Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

A request for prayers…

It had been twelve and a half years. At the time the decision had seemed a temporary concession for a greater good. If he had known at the time that it would not have been so temporary, he wondered if he would have made the same decision. That is immaterial now. He now recognized that God could not have been calling him to a marriage that would separate him from the Sacraments, even for a short period of time.

She was a single mother who had been severely sexually abused by her father and, or so she claimed, had been physically abused her first husband. This was the first woman that he had felt such a closeness to and she really needed him. He hadn’t understood then what this type of need really meant. He thought that he was being called to help her. Little did he realize that she suffered from disorders for which he could never have been prepared.

While he was, like the rest of his generation, very poorly catechized; unlike the average Catholic, he had a great sense of closeness and relationship with God while growing up. However, this sense had waned over the last decade. However, he had always recognized God’s presence in the Eucharist and this was something that he sorely missed. In hindsight, he could now see that her denial that she had agreed to seek an annulment and have the Church bless the marriage after the baby was born, was likely a symptom of her personality disorder. He found that this was something common among those who were so severely abused as children. He was now just beginning to realize that the nightmare she was putting them through was probably lurking at the margins of their relationship from the very beginning. He also admitted to himself that he was not wholly innocent. The sins which had led to the marriage and marrying outside of the Church aside, he had adopted her button pushing acumen; something that she used for her confused sense of controlling the situation he would often employ in his weaker moments, for retaliatory measures. He realized now that this probably had the effect of reinforcing her errant belief that relationships were about controlling the other.

She had always seemed to want to be the best mom to her children. This probably was still the case but clearly this maternal instinct could no longer overcome her almost primal need for control and her very distorted need for self affirmation. When her out of control spending had required his getting a second job, the reduction in attention may have been what finally drove her to these apparently new extremes. On the other hand, perhaps this also had occurred, though less obviously, throughout the marriage. Nevertheless, the disordered relationships she now sought out and the ridicule she subjected him to with her new consort made her very public infidelity all the more demeaning. And when he had finally discovered her betrayal, her demand for a divorce now drew his children into his nightmare.

This was probably the hardest part. After she had told them that she was divorcing him, whenever he looked into their eyes they seemed to be pleading with him to make all of this insanity go away. This tore his heart out; he was their father and there was nothing he could do to protect them. He didn’t know then how much worse things could get. When she found her spending made a divorce impossible until the house was sold and she was unwilling to give up the house, he found out how insane this would be. This occurred that day after Christmas when the police showed up late that night giving him five minutes to get what he needed and get out of the house because she had filed for a restraining order with the false claim of domestic battery. While the casual observer could see that she really should be the one committed to psychiatric care, it was obvious that without the enormous amount of money that he did not have, the legal system had little ability to recognize and appropriately deal with such a situation. Instead of getting her the help she needs, she will rather be enabled by the system to continue her downward spiral until something even more tragic happens.

Given this turmoil, his preparation for returning to the Sacraments was all the more poignant. Attending Mass, he could not withhold the tears realizing that very soon he would again receive Christ: Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He finally was led to recognize that he needed this Communion as much as he wanted it. His mother was there for Christmas and so she was there when he finally received Holy Communion again after more than a decade. Neither of them could withhold the tears of joy, if the experience of it somewhat mitigated by the situation. It is not at all clear how all of this will end; especially how his sons will fare in the short and long term. However, he does know that with God’s grace now giving him solace and strength, whatever comes he will be given the strength to handle it. He is also beginning to understand in his experience of God’s closeness throughout this terrible pain, what is meant by the truth that God permits evil in the world only that greater good may come from it.

Please keep this suffering family in your prayers.