Divorce and sin
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:date: 2016-04-11T20:15:46
:category: faith
:tags: blogComment, FirstThings, ecumenism, Catholics, marriage, sin, sacrament

(originally started as a comment on `the article on First
Things`_).

.. _`the article on First Things`:
    https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/04/a-stubborn-givenness

A thought: isn’t the one of the root of whole problem, that
Catholics see the problem in “the second marriage”?

I am not sure who started ignoring what seems to me like more
obvious problem, which is the divorce itself. On one hand it
seems to me more honest (and honoring the free will of spouses)
to accept their decision as meaning what they meant it to mean.
So, yes in my opinion, divorce is divorce. And yes it is the sin
against the marriage (or the sacrament of marriage if you wish).

I don't think it taking sin too lightly when we say that every
sin could be forgiven to people (except for the sin of the Holy
Spirit, I believe quite certainly that a divorce is not the one).
So, I believe that even the sin of divorce can be forgiven to
people, and I don't think agreeing with the Lord makes me taking
sin too lightly. I lived through couple of divorces of my friends
(as an elder of a Protestant congregation).

I could see clearly that every of these divorces was result of a
sin. In once case it was adultery, the other case was more
complicated (I am still not sure what to think about the other
case). However, in one case, I could see that the husband (who
was guilty of adultery), really did repent. His former wife gave
up on him and went away, and I haven't seen her much anymore (I
think she moved out of the country), but he really went
completely (and publicly) on his knees and repented from his sin
of adultery which broke his marriage. He didn’t take the easy
way, he spent next few years to really go through his wounds, his
sins, and found a glorious recovery to be a full son of God in
all His glory. After some more years, he started to date another
girl from our church, and we all could fully rejoice when after
couple of years of dating they got married. It has been couple of
years ago, so I can testify they seem to be really working well
out the blessing of their marriage.

My point is that by replacing the sin of divorce with what I
cannot actually see as a sin of remarriage (after all, despite
their bad experience they are trying again to make marriage work
for them; seems to me more like a glorious effort to do the right
thing, than a sin), that is by replacing one with another,
Catholics effectively made divorce into the second sin from which
there is no way out. My brother after his former wife was gone
would be effectively ban for the rest of his life from
experiencing fullness of life, which for him includes marriage.
Effectively, by banning some people for the rest of their life
from sacraments, we would be devaluing marriage (or the Lord's
Supper) as unnecessary for the fullness of the life with Christ
or we are doubting promise of John 10:11.

So, yes I do believe that there is a way out of every sin, even
the most awful one. I believe there is a way to the fulness of
life even for murderers, guards in concentration camps, and
divorcees.