Posted on 05/01/2007 9:13:13 AM PDT by Rocky Mountain Wild Turkey
Hello Brothers & Sisters --
We want to join a Catholic Church here in Michigan. I was raised Catholic, my wife was raised Lutheran - MS.
We were not married at a Catholic or Lutheran church.
She (as do I) have some questions. We would appreciate any answers or comments:
-- Why is the RCIA program so long (September to Easter Vigil) for someone who is not a 'non-Christian' and with so much Christian schooling already (Lutheran MS School - K-8)?
-- Why is she considered a 'convert'? She is still Christian, willing to accept a fuller understanding way of the church and way of practicing the Christian faith.
-- The Catholic Church does say we are married, but we have to apply for a "dispensation" and have another marriage ceremony. If the RCC accepts her baptism, why not our marriage (two baptized Christians who exchanged rings "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit")? This makes her feel like our wedding in 1998 "didn't happen."
-- She didn't really know this one: Why do Lutherans only have 3 sacraments (baptism, holy communion and reconciliation), as opposed to 7 in the RCC?
Thank you for any and all your thoughts.
This is harder for me than I imagined.
Peace.
Thanks for the explanation on Lutheran sacramental theology....I’ve been curious about this myself lately.
A question tho..I can see clearly the rationale behind reason #1 (clear case in the Bible) and #3 (visible sign).
But why #2, the “remission of sins” stipulation?
“without the Church, the forces of evil would have overtaken the world”
No doubt.
Hi, I missed where you wrote you were married in a civil ceremony. That is why you would have to be remarried in the Church. If you do this before your wife officially enters into the Church then a dispensation is needed because of the fact she is non Catholic. I believe the dispensation is granted by the Bishop. This is being done before her entering into the Church because if the marriage is invalid you and she may not receive the sacraments of reconcilation and/or Holy Communion.
If you had both been Protestant and married in the Lutheran church then the marriage would be considered valid by the Catholic Church. But if you a Catholic had married a Protestant in a Protestant Church the marriage would not be regarded as valid. This is because the marriage of a Catholic must take place before a Catholic priest and at least two witnesses. What the procedure is for validating the marriage when the Protestant spouse enters the Church I don’t know.
I would also suggest that you attend RCIA with your wife, it will be a meaningful experience and you will have a lot to talk about.
If neither partner was Roman Catholic, you would be correct. The dispensation has to to do with the Catholic partner's standing with the Church. The Catholic partner will given the dispensation. It will not given to the marriage. The marriage is valid, but the Catholic lost proper standing when the marriage was made.
start your own thread. The OP has stated he didn’t invite fighting and you ignored him.
I’m not fighting. The mod already addressed the issue.
See this for an explanation of the LCMS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran_Church_-_Missouri_Synod
And this for an explanation of the Sacraments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrament
Wow, looks like you have great answers to your questions here, so I won’t be redundant or anything. My hubby swam the Tiber five years ago, and he still has questions and is learning, as am I. That’s part of the beauty of the truth, no question is too simple and there are reasons for everything. Your wife sounds like she is truly think and praying over her decision, which is wonderful.
OP here...
Keep coming with the comments. This is extremely helpful!
Just a point of clarification...
We were married in a Congregationalist church. The Reverend allowed us to customize the ceremony, with his overall approval.
Lutherans consider Holy Baptism and Holy Communion as "sacraments" in that:
1. Each is instituted by God.
2. Each delivers the forgiveness of sins Christ won for us on the cross.
3. In each, God's powerful and creative Word of promise is joined to a visible element (water in Baptism, bread and wine in Communion).
Holy Absolution often is counted as the third sacrament, since it is indeed instituted by Christ himself and, by definition, delivers the forgiveness of sins. The only question with Absolution is whether or not there is a visible element. Is the person and voice of the pastor as the spokesman of Christ--is that considered the "visible element"? It can be looked at in that way.
Likewise with Holy Ordination. It can be counted as a sacrament in a sense, not for the benefit of the ordinand himself but for the benefit of those he will serve.
Now we do not count Holy Marriage, for instance, as a sacrament. Certainly marriage is instituted by God. And it even is a picture of the relationship of Christ and his Church. But it does not confer forgiveness. Marriage may *require* forgiveness ;-) but it does not *bestow* it.
The poster stated that he was and remains a Catholic. He also stated that the marriage took place outside both the Catholic and Lutheran churches. Therefore, if it was a civil ceremony, the marriage is invalid in the eyes of the Church, because no Catholic, under any circumstances, may marry in a civil ceremony. If the couple was married in some other Christian denomination’s church, it could have been valid if the Catholic (the poster) got a dispensation from canonical form from his bishop. Without that, the marriage would be considered invalid, as the Church considers Herself to have jurisdiction in how the Sacrament of Matrimony is undertaken, and the Church would be out of the loop in this situation. In both of these circumstances, however, the poster and his wife can remedy the situation by having the Church convalidate their marriage now. It could even be done before the wife is officially catholic, since they are both already baptized Christians.
RMWT,
Did you get a dispensation from your bishop for the wedding to take place there? The absence of a dispensation is probably at issue here, since you were married in a Christian church. If you had the dispensation to do this, then the marriage is both valid and sacramental, as both you and your wife, presumably, were already baptized. Nothing further will need to be done. If you did not have the dispensation, then the marriage will need to be convalidated, or “blessed.” This is a straightforward thing, and can be done even before your wife formally converts, since she is already a baptized Christian. The Catholic Church considers Herself to have jurisdiction of the sacramental marriages of Her members, and that is why a dispensation was needed. Without it, the Church was out of the loop, so to speak, and a “defect from canonical form” existed with the marriage.
hey good luck with this!
don’t worry about waiting a few months, most of us have to wait decades to see God face to face, so waiting a few months to receive Him in the sacraments is not so bad.
Catholics have more sacraments because Jesus instituted 7 not just 3; they are all fully scriptural too as well as being part of the tradition of the Church, meaning that right from the beginning of the Church christians had 7 sacraments.
OP here again...
Thank you for your wonderful answers.
I, too, would like to know where in scripture, tradition, or from whom the idea a Sacrament is only about conferring forgiveness?
Example: when Jesus healed the man lowered from the ceiling by his freinds, wasn’t a sacrament (Healing of the Sick) performed? Didn’t Jesus ask him about having faith (i.e. acknowledging sinful nature that only Christ could heal) before healing him physically?
Just another question .... wouldn’t this satisfy all 3 ‘points’ brought up by the Lutheran posters?
From Jesus. The chief benefit of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion is the forgiveness of sins. Likewise of course with Holy Absolution.
Keep in mind, there is Holy Baptism, there is Holy Communion, there is Holy Absolution. Each has its own proprium, and they all have features in common. It is what these have in common that leads us to group them in a category we call "sacrament/-s" (cf. mysteri-on/-a in the Greek NT and sacrament-um/-a in the Latin.
BTW, notice how St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10, intimates the understanding of two main sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, by seeing their "types" in Old Testament Israel.
its sad that you can’t meet Christ in the Eucharist! Being Catholic is awesome, i can travel around and drop in to visit our Lord whenever I pass a Catholic Church. Also, perpetual Eucharistic adoration is a great oppourtunity to spend an hour or more with Christ just talking. I used to spend my saturday nights with Christ. It changed my life! There is a book called the Practice of The Presence of God; acheiving this constant presence is the most wonderful experience (although hard to achieve), and having a continual conversation with our Lord.
And you say we don’t know how to have a relationship with Jesus? Just meet some good catholics and they’ll prove you wrong.
Thanks for the clarification!
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