Annulment

I follow this blogger on Twitter and, well not to be too kissy assy but I really, really like this blogger, and anyways she was talking on Twitter about how she had recently had her first marriage annulled by the Catholic Church because her ex-husband requested it and got it.  He is marrying a Catholic girl and of course, he can't have been married before if he wants to get married in the Church.  

I will always, always come down on the side of the Church when I can.  I try and really find out about what the Catechism says about things so that I can make sense of them.  Like, I used to not understand about why Catholics shouldn't use artificial birth control, it made NO sense to me, but it does now.  I have done a lot of reading about it and, not to be lame, praying on it and I get it now.  But I do not get this.  

Why would the Catholic church annul a marriage that took place outside of the church?  I recognize that a marriage is a marriage is a marriage to the Church, but I thought it was hard to get a marriage annulled.  I thought there were specific reasons, like (and this might not be all of them but just off the top of my head) say, the person you married was crazy and didn't say that.  Or say they claimed they wanted kids and then didn't.  Or, abandonment is a big one.  

I remember when my Uncle got married it was very important to him that his fiancee get her first marriage annulled because he wanted to get married in the Church.  This was like 30 years ago and we were all on tenterhooks, would she get the annulment or not?  But she did and they got married and all was well.  But she had a daughter, my cousin, and I remember my sister and I saying, what happens to her?  Where does a child fit in an annulment situation?  The Catechism says that of course it doesn't make a child illegitimate but I wonder what does it mean, then?  

I can see that if you get married in the Catholic church that the church should be responsible for that sacrament.  I can see that if I got married to Mike and he said Ha ha!  I didn't mean any of that RCIA stuff and I am never going to have a child and also I am a raging alcoholic and I beat my last wife to death, I could say, um, I can't be married to him anymore.  BUT Mike and I went through pre-marriage counseling and we were encouraged to talk about everything.  The church was responsible for it, they seemed to take it seriously and I did, too.  So I can see how they would have jurisdiction over my marriage.  But I don't see how they'd have jurisdiction over some marriage that took place outside of the Church.  It doesn't make any sense.  

I do wonder a few things - like, if you're not Catholic and your ex gets your marriage annulled in the Church, why does it matter?  But there was some sort of court involved, could it be an actual court?  Also, I was wondering about Joe Kennedy's divorce and annulment.  I remember that he wanted it but his wife was against it, (she was Episcopalian but maybe their kids were Catholic?  As Catholic as any Kennedy is, I guess?) and I just googled it and I had forgotten she wrote a whole BOOK about it but anyways, the Vatican has reversed his annulment.  I didn't know that, nor did I know that he got married civilly, which, what the hell?  Why did he care, then?  

Anyways.  I could see if we lived in Ireland before whenever they changed their No Divorce rule, or in some Catholically run country but the Church doesn't run the United States?  Who cares what they think with regard to a marriage that didn't take place in their Church?  I mean, I care, but I recognize that others do not, that other people aren't Catholic.  I feel that way about birth control too.  I mean, I get impatient with Catholics who purposely work against the rules of the church, and still consider themselves to be 'good Catholics' but if someone isn't Catholic?  Why would I care about whether or not they use birth control?  Sheesh.  

Anyway.  If anyone knows why the Church is involved in annulling marriages which they had no part of, let me know.  

Vocation

Tonight I was feeding the baby and watching a documentary about this nun who used to be an actress. I read about it last year, it might have been nominated for an Oscar. Anyway. I was watching it and I had an epiphany. The former actress, who is now the mother superior, was talking about how hard it was when she was first a novice. Then another woman, a nun, talked about how hard it was for her, and yet another novice was shown crying to the mother about how miserable she was.

I think I've always thought of nuns and priests as having callings to the religious life and just being sure of their choice. I figured they had a calling from God and that fueled them to be happy and leave their former lives behind. But today I was thinking, I have a calling, too. I am called to the married life and to be the mother of these four kids and just because I have a calling doesn't mean I'm not going to have doubts or be sad sometimes. It is very freeing to believe that. And even if I'm wrong, who cares? It's the first time in years that I've had the feeling that maybe someday I'll be happier and more content. Maybe at some point in the near future I'll feel confident I made the right choice. Because you should have seen those nuns now, they seemed right where they should be. Well, not the novice. She was still a mess, like I am, but she was new, I figured. She won't feel that way forever! And I won't either. Probably.

Our Song

I am linking up to this on this blog because it's from a Catholic writer I read.

Our wedding song is You Send Me, but I also think of Here, There and Everywhere and especially God Only Knows as our songs. Neither of the last two are good dance songs though, and You Send Me is a nice rhumba, so that's what we chose for our wedding. I always thought my wedding song would be True Love Ways by Buddy Holly but I guess Mike didn't think of it as our song. He did play it when he asked me to marry him, which I remember thinking was just adorable and perfect. He told me he liked Here There and Everywhere but it seemed to focus too much on the girl in the situation, so I nixed it for our wedding song. I remember, though, that I told my mom that that was the song he liked and she listened to it and said that if that was how he felt about me, I should definitely marry him.

God Only Knows is the best song, even if the first lyric is 'I may not always love you'. It's so beautiful and the thrust of it is something that really speaks to me with regard to marriage, especially now that we have all these kids. I really, really feel that way - God only knows what I'd be without Mike. Now that we're together, I don't feel like I'd be me anymore, without him.

You Send Me is a perfect wedding song, in my opinion. It's a good dance song, it's beautifully sung, and the lyrics are perfect. I'll tell you what my first choice was and that's You Sexy Thing. I couldn't imagine dancing to it at my wedding reception but I love it. 'I believe in miracles, since you came along, you sexy thing. Where did you come from, baby? How did you know I needed you?'. I loved it and I could totally relate to the lyrics. It did seem like a miracle that Mike and I found each other. I did need him! I still do.

Anyway, back to You Send Me. Here are the pertinent lyrics: at first I thought it was infatuation, but ooh it's lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting to marry you and take you home'. You send me, you thrill me, honest you do. As time goes by, Mike still sends me, still thrills me, but in such a different way. Honest, he does, honest he does, honest he does.

Here's a picture of us dancing, and a note about it. We took lessons at an Arthur Murray type place before we got married and I always recommend it to couples who ask. It didn't cost too much money, and it was such a nice thing for us to do once a week in the time working up to our wedding. It was also nice to know exactly what was going to happen with at least ONE thing that day. Also, I'll never forget this - we started dancing and the crowd went wild! It was so funny, it never occurred to me that it looked good, just that it felt really good. Anyways, it was wonderful and we danced a lot that season, we went to our wedding and my friend Chrissy's wedding and it was nice to know what we were doing. Here's a picture from our wedding, actually we were practicing before our wedding in the basement of the church.

Rules

Ugh, I know I am posting a lot but I'm so frustrated. Yesterday, two friends of mine posted an article (I am too lazy to find it) about a woman who was denied communion at her mother's funeral. It said that the priest said he couldn't give her communion because she lived with another woman. If a priest had knowledge of that, I suppose he couldn't give her communion, that's a fact. It seems KIND of weird that he would know that she was living with this woman, but whatever, if he did, the thing to do would be to not give her communion, although I guess he could have handled it better, i.e. talked to her before Mass. It then said that he walked out while she was giving the eulogy, and that he fell ill (or pretended to) so that he didn't go to the graveyard. The woman said she was a life long Catholic AND that she didn't think her sexual orientation would have anything to do with receiving Communion.

So. The communion thing is clear, I guess. My question is, why was she going to communion if she was aware of being NOT in a state of grace? I bet I know the answer, I bet she was not a church goer and was not a confession goer and had no intention of changing her life, which is all fine. It is hard to live your life according to the rule of the Catholic church, I agree! We are all sinners, the way I figure it. What I don't understand is WHY are you marching up for communion if you know all these things? If you were, to use a phrase I despise, "raised Catholic?". If you don't go to church anymore, if you don't believe in it, then don't TAKE COMMUNION! Sheesh! And I have no idea how someone could be raised in the church, be a life long Catholic, and not be clear on the homosexuality thing. Really? REALLY?

As far as the eulogy goes - no one except the priest is supposed to give the homily. This is also a fact. People want to have a more personal reflection of the person who died, at a funeral, which is COMPLETELY understandable, but if you want to do that, I think you should either talk after the Mass, or do something at the funeral home. Or better yet, at the wake after the funeral. I think a lot of people forget that a funeral Mass is a Mass and has rules, just like every other frickety fracken Mass that they have.

A friend of mine was saying that the priest was giving her trouble about playing a spiritual at her mother's funeral. It was Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and a favorite of her mom's. They did play it, as a recessional, which makes perfect sense to me, both because of the lyrics of the song (coming for to carry me home) and because it was outside of the Mass. Personally, I think a priest presiding over a funeral mass for a mom who died very young should try to err on the side of the KINDLY but people are imperfect, I guess.

I think a lot of people don't know about the rules of the Mass, or about having to have sacred music for a Mass, because a lot of churches have gotten very lax about it and it's confusing. But just because people don't know about it, or because they are constantly showing movies where they are playing the wedding march at a Catholic church, doesn't mean it's not true. I feel like such a jerk, but I also feel I have to defend the church. Because I am insane.

Kids

Yesterday we all went to Mass together, as we've been doing for around four weeks in a row. Veronica was hateful, horrible BAD! during Mass so finally Mike took her out to the car. She fell asleep so hard when we got home, I assume she didn't feel good or was super tired or something and that's why she was so bad. Anyways, I took a picture of her and put it on Facebook and said basically that. A friend of mine posted a comment that said "I will never understand why you CATHOLICS TORTURE YOURSELVES AND YOUR CHILDREN by expecting them to sit still for an HOUR! That's what you GET!". I was all, what in the who now? First of all, this girl is a Christian Scientist, which is a much maligned church and second of all, an hour's not really SUPER long. I take the girls to a frickety fracken story hour at the library and they sit there for most of that. Also, we don't expect her to sit exactly still or we whack her hands with a ruler or anything. She brings a book, we will gladly take her to the foyer, she just can't run up the damned aisle or SLAP at her father's FACE! GOD! What is wrong with people?

But it made me think, typically Catholics don't have Cry Rooms or whatever. We were always expected to just behave in church. If we didn't, and sometimes we didn't, we got spanked after church. I don't care so much, it wasn't TRAUMATIZING or anything but Mike and I don't want to do it so we have to discipline in other ways. So I was thinking why do we torture ourselves? Why do we take them all? I work on Saturdays so we have to go on Sunday and we would rather be together than alone at home with them all. It's good for Anthony to practice sitting and being quiet (and not smacking the head of the guy in front of him, which he did this week). I think God is right there in that church and I like to bring my family there. So that way when I pray for them, I can be all, "These people! Right here! THESE are the ones that I am praying for!".

I have to run, Felicity is crying, but I wanted to get that thought down before it flitted out of my ears.

HHS Mandate

Here's my long thoughtful post on the Health and Human Services mandate that all institutions that provide health care for their employees, including Catholic employers, have to provide birth control, including known abortifacients.

That is a violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

And as I say to Maria 1000 times a day, that's it. Period. The end.

I Smell Children!

The title refers to that awful guy in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the one who can smell out the children? Before I was married and had kids, I used to always imitate him when I was working in a restaurant and had to wait on lots of kids. It's mean, I know.

Which brings me to my next point. There's a blogger that I follow on Twitter, and she pointed to a post by another blogger, and it concerned me for several reasons.

We are having a conversation about it, of sorts, on Twitter, but I wanted to quickly write out this post because, funnily enough, I have to get ready to go to Mass. Mike just got back from 9:30 and I am going to 11:30.

Before I had Felicity, we all went to church together at what we thought would be our new church. We would all go in and sit and then when Anthony got too loud (and hoo boy can that get loud), either Mike or I would take him out into the huge foyer that they have at this church. It was ... not great. First of all, we had to stop taking turns because Mike had to take him to the toilet once we started training. Second, and this was more problematic, everyone and their brother came out to the lobby during Mass and it got a little crowded and a little hard to hear the priest. Also, if you stand near the doors, you can see everyone coming late (and I do mean late, like barely in time for Communion!) and it's a little disheartening to be out in the foyer because your child can't behave and to see all these neuro-typical people behaving horribly, just because they can. Is that irony? I can never tell.

Now that I've had Felicity, I usually take her on Saturday nights and Mike takes - well, he used to take Maria and Veronica but now he just takes Maria because Veronica is HORRIBLY behaved. She's loud, she takes off her shoes and blows you a raspberry when you tell her to put them back on, she runs up toward the altar, etc. There's no way for Mike to bring them both.

So I read this post and I think, hmmm. Really? Really we're not setting a good example for our kids? We're not taking responsibility for our children because we don't take them to Mass? Veronica is TWO! What is she getting out of Mass?

It is a great, great concern of mine, about Anthony and God. I pray every day that he will some day come to know God in a more real way. I would love it if he could make his Communion in a real way. I think he can make his First Communion regardless but I would like for him to know what is going on and be able to express stuff enough for Confession. If Sacraments give us grace, I wonder, where is he going to get his? I mean - I know that he is taken care of, I truly believe that God loves Anthony and that somewhere in his heart, Anthony knows God (as well as any 6.5 year old anyway) but I worry about this stuff anyway, is my point, and then to read a post that basically confirms my worries is ... um, worrisome.

Also, I flat out don't think kids of a certain age should go to Mass. I don't really think it's cute for a two year old to be waving her hands around at the Host. It drives me MAD when people talk about Jesus and the Suffer the Children quote, because, fine, those kids were AROUND in town or whatever, but you notice there were NONE at the Last Supper! They weren't invited, probably, because they should have been in BED!

So we disagree, this blogger and I, about kids at Mass. But I also disagree with sweeping statements like:

As Catholics:

We say that we are champions of Life, but are unwilling to help the unwed, pregnant mother.

We say that it’s everyone’s job to help those in need, but avert our eyes and shift in our seats when the beggar comes into the Mass.

We talk about how children are a blessing and the future of our Church, but we don’t want children interrupting OUR Mass.

We talk about how Jesus loves everyone and we should too, but then kick our son or daughter out of the house when they reveal to us they are gay.

Um, what Catholics are doing this? I used to go to church with some people in New York that I'm SURE didn't have a home. Almost all the churches I went to in the city were commuter churches and didn't have a regular parish EXCEPT FOR the homeless people. I can't speak for myself because I am not great with the volunteer work lately but my mother has been a long time volunteer for Birthline, which TOTALLY helps the unwed, pregnant mother. And believe me, she has OPINIONS about being unwed and pregnant, which have nothing to do with the help that she gives people. We are ALL sinners, I figure, and we all need help.

I just think there are a lot of sweeping statements in this post. I have a hard time when Catholics make sweeping and possibly untrue statements about Catholics because I feel like we get a hard enough time from everybody else!

That said, I am happy to have another Catholic blogger to follow, even if we don't completely agree.