Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 23 February 2025

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

Every once in a while things will come up in conversation that reveal misunderstandings of things that I believe are central to life in the Church. Often they are things that are the product of misinformation (maybe well-intended) that cause people to stay away from the sacraments or develop a bad self-image with regard to beliefs. I keep a list and, every once in a while, try to publish corrections. Here are a few major ones:

1) Being divorced does not forfeit your dignity in the eyes of God or make you any less a member of the Church. It does not exclude you from Holy Communion. Of course, Catholics must be married sacramentally in the Church, a civil marriage is not valid, only legal. So if you are a divorced Catholic who never married in the Church, civil divorce ends civil marriage, and a good confession is sufficient. If you were married in the Church and intend to remarry or start dating again, talk to one of the priests about the annulment process, because civil divorce does not end the sacramental bond. You are still married to that person sacramentally. We investigate the former marriage and determine if it was really sacramental, done for the right reasons with all the necessary intentions of fidelity, permanence, or openness to children, or if there might be any psychological incapacity on the part of either spouse. Once the former marriage is declared null (didn’t happen), you are free to seek marriage again for the first time.

2) The Rite of Christian Burial has three parts: the Vigil (commonly called a “wake” to make sure the person doesn’t merely seem to be deceased), The Funeral Mass, and the Rite of Burial. There is a current trend to move away from these Rites which the Deceased, if they were a person of faith and would have wished it, deserves. This happens for several reasons. Sometimes, surviving family members no longer practice Catholic faith and don’t understand the full impact of what a Funeral Mass is for. Much more than a “celebration of life” or tribute to the Deceased, it is actually a uniting of the Deceased’s earthly life in thanksgiving to the bread and wine of the sacrifice of Jesus to the Father in the Mass. This final communion is the commencement of that perfect communion which is the beauty of eternal life. More importantly, if the Deceased may not have been ready to enter the embrace of God needing further purification, they rely entirely on our prayers and the intercession of the saints to achieve that eternal life. The Mass is the greatest prayer we can offer for them, as well as the greatest act of charity we can do for them. Not to do so would be wrong.

Sometimes people make these decisions for economic reasons. Cutting out the Funeral Mass (the most important part) might be offered as a good option by the funeral home when, in fact, it costs the least. Our parish costs are only $100 for the church (which can be waived in difficult circumstances) and stipends for the musicians, if desired. The Church teaches that it is preferred to have the Funeral Mass with the body of the Deceased present and that cremation, if planned, be done after the Mass, but not required.

3) It seems that many people were taught as children that you may not receive Holy Communion unless you have been to the sacrament of Reconciliation. This seems to have had two results. On the one hand, too strict a rule can cause people to disregard it; on the other, scrupulosity can result as a response to the idea that I must find sins to confess. People can have unhealthy approaches to confession.

The official teaching: if you have committed grave (mortal) sin, you need to go to confession before receiving Eucharist. A regular practice of confessing is good, even if you don’t have mortal sin, because the grace of the sacrament deepens your relationship with God and brings about spiritual growth, but venial sins may be forgiven in many other ways: a sincere act of contrition, penance, fasting, almsgiving, works of mercy, the Penitential Rite at the beginning of Mass, even receiving Communion itself. Do you feel nervous going to confession? I have found focusing on the unconditional love and mercy of God is such a greater reflection than focusing on my sins. It brings about greater contrition.

The Lord be with you.