Your personal life can influence others for good and for evil.
If you live a rather obviously (to your friends) chaste life, your fellow Catholics (and other Christians) who are trying to live a chaste life will find it easier because they won't feel so alone.
But if you live an openly unchaste life, no matter how much the world just thinks that's normal, your fellow Catholics (and other Christians) who are trying to live a chaste life will find it harder because they will feel increasingly alone. Married people, too.
Even if you get married to your partner in sin, you will be telling other Catholics by your actions that you got away with something, and maybe they could get away with something, too. Or that the only way they will ever be able to hang on to a guy or a girl is to compromise their principles, which just so happen to be in line with God's will as taught by the Church and as is quite obvious in the Scriptures.
Everything we do matters. And incidentally we are at war. In war, the defeated side suffers horribly. Our Christian parents or grandparents lost during the Sexual Revolution, and now we all are paying for it. And the war continues, as faithful Christians in the wedding industry will find out, if they have not found out already.
Once upon a time, I was not so "old-school" on chastity, and I said something super "open-minded" to a woman at work who had lived with her husband a long time before they got married (if they ever did get married), and she was shocked. This woman was a cultural Catholic, rather simple in some ways--actually, she was a lot like Penny on "The Big Bang Theory"--and she apparently looked up to me . She knew she should go to Mass, and she admired me because I did.
"How can you [say that] when you go to Mass?" she demanded, and I felt so ashamed, her words helped me get off the path I was going down.
I hope I told her she was right.
Friday, 7 June 2013
Serious Awww Moment
If you are a young thing and wondering if really you could ever meet a guy who could wait until his wedding day, you should have a read of this. If you are older and cranky and mad at yourself for not waiting, maybe skip it.
Here at Seraphic Singles we have equal love for timid virgins and cranky ex-virgins.
Here at Seraphic Singles we have equal love for timid virgins and cranky ex-virgins.
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Pulling Strings in Washington, D.C.
Cherubs, my arm in in agony, poor arm. So no heavy blogging today. However, I am wondering what shelter is available in Washington, D.C. for poor wandering European NCBs. Does the Archdiocese have monasteries, youth shelters or anything like that? I'm trying to find short-term (3 nights) and very affordable accommodation for a spiritual son and his pal.
Update: Of interest to Singles in Warsaw.
Update: Of interest to Singles in Warsaw.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
Befriending Families
I've written before about how migratory Americans and Canadians are (and always have been) compared to Europeans until very recently. We seem to have this feeling that we can just pick up and leave Chicago for New York or Toronto for Montreal, and everything will be fine. However, the older we get, the more difficult it is for many of us to make friends. Real friends, that is. Naturally we have colleagues at work, but those don't always turn into friends. (The test is whether you still get together after you have left the job.)
The Poles, incidentally, have at least two words for friends, differentiating between best friends and everyone else. I admire their hard-headed ability to reserve przyjaciel (m.)/przyjaciólka (f.) for the few and apply kolega/koleżanka to the many. I would not be surprised if there were further gradations, e.g. kumpel/kumpelka. I bet there are further gradations in Germany, too. Central Europeans are simultaneously blunt and sentimental. How they survive social life in the UK, having to cope with the Anglo-Saxon conversational stream of polite nothings, is a question.
Anyway, most of the people we native English-speakers call our friends are really just our colleagues or our acquaintances, and there is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is to take our friends, first class (przyjaciel/przyjacióka class), for granted, and to assume we can make new friends in a new town right away.
Since I migrated to Scotland, I have made two attempts to have a social life outside of my husband's circle of friends and acquaintances. There was my writing circle, in which virulent anti-Catholics unintentionally made me extremely uncomfortable, so I quit, and there is now my Polish class. Besides Polish class, I have church, writing, travel and occasional forays into the Edinburgh art scene. Thus, I feel a bit isolated. At least there are more under-50 women at church now. There were very few when I arrived.
My hometown friend Lily suggested that I go to a local Novus Ordo Mass to meet more women, but I am such a Usus Antiquor junkie, I really didn't think I could bear that. Also, Catholic women my age (39++) tend to have complete social circles already. Women who don't move from town to town settle in among their relations, their grade school friends, their high school friends or their university friends, get married or get a partner, and divide most of their time between their place of work and their home. Many have children who take almost all the emotional energy the women have to give. And happy the partnered woman who does not spend 7 out of 7 nights keeping her man company in front of the telly.
After some dithering and feeling sorry for myself, I decided that I would stay put and see who God sent, and every once in a while God sends the parish somebody new and disposed to find new friends.Thank heavens for coffee hour. Every parish should have coffee hour, so it doesn't have to dread one day hearing, "I was a stranger, and you didn't welcome Me."
And those six paragraphs lead to my advice to the Single woman who wants to befriend families: give up your dream of meeting families and accept the friends God sees fit to send you. The truth is, I cannot imagine why a busy family with small children would go out of their way to befriend complete strangers, unless the parents of the family were unusually gregarious souls. Couples with children are emotionally stretched, sometimes to the breaking point, and if a mother of babies has any time to herself, she wants it for herself, or for girl-time with old friends.
I could be wrong, of course. But I honestly don't think a married woman with kids is going to bond with a new single woman just because the single woman seems to like her kids. There has to be something else to bond over. If the married woman is a keen tennis-player, and the new single woman is also a keen tennis-player, then that would be something, especially if the married woman has been stuck for some time for someone with whom to play tennis. However, only in chatting with a married woman can Single you find out if you have such interests in common, so by all means strike up conversations with married women with children after Mass or wherever else.
Birds of a feather flock together. With one hometown exception, my friends with children were my friends before they had their children. I have babysat for only two young families because only two young families here know me well enough to ask. Most of the people I socialize with are childless, like me. Most of them are Single. Most were not born in Edinburgh. We share the same interests and the same basic lifestyle. Orphaned by geography, I turn to two older friends for motherly advice, and childless by accident, I mother younger friends when called upon to do so. And maybe sometimes when not. And if sometimes I feel isolated and lonely, that's the price most migrants pay for migration.
The Poles, incidentally, have at least two words for friends, differentiating between best friends and everyone else. I admire their hard-headed ability to reserve przyjaciel (m.)/przyjaciólka (f.) for the few and apply kolega/koleżanka to the many. I would not be surprised if there were further gradations, e.g. kumpel/kumpelka. I bet there are further gradations in Germany, too. Central Europeans are simultaneously blunt and sentimental. How they survive social life in the UK, having to cope with the Anglo-Saxon conversational stream of polite nothings, is a question.
Anyway, most of the people we native English-speakers call our friends are really just our colleagues or our acquaintances, and there is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is to take our friends, first class (przyjaciel/przyjacióka class), for granted, and to assume we can make new friends in a new town right away.
Since I migrated to Scotland, I have made two attempts to have a social life outside of my husband's circle of friends and acquaintances. There was my writing circle, in which virulent anti-Catholics unintentionally made me extremely uncomfortable, so I quit, and there is now my Polish class. Besides Polish class, I have church, writing, travel and occasional forays into the Edinburgh art scene. Thus, I feel a bit isolated. At least there are more under-50 women at church now. There were very few when I arrived.
My hometown friend Lily suggested that I go to a local Novus Ordo Mass to meet more women, but I am such a Usus Antiquor junkie, I really didn't think I could bear that. Also, Catholic women my age (39++) tend to have complete social circles already. Women who don't move from town to town settle in among their relations, their grade school friends, their high school friends or their university friends, get married or get a partner, and divide most of their time between their place of work and their home. Many have children who take almost all the emotional energy the women have to give. And happy the partnered woman who does not spend 7 out of 7 nights keeping her man company in front of the telly.
After some dithering and feeling sorry for myself, I decided that I would stay put and see who God sent, and every once in a while God sends the parish somebody new and disposed to find new friends.Thank heavens for coffee hour. Every parish should have coffee hour, so it doesn't have to dread one day hearing, "I was a stranger, and you didn't welcome Me."
And those six paragraphs lead to my advice to the Single woman who wants to befriend families: give up your dream of meeting families and accept the friends God sees fit to send you. The truth is, I cannot imagine why a busy family with small children would go out of their way to befriend complete strangers, unless the parents of the family were unusually gregarious souls. Couples with children are emotionally stretched, sometimes to the breaking point, and if a mother of babies has any time to herself, she wants it for herself, or for girl-time with old friends.
I could be wrong, of course. But I honestly don't think a married woman with kids is going to bond with a new single woman just because the single woman seems to like her kids. There has to be something else to bond over. If the married woman is a keen tennis-player, and the new single woman is also a keen tennis-player, then that would be something, especially if the married woman has been stuck for some time for someone with whom to play tennis. However, only in chatting with a married woman can Single you find out if you have such interests in common, so by all means strike up conversations with married women with children after Mass or wherever else.
Birds of a feather flock together. With one hometown exception, my friends with children were my friends before they had their children. I have babysat for only two young families because only two young families here know me well enough to ask. Most of the people I socialize with are childless, like me. Most of them are Single. Most were not born in Edinburgh. We share the same interests and the same basic lifestyle. Orphaned by geography, I turn to two older friends for motherly advice, and childless by accident, I mother younger friends when called upon to do so. And maybe sometimes when not. And if sometimes I feel isolated and lonely, that's the price most migrants pay for migration.
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
Explaining Annulments
Thank you for your suggestions! I will try to get to them all this week and next, although the book ones are hard, as I do not have them. I think I should have a look, though, if they are causing damage.
In writing about love 'n' marriage stuff, I have a set of pet peeves. This reminds me of my total shock when I read a recent Polish review of Anielskie Single and it said AS was so old-fashioned it might not be practical. But never mind. I have a set of pet peeves and they are divorce, long engagements, shacking up and premarital sex. They are my pet peeves because whereas on the one hand these things seem practical, they create unhappiness, especially in the not infrequent situation in which one person loves more than the other.
In addition, that feeling of "Oh My Goodness This Person Is The Most Perfect Creature God Ever Made!!!!!!" lasts three years, tops, so it is better to get married to someone sooner rather than later, after ascertaining that this person has a very good character. (After three years, character is what you're left with, and at that point it's way easier to love a good man/woman than a bad one.) And, to be frank, nothing fixes a wedding date in Catholic circles like the absolute refusal to consummate the marriage before the ceremony. This has worked for six thousand years, and it still works now.
I am seriously off topic.
Today's topic is annulments, which reminded me of my pet peeves, for one of them is divorce. Now, I had a divorce, and I am grateful for it, so it seems quixotic that one of the primary motives of this blog is to stop y'all from getting divorced. The best way not to get to divorced is not to get married in the first place, if you are settling, or he is settling, or your character needs some preparatory work, or his character needs preparatory work. Meanwhile, I hate divorce when it arises from a confusion of erotic love, which is unstable, with marriage, which is permanent and upon which the family, the building block of society, rests. Sex is for marriage, not vice versa, if you see what I mean. Not that it isn't important to marriage because it usually is.
On Sunday one of my more tenderhearted luncheon guests almost had a seizure because I said divorce was not so serious when there are no children involved. I was a tad confused until I realized he was worried I might divorce B.A. on those grounds. But there are children involved: we share two nephews and a niece. Meanwhile, I'd have to be insane to divorce B.A. Really, I cannot imagine any free action more prejudicial to my interests.
I'm still off-topic, which is how to explain annulments to non-Catholics without them sneering at you. This sort of thing is best left to a canon lawyer, but I'll give it a shot. But this is strictly amateur hour, poppets. The more you like my blog, the more you must remember that I have zero teaching authority.
1. Christian marriage is a sacrament, which means that "it is an outward sign of inward grace, ordained by Jesus Christ, by which grace is give to our souls." (The Penny Catechism)
2. Not all marriages are sacramental, although Catholics respect these non-sacramental marriages, too, as part of natural law. It is fitting and part of human flourishing for a man and a woman to make a public declaration that they are choosing each other for life, to share the same bed and to have babies.
3. Marriage, however, particularly sacramental Christian marriage, is reliant on the disposition of both parties at the time of the marriage. Both parties have to have the capacity of fulfilling their vows. They have to be completely free. They can't be getting married just because they were frightened into it, e.g. one party threatened to commit suicide or the bride's brother threatened to murder the groom if he didn't. They can't be under intolerable pressure, e.g. the girl is pregnant. (If she is they have to swear up and down they would want to be married even if she weren't.) They have also to be free of addictions and vices that make fulfilling the marriage vows impossible. They also have to have the requisite maturity to fulfill the vows. Oh, and they have to consummate the marriage, too.
4. If a marriage is not contracted under the right circumstances, it may be a marriage in law, but it is not a sacramental marriage. And the Church, who is Keeper of the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, has the power both to bind and loose (Matthew 16:19). Only the Church has the authority to determine who is sacramentally married and who is not, and who is free to marry again. Catholics must always ask permission of the Church to marry. Catholics who are already married and want to get married again have to ask permission of the Church to marry. The Church will give this permission if the Church decides, given the necessary evidence, that the Catholic's marriage, though once recognized by civil law, is not sacramental.
5. Although the marriage tribunal (those people in the Church asked to examine the evidence) focuses on the dispositions of both parties at the time of the wedding, I suspect they are [personal point of view ahead] looking for evidence of Grace or lack thereof during the marriage. This is how I justify having to talk about my own married life to a complete stranger, a very elderly nun, and her tape recorder, which was traumatic.
[Personal theology ahead:]
If the marriage between Christians, right from the start, is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, the ability to put up with suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, freedom from addiction, and chastity, all of which are fruits of the Holy Spirit, it is--in my opinion--most definitely a sign that the Holy Spirit was involved, and therefore it is a sacramental marriage.
If, however, right from the start, the marriage is characterized by hatred, sorrow, fighting, impatience, cruelty, evil, despair in the face of suffering, harshness, doubt, immodesty, addictions--especially sexual--and inchastity, then I personally would go on a limb and say, "Hmm, you know. I think you may have grounds for an annulment."
Suffering is, as in life in general, a normal part of marriage, although abuse is not. For example, sex can feel really weird until you get used to it. Why this is not discussed more often is a mystery to me. It makes me sad to think of all the virgins who marry and then wonder why sex does not seem to be like it is in books and if there is something seriously wrong with them. Of course there isn't, poor lambs. Sex is a learned skill, and neither spouse is supposed to learn it until he or she gets married, so obviously it could be awkward at first. And this holds true for second marriages, too, as everyone is different, and sex is deeply personal, and thus you have to relearn it per person. Nobody Catholic tells you that, either. In the first case, I had to read Doctor-freaking-Ruth, which to a former teenage pro-lifer was the equivalent of consulting Beelzebub.
Anyway, writing all this hurt my poor arm, so I hope it is helpful.
Note: A reader once asked what could have been done to prevent me having been needlessly traumatized by my annulment procedure. Leaving aside the idea that the trauma may have helped towards my eventual hoped-for sanctification, I would say that they should have told me in advance that I would have to answer extremely personal questions in writing, that my testimony would be recorded, and that although my interviewer would be an elderly nun, I should not feel it a crime against modesty to tell her intimate stuff as she, like an elderly priest, had already heard it all. Also, there should have been the offer of a laywoman annulment survivor to meet me after my interview, so I would not have had to cry by myself in the toilets.
That last sentence sounds very sad and pathetic, so I will comfort my tenderhearted readers by pointing out this happened fifteen years ago. I don't think it should happen to anyone else, however.
Note 2: Children. Children are not rendered "illegitimate" by annulments. Legitimacy applies to civil law, not church law. This who is legitimate and who is illegitimate stuff is now entirely the state's purview. Occasionally adult children furious at their parents for divorcing and at the Church for seeming to bless their divorce with an annulment seethe that the Church has rendered them, the children, bastards. She hasn't. Whereas the children may have grounds for complaint, that ain't one of them.
In writing about love 'n' marriage stuff, I have a set of pet peeves. This reminds me of my total shock when I read a recent Polish review of Anielskie Single and it said AS was so old-fashioned it might not be practical. But never mind. I have a set of pet peeves and they are divorce, long engagements, shacking up and premarital sex. They are my pet peeves because whereas on the one hand these things seem practical, they create unhappiness, especially in the not infrequent situation in which one person loves more than the other.
In addition, that feeling of "Oh My Goodness This Person Is The Most Perfect Creature God Ever Made!!!!!!" lasts three years, tops, so it is better to get married to someone sooner rather than later, after ascertaining that this person has a very good character. (After three years, character is what you're left with, and at that point it's way easier to love a good man/woman than a bad one.) And, to be frank, nothing fixes a wedding date in Catholic circles like the absolute refusal to consummate the marriage before the ceremony. This has worked for six thousand years, and it still works now.
I am seriously off topic.
Today's topic is annulments, which reminded me of my pet peeves, for one of them is divorce. Now, I had a divorce, and I am grateful for it, so it seems quixotic that one of the primary motives of this blog is to stop y'all from getting divorced. The best way not to get to divorced is not to get married in the first place, if you are settling, or he is settling, or your character needs some preparatory work, or his character needs preparatory work. Meanwhile, I hate divorce when it arises from a confusion of erotic love, which is unstable, with marriage, which is permanent and upon which the family, the building block of society, rests. Sex is for marriage, not vice versa, if you see what I mean. Not that it isn't important to marriage because it usually is.
On Sunday one of my more tenderhearted luncheon guests almost had a seizure because I said divorce was not so serious when there are no children involved. I was a tad confused until I realized he was worried I might divorce B.A. on those grounds. But there are children involved: we share two nephews and a niece. Meanwhile, I'd have to be insane to divorce B.A. Really, I cannot imagine any free action more prejudicial to my interests.
I'm still off-topic, which is how to explain annulments to non-Catholics without them sneering at you. This sort of thing is best left to a canon lawyer, but I'll give it a shot. But this is strictly amateur hour, poppets. The more you like my blog, the more you must remember that I have zero teaching authority.
1. Christian marriage is a sacrament, which means that "it is an outward sign of inward grace, ordained by Jesus Christ, by which grace is give to our souls." (The Penny Catechism)
2. Not all marriages are sacramental, although Catholics respect these non-sacramental marriages, too, as part of natural law. It is fitting and part of human flourishing for a man and a woman to make a public declaration that they are choosing each other for life, to share the same bed and to have babies.
3. Marriage, however, particularly sacramental Christian marriage, is reliant on the disposition of both parties at the time of the marriage. Both parties have to have the capacity of fulfilling their vows. They have to be completely free. They can't be getting married just because they were frightened into it, e.g. one party threatened to commit suicide or the bride's brother threatened to murder the groom if he didn't. They can't be under intolerable pressure, e.g. the girl is pregnant. (If she is they have to swear up and down they would want to be married even if she weren't.) They have also to be free of addictions and vices that make fulfilling the marriage vows impossible. They also have to have the requisite maturity to fulfill the vows. Oh, and they have to consummate the marriage, too.
4. If a marriage is not contracted under the right circumstances, it may be a marriage in law, but it is not a sacramental marriage. And the Church, who is Keeper of the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, has the power both to bind and loose (Matthew 16:19). Only the Church has the authority to determine who is sacramentally married and who is not, and who is free to marry again. Catholics must always ask permission of the Church to marry. Catholics who are already married and want to get married again have to ask permission of the Church to marry. The Church will give this permission if the Church decides, given the necessary evidence, that the Catholic's marriage, though once recognized by civil law, is not sacramental.
5. Although the marriage tribunal (those people in the Church asked to examine the evidence) focuses on the dispositions of both parties at the time of the wedding, I suspect they are [personal point of view ahead] looking for evidence of Grace or lack thereof during the marriage. This is how I justify having to talk about my own married life to a complete stranger, a very elderly nun, and her tape recorder, which was traumatic.
[Personal theology ahead:]
If the marriage between Christians, right from the start, is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, the ability to put up with suffering, mildness, faith, modesty, freedom from addiction, and chastity, all of which are fruits of the Holy Spirit, it is--in my opinion--most definitely a sign that the Holy Spirit was involved, and therefore it is a sacramental marriage.
If, however, right from the start, the marriage is characterized by hatred, sorrow, fighting, impatience, cruelty, evil, despair in the face of suffering, harshness, doubt, immodesty, addictions--especially sexual--and inchastity, then I personally would go on a limb and say, "Hmm, you know. I think you may have grounds for an annulment."
Suffering is, as in life in general, a normal part of marriage, although abuse is not. For example, sex can feel really weird until you get used to it. Why this is not discussed more often is a mystery to me. It makes me sad to think of all the virgins who marry and then wonder why sex does not seem to be like it is in books and if there is something seriously wrong with them. Of course there isn't, poor lambs. Sex is a learned skill, and neither spouse is supposed to learn it until he or she gets married, so obviously it could be awkward at first. And this holds true for second marriages, too, as everyone is different, and sex is deeply personal, and thus you have to relearn it per person. Nobody Catholic tells you that, either. In the first case, I had to read Doctor-freaking-Ruth, which to a former teenage pro-lifer was the equivalent of consulting Beelzebub.
Anyway, writing all this hurt my poor arm, so I hope it is helpful.
Note: A reader once asked what could have been done to prevent me having been needlessly traumatized by my annulment procedure. Leaving aside the idea that the trauma may have helped towards my eventual hoped-for sanctification, I would say that they should have told me in advance that I would have to answer extremely personal questions in writing, that my testimony would be recorded, and that although my interviewer would be an elderly nun, I should not feel it a crime against modesty to tell her intimate stuff as she, like an elderly priest, had already heard it all. Also, there should have been the offer of a laywoman annulment survivor to meet me after my interview, so I would not have had to cry by myself in the toilets.
That last sentence sounds very sad and pathetic, so I will comfort my tenderhearted readers by pointing out this happened fifteen years ago. I don't think it should happen to anyone else, however.
Note 2: Children. Children are not rendered "illegitimate" by annulments. Legitimacy applies to civil law, not church law. This who is legitimate and who is illegitimate stuff is now entirely the state's purview. Occasionally adult children furious at their parents for divorcing and at the Church for seeming to bless their divorce with an annulment seethe that the Church has rendered them, the children, bastards. She hasn't. Whereas the children may have grounds for complaint, that ain't one of them.
Monday, 3 June 2013
Another Blood Test, 9:30 AM
Alas! Not only is my poor right arm aching from shoulder to wrist, I have to give blood again. Today. At 9: 30 AM British Summer Time. And as regular readers will remember, I am more afraid of blood tests than of any other non-violent thing.
Sadly (and also happily), it will be all over before most of you wake up, but if anyone in the right time zone sees this, would you please pray for me anytime between now and 10, but especially at 9:30 AM, when I may be shaking like a leaf. I know your prayers really helped me last time.
Oh dear. I really must get over this before I grow old and have to give blood, like, all the time.
Update: Done. Thank you very much! It was very quick this time. The mantra was "Jesu, mercy; Mary, pray" which is trés English/Scottish Catholic martyr. Life is not cotton candy, is it?
Sadly (and also happily), it will be all over before most of you wake up, but if anyone in the right time zone sees this, would you please pray for me anytime between now and 10, but especially at 9:30 AM, when I may be shaking like a leaf. I know your prayers really helped me last time.
Oh dear. I really must get over this before I grow old and have to give blood, like, all the time.
Update: Done. Thank you very much! It was very quick this time. The mantra was "Jesu, mercy; Mary, pray" which is trés English/Scottish Catholic martyr. Life is not cotton candy, is it?
Saturday, 1 June 2013
Beautiful June!
Good morning, girls. It's a beautiful Saturday here in Edinburgh, and no better a day to rest my very achy-breaky, overused right arm. So I will just leave the combox open so you can talk about yesterday's post and bring up issues you would like me to pronounce upon write about in the next few weeks.
Update: Thanks very much to B.S. and R.C. for their May donations!
Update: Thanks very much to B.S. and R.C. for their May donations!
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