Letter to Earl E. Byrd and Ms. Medea Medium continued:

I am trying to give you a different perspective on grace. Grace is always good. It just doesn’t always seem good at the time. Grace and favor sound pleasant enough, but they are really about our vocation, or more simply put, our calling from God, our life’s work.  We Americans believe in choice. We like to go into a grocery store with an aisle of hundreds of breakfast cereals made of the same refined flour, artificial dyes, flavors and enough sugar per serving to make a busload of four-year-olds get the screaming shakes for hours. Then there’s the pet aisle. We have infinite choices of health food for dogs. Remember that Fido will eat just about anything that he finds on the street if it smells interesting and isn’t moving too fast. We have cable TV with hundreds of channels of equally mindless entertainment. We have convinced ourselves that more choice is more freedom. Shouldn’t this sacred principle of American life apply to religion?  I find it interesting that the word “heresy” comes form the Greek word for choice. A heretic is one who picks and chooses what he is going to believe. 

There is really only one possible choice for a human being: to serve God or to serve our own desires. We think sacraments are about some kind of swell party. God thinks sacraments are about love and, thus, about sacrifice.  If you ask most people if they would consider supporting their children in a calling to become a priest or a nun, they respond, “God forbid! It’s such a lonely life!” or “That means I won’t have grandchildren,” or “That’s just downright weird.” Maybe you should consider not having your child baptized if that’s the case, because if you have your child baptized, confessed and confirmed, you’re really saying that they belong to God, “Not my will, but His will be done in my life, and the life of my child.”  

Birth control. Now there’s a topic!  Most people believe that the Catholic Church teaches that God forbids the use of artificial means of birth control. This is true, but there’s more to it. Married couples may use natural means of birth control if there is genuinely serious reason to do so. Serious reason would be things like medical issues, or family problems, or true and dire poverty. The normal Catholic marriage is supposed to receive what God gives. Believe me, I know that large families can be hell on wheels. I come from one. If you decide to honor God by accepting whatever marriage brings, most of your time for about twenty years will be spent loading and unloading a van that may or may not break down once fully loaded. I know this. 

That is the point of a sacrament, “Into your hands, Oh, Lord, we commend our spirits!” America says that you’re supposed to have 2.3 children. Anything else is immoral and bad for the environment. We see the happy families in all the commercials, Mom, and dad, son and daughter, little clones going to Disney World with big smiles showing perfect teeth. I suppose they leave the 3rd child back in the hotel room. In contrast, the ideal Catholic family looks like something that spilled out of a clown car. This is grace and favor. It is a calling. A tough calling.  I’ve known both kinds of families. The perfect 2.3 child family is just as much a wreck, if not more so than the family that looks like a parade. Junior is already planning on going to medical school in the Virgin Islands, and Sissy is already planning her first marriage and divorce. Life is tough either way. To be a sacramental person is to believe that life’s joys and sorrows are offerings to God. 

So then, if you believe this, perhaps your kids should receive the sacraments of initiation all at once, just as was done in the early Church and is still done in the Eastern Churches, Baptism, Communion, and Confirmation all at the same time. The Sacraments of Initiation were originally broken up in the Western Churches so that the bishop could come and “confirm” the sacramental election made by the priest or deacon at the baptism. Then it became a catechetical opportunity as it still is in which, even if you think the sacraments exist for your amusement, your children may actually encounter  God somewhere in the midst of their instruction. The grace of the sacrament is one thing. The grace of having parents who believe in Christ with their whole heart and soul is another kind of grace. If the parents, especially Dad,  are in love with the Lord, the kids are pretty much ready whenever they receive, so I wouldn’t worry to much about the timing of the sacraments. I would worry more that our children are ready to receive the grace, the favor, the calling at some point either before or after God gives the sacrament. I’m just as concerned at this time in our history that people know the Lord as I am that they receive the sacraments. 

As for the interesting marriage crowd and the abuse of that sacrament, of the hundreds of marriages at which I have “officiated,” about ten or twenty were actually open to the grace of the sacrament.  I suspect that most of the people I have married are now divorced. I have actually seen marriages that ended by the time the party was over. I have been browbeaten by musicians, photographers, brides and wedding planners. The grooms are pretty much numb through the whole thing. I just try to make sure they are sober. The actual Christian weddings I’ve been involved with have been beautiful and genuinely moving, and usually pretty simple, but as I said, these are rare. 

Personally, I believe that any involvement of the state in marriage is a violation of the United States Constitution. If people want to enter into a contractual relationship, go see a lawyer, “If the party of the first part is unfaithful to the party of the second part...the disposition of communal property, dogs and children…etc. etc. e pluribus unum, corpus dilecti etc.... sign here!” 

What we Catholics are doing in the Sacrament of Matrimony has nothing to do with so called American Civil Marriage, It’s pretty much the opposite. We are laying our lives down at the altar of God. That implies, no sex outside of marriage, before or after. No living together before marriage, no divorce, and separation only in the case of serious danger to partners or children. It implies a desire to obey the entire law of God as presented to us by Scripture and Sacred Tradition. 

Sacramental Catholic Marriage means not only that I will be faithful to my spouse, but that I will go to church every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation with my spouse and as many children as the Lord sees fit to give us! I will pray with my spouse and children and personally teach them the faith. I will be careful of what I watch on television as well as what my kids watch. I will teach by example. I will fast when I should. I will be mindful of the poor. In short, I will live the Catholic life.  So please consider: do you want the Catholic life or do want a swell party and nice photos. If you want to marry an old tree stump or your pet turtle, fine! Don’t pretend it’s the sacrificial relationship that is Catholic marriage. Go to a lawyer’s office, draw up the contract, and rent a hall. Just don’t drag me or God into it.

Yours,

Rev. Know-It-All