even though I do not take the Eucharist.
Since I cannot now receive the Eucharist, it is through spiritual communion that I am kept spiritually fed by the Lord. This act of willing reception is not, as some may think, second-class communion. Far from it. To believe so is to diminish one of the ways Christ feeds his people, as Hans Urs von Balthasar warns in his book, Prayer:
For spiritual communion is by no means merely an act of longing for the reception of the Lord under the sacramental signs; much deeper, and more properly, it is the act of prayer of a living and understanding faith, by which it enters into living communication and communion with Christ, the eternal and living Truth.
Balthasar wants to impress upon the reader the objective reality of spiritual communion. It is not the absence of something but the presence of him. I don’t get to pine or indulge in self-pity during the distribution of the Eucharist. And God forbid I should become angry with my priest or the Church for not giving me Communion. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput put it during the 2014 Erasmus lecture, “none of us are welcome on our own terms, in the Church we’re welcome on Jesus’ terms. That’s what it means to be a Christian, you submit yourself to Jesus and His teaching. You don’t recreate your own body of spirituality.”
Before you feel sorry for me, remember that the Church didn’t do this to me. I did this to myself when I disobeyed my God by walking away from my first marriage. Was I young and immature? Yes. Were there circumstances that drove me to such drastic measures? Sure. And yes, I am currently pursuing a Decree of Nullity, trusting God for a just decision. Whatever the outcome, I can not, and will not walk away from the Church for standing firmly on the teachings of Christ.
Some people may be shocked at the idea of submitting to a church that tells me because I’m divorced and remarried I can’t take Communion. But unless it can be shown otherwise, any tampering with Communion for the divorced and remarried will corrupt the doctrine of marriage, and—by diminishing the image of the Church as bride of Christ—debase the Church.
I have run to her for shelter. I now pray—for my sake, for my children’s—that the Church will not waver.
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