By Matthew Bellisario O.P. 2020
I remember some years ago having dinner with Monsignor La Femina. As we often did, we were having a theological conversation. This one happened to be about divorce and remarriage. I personally come from a divorced home where I lived with my mother and my step-dad. One thing that I always appreciated and still do is that my mother and my father were always civil to each other. The one thing however that always bothered me was that I was told that I had two fathers in a sense, but sometimes one would tell me something different than the other and sometimes it caused friction. Over time it became apparent that our family was not as close as other families. I do not hold any animosity toward my mother, my father or my step-dad. I believe they all did the best they could in raising me and my step-sister under the circumstances.
As I was talking with Monsignor I told him that I felt it was unfair that most of the time one of the parties was at fault while the other often wanted to make the marriage work. So I asked the question, "Why should the devout faithful person who wants to uphold the Sacrament of marriage be held accountable for the unfaithful one?" In my eyes, it did not seem fair that the faithful person should not be able to get married again because of the sinful action of the other. Monsignor always gave me a straight to the point answer which I will to the best of my ability quote here, "Matthew, not everything in life is fair. That is why when you choose to get married you must choose wisely and then you must suffer the consequences of your choice. Not everything in life is an easy fix. Sometimes the consequences for sin are not easily repairable."
I think about this conversation often and share it with others. In this day and age with modern technology and our relativistic mindset, we see everything as easily fixable or replaceable, including our relationships with others. We fail to understand the consequences of our actions and we fail to see the damage done by ours and others sinful actions. Do we really understand how divorce affects the children and how it will affect their future relationships? Do we always get a "do-over" like we do in video games where you get more than one life? This brings me to an illustrative story that was told by an Orthodox Bishop of which my memory fails me as to who it was. The gist of the story in my own words is this:
So it is with the consequences of all of our sins. We often fail to see how our sinful actions span across time, space and generation. We fail to see how they affect others. Perhaps this Lent we should be meditating on the consequences of our sins. We need to instill in us a fear of sin, the need to avoid it and instead cultivate a love for God. Then our virtuous actions can have positive consequences across time, space and generation, for the salvation of souls!
I remember some years ago having dinner with Monsignor La Femina. As we often did, we were having a theological conversation. This one happened to be about divorce and remarriage. I personally come from a divorced home where I lived with my mother and my step-dad. One thing that I always appreciated and still do is that my mother and my father were always civil to each other. The one thing however that always bothered me was that I was told that I had two fathers in a sense, but sometimes one would tell me something different than the other and sometimes it caused friction. Over time it became apparent that our family was not as close as other families. I do not hold any animosity toward my mother, my father or my step-dad. I believe they all did the best they could in raising me and my step-sister under the circumstances.
As I was talking with Monsignor I told him that I felt it was unfair that most of the time one of the parties was at fault while the other often wanted to make the marriage work. So I asked the question, "Why should the devout faithful person who wants to uphold the Sacrament of marriage be held accountable for the unfaithful one?" In my eyes, it did not seem fair that the faithful person should not be able to get married again because of the sinful action of the other. Monsignor always gave me a straight to the point answer which I will to the best of my ability quote here, "Matthew, not everything in life is fair. That is why when you choose to get married you must choose wisely and then you must suffer the consequences of your choice. Not everything in life is an easy fix. Sometimes the consequences for sin are not easily repairable."
I think about this conversation often and share it with others. In this day and age with modern technology and our relativistic mindset, we see everything as easily fixable or replaceable, including our relationships with others. We fail to understand the consequences of our actions and we fail to see the damage done by ours and others sinful actions. Do we really understand how divorce affects the children and how it will affect their future relationships? Do we always get a "do-over" like we do in video games where you get more than one life? This brings me to an illustrative story that was told by an Orthodox Bishop of which my memory fails me as to who it was. The gist of the story in my own words is this:
A popular theologian had a prolific writing career publishing many books. He was always on the best seller list and was very popular with the people. In his books he often came up with novel theological ideas which obscured and often watered down the Church's moral teachings. The more he downplayed the Church's moral teachings, for example, often referring to the Commandments as only Ideals, the more his readers relaxed their commitment to the Commandments of God. In doing this they began to justify their sins, and eventually they no any longer saw sin as sin. His readers passed on his books to others as gifts and many churches ordered his books for their parish studies. At the ripe age of 85 after a prosperous life, this popular author and theologian died in his bed.
He awoke to find himself standing at the judgment seat of Christ who judged his infidelity and sentenced him to hell, to which he had no defense because he knew in his heart that he played fast and loose with the teachings of Christ and His Church. He took his lot in hell finding himself in a large boiling cast iron cauldren. Next to him was another theologian and author. Several times a day the demons came down and loaded more wood under this prolific author's cauldren so that he was always much hotter than the other author next to him who' s cauldren was only stoked with wood only once every couple of days. The famous author said to his hellish neighbor, "What gives? Why is your cauldren so much cooler than mine? The demons keep piling more wood every couple of hours to stoke the fires under my cauldren." The author next to him replied, "You were a much more famous author and theologian than I. Yes, much more prolific. Only one of my books sells every few days or weeks, you sell one every couple of hours and entire parishes are still being misled by your writings. Every time someone reads one of our books the demons stoke the fires under our cauldrens!"
So it is with the consequences of all of our sins. We often fail to see how our sinful actions span across time, space and generation. We fail to see how they affect others. Perhaps this Lent we should be meditating on the consequences of our sins. We need to instill in us a fear of sin, the need to avoid it and instead cultivate a love for God. Then our virtuous actions can have positive consequences across time, space and generation, for the salvation of souls!
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| Be careful what you wish for! |
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