Go to Maria in San Jose, California, listening on Immaculate Heart Radio,
Maria, what's your question for Mark Brumley? I'm wondering, so I was married
recently, a civil marriage, I was raised in the Catholic Church and fell away
from it for a really long time, and then just actually recently this year I
started listening to Catholic radio, and started coming back towards my faith, now
with Lent trying to really participate more in the faith again. But I was wondering, is it
possible if I was to go to Confession, my husband's not Catholic, so is it
possible after going to Confession to receive Communion and the Sacraments in a
civil marriage, or do I have to get my marriage blessed in the Catholic Church
before I could receive the Sacraments? Let me ask a question just out of
curiosity, I don't mean to pry; is your husband baptized? Yes he is. Okay.
All right. He was baptized in the Presbyterian Church. Okay so you guys were civilly
married. Alright, well, here's what I propose.
First of all, have you talked to your pastor about this? Not really, actually.
Like I said, it's just been kind of new, coming back into the Church, and today
with open forum, it was just on my heart to call in and ask this question.
Great, so Catholics, as part of the Catholic Church, the community of the Catholic
Church, Catholics are required--exceptions can be made to this--but
they're required to have their marriage witnessed by a priest or a deacon, under
ordinary circumstances. And this gets to the validity of the marriage from the
perspective of the Church, how the Church understands marriage. So in a
situation you're describing, it would be the case that you should consult with,
certainly with your pastor about regularizing that marital
situation. Your husband doesn't have to be a
Catholic in order for that to occur, but when both you and your husband
are baptized, in a certain sense that makes it easier to do. So that's what you
should do, you should talk to him about, talk to your pastor, about sort of
regularizing or normalizing--sometimes people say "Get it blessed by the Church,"
but--that marital situation. That's the first point. Second point: your instinct
is is sound when you say "Should I go to confession," because we want to make
sure that when we go to communion, things that we've done, if they've been at odds
with the teaching of Jesus, even if we've done them unknowingly, we knew we did did
them but we didn't really fully realize that they were wrong, we still want to
make sure that how we're living our lives, and the things that we profess and
and we believe, when we identify ourselves as Catholic and we want to
participate in the Eucharist, which is the Sacrament that, you know, most visibly
says we are fully one with the faith of the Church, we want to make sure that
there's a consistency between how we're living and what we're saying by
receiving Communion. And that consistency doesn't just mean "I know I did something
wrong and I'm repenting of it, I'm going to Confession." That's really important to
do that, but even if, you know, some of our beliefs are the choices that we make in
life, even if we kind of really didn't realize that they were problematic and
now we do, and maybe we weren't blameworthy for that because we didn't
realize they were wrong, we still want to kind of come to terms with that and make
sure that, you know, we are professing the faith of the Church and living the faith
of the Church as disciples of Jesus as the Catholic Church understands that. And
that's really important to sort of navigate that with your pastor, and
so I would say, you know, certainly before you go to Communion, because
Communion is saying, "I'm all in, Jesus," as the Catholic Church understands "all in,"
you're going to want to make sure that that, you know, you could honestly say
that, and, you know, you don't want to...none of
us wants to--we want to be people of consistency, where what we say and how
we're living is as consistent as we can be. So that's why I would recommend
talking to your pastor. Okay perfect, thank you so much. Great. Thank you very
much.