I still lurk, but have not posted because I'm so consumed with closing out legal matters on my separation and struggling with how/whether to fight the last battles. In any event, I fully understood your sense of the spiritual M and respect it. And when I saw Betsey's post I sent her an e-mail that she suggested I put up here. It's based in part on a Theology on Tap session I attended last night. These are gnerally meetings of young adult Catholics (do I still qualify at 43?) where a guest speaker is brought in to explore various subjects of the faith. There are informal "chapters" --if you can call them that, all across the country. Last night's topic was Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
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From: Merrick
To: UDog
Subject: Theology of the Body
I have to stop looking at that BB! Gabe’s thread and your post were very penetrating.
Last night’s session on the Theology of the Body was extremely obtuse and difficult to deal with in a short time and diverse audience, but I’ll leave you with some specific thoughts as it relates to my sitch and how it may relate to yours. Please don’t hate me for this, because I’m sharing more of your struggle [on annulments and marriage] than you might think.
First, marriage has always been a sacrament, long before the Church. When Jesus refers to what things are like “in the beginning,” he speaks as someone who was there and in a position to know [he is God after all]. So when he talks about becoming one flesh in marriage—it is a literal communion of our bodies in communion with God’s stated purpose for us—and if I’m understanding this correctly, full communion with the body of Christ and the capability to create life the way God created us. In this communion, we are commanded to give selflessly to one another—and there is nothing more giving of ourselves than to freely give our bodies to one another. [n.b. The Pope would go on to espouse the virtues of bringing pleausre to our mates]. And most important with all types of selfless giving to spouses, most of us (some would say all) can only do this with the grace of God’s help and Christ’s example.
At the outset, the speaker also distinguished between the vocation of marriage and those who remain single and celibate, apart from clergy who take vows. Those who remain single are not bad, but for Christians, they have chosen another path of service to God. For example, a spinster who takes are of her mother gives her body in a way different than a married person.
I asked about those of us who are stuck in between. We who have been married, but have had the marriage removed from us and finding celibacy is not a true choice. He corrected me in saying that while for many it is a pre-selected lifestyle, I was in celibacy by default, but it was still a choice. And he said that if this seems out of whack, just look out the window of the restaurant we were in and you’ll see a world that is broken. But that brokenness does not change anything about what God intended and as a follower of Christ, I needed to accept that and try to live the way he lived. Basically, pick up my cross and follow Him.
Which brings me back to Father Bob and the issue you wrestle with. The difficult proposition for you and for me is not whether my W or Mr. W were capable or intended to enter a sacramental bond, but what did WE intend. I was Jewish, but I really believed this M was for life and assumed it—even if I was not freely giving of myself at all times or perhaps way too many times. However, I think I can make a strong argument that the overwhelming majority of us don’t ever truly understand the meaning of freely giving of ourselves (i.e., with no expectations in return) until the point in time where we don’t want to give a thing, but ultimately do so for the sake of the marriage. We make a choice to beging the process. To put this another way, did you truly understand the full scope and nature of your vows when you made them with Mr. W? To what degree of commitment were you different than Mr. W. Or are you merely judging his actions AFTER the fact. Once you start down the slippery slope of that type of assessment, it’s not long before you reach a point where no person is capable of giving true sacramental consent. That is why annulments through history were usually only granted for fraud or failure to submit to the fundamental purpose of marriage—creating life (another discussion topic). I can come up with counterarguments (e.g., the healing aspects of allowing new R's with other committed persons of faith--I use that term not judgmentally, but to describe persons who desire living a way that puts Christ at the center of their lives), if we liberallize annulment rules to reflect the modern state of the world, are we changing the Truth to satisfy our own needs and not God’s? Are we playing God? That's a struggle of our own conscience.
Now most shockingly, after the presentation I talked with the speaker and expressed my frustration with how so many of the clergy seemed to have given up on marriage and have accepted the notion that we are not compelled to live a life of chastity if our marriages end. His reply was the reason so many priests do not believe this is that they do not practice or believe in celibacy themselves. Otherwise, they would tout its virtues the same way we tout everything else that we believe is good for us. Now I know that non-celibacy can include self-gratification, so I don't know how far this goes in the Church (nor was I inclined to pursue the matter), but he was adamant that this non-belief in celiubacy is a problem that has plagued the Church for a long time and that a reemphasis on the teaching of both the beauty of $exuality and celibacy was badly needed—and that was what Pope JPII had begun with the the theology of the body.
