One evening, I was leaving a meeting at my parish, and was pulling out of my parking space, when I stopped dead in my tracks. I had just realized that I walked out of the church and forgot to make a visit to Jesus. In every Catholic Church around the world, Jesus, in the form […]
Marriages are supposed to be for life. That’s how God designed them. Divorce is an obvious sign that something went seriously wrong with that plan. Most divorces don’t happen overnight. It is usually the result of a cumulative series of events. If you are totally honest with yourself, you can see what role you played […]
I remember how anxious and worried I would be over each new crisis that erupted during my divorce. After the storm passed, I would feel relieved. I would believe I had dealt with the last major problem and calm seas would now prevail. Wrong. No matter how many times I went through the same cycle, […]
Recently, I was speaking to a group on the virtue of chastity. A highly charged topic, for sure. One woman raised her hand and offered that what she was most afraid of was being alone the rest of her life. She felt she was in a Catch-22 of sorts. She was afraid that if she committed to […]
I could see the frustration and apprehension on Chloe’s face as she was telling me about her latest travail with her former spouse. Chloe was a participant in our Recovering from Divorce Program and had just gone through a divorce during the past year. She was really struggling with creating a cooperative, working relationship with her […]
“This feels like a death,” I distinctly remember telling my mother on a very cold, and very lonely, November day, shortly after my divorce was filed. A divorce is a death—the death of a marriage. And with it comes all the same feelings of grief that are associated with a physical death. And like a […]
One day, shortly after I had started my annulment process, I was outside doing yard work. My thoughts drifted to the annulment and how I was anxiously anticipating its completion. I remember thinking that I was looking forward to getting my annulment so “I could meet someone more loving and more ’together’ than my ex.” […]
“If God really loves me, where is he now when I need him the most?” That was the thought that ran through my mind often during those first weeks and months when my divorce hit. Sure, I read over and over in the Gospels how God will never abandon me. How even the hairs on […]
In ancient times, lepers where considered “unclean” and were the outcasts of society. They were socially ostracized and forced to live separated from the community. Sadly, it is not uncommon to feel the same way after going through a divorce as a Catholic. You may feel “unclean” and unworthy to participate in your faith. This is […]
I stayed in the house with the kids after the divorce, and I decided I needed to spruce the place up a bit. A friend had recommended an interior designer to me, named Betty. I came to call her Crazy Betty because she was always hitting on me, and, invariably after our meetings, she would […]