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Milestones & Faith

My last post about our journey in Catholicism is now nearly two years old (The Circle Completed: How I became Catholic, kind of again) and much has happened. After a few recent milestones, it feels like it's time for an update, along with some more thoughts on the whole process.

N(8)'s First Holy Communion - with our Priest, Father Colin.

In the other post, I talked about why I returned to the Church - at that time, the children had been baptised and Mr. was in RCIA (the year of preparation for becoming Catholic). 

We had already done our research, of course, so RCIA wasn't so much about learning new information as it was to get to know the parish and the priest, making connections. Another man in our group turned out to be a convert from a very similar background as us - a small evangelical church close to us, where I had taken the kids for toddler groups in the past. I already knew his wife and daughter from those groups. His wife, like me, had also been a poorly catechised Catholic as a child and was returning now. 

It is brilliant to have a family to walk alongside who have converted from a similar background and really get where we're coming from; and even with a child of similar age who got along with ours really well (and they have become fast friends, and N had her first communion together with their daughter); and I also deeply appreciate our Priest, Father Colin, who is himself a convert and is very interested and knowledgeable about history. His homilies often feature some teaching about Church history, which I love.




Now we get to instruct our children, as almost-cradle Catholics, and see them grow in understanding and faith. N(8) had her first Holy Communion this year and she understands and appreciates the significance of this privilege, of Christ giving himself to us in this way. D(7) understands too, and longs for the day when he can receive it as well - but he's got to wait another year, he will begin his First Holy Communion course in January in preparation for receiving it in May. He cannot wait, and that is beautiful.

At Easter 2022, Mr. was finally received into the Church, and we both received the Eucharist together - a beautiful moment.

At Mr's Rite of Election, before being officially received. With our Bishop, Declan.

However, there was still a past that needed dealing with. Mr. had been married before - not as a Catholic, of course - and because the Church recognises marriages as valid by default, no matter what faith, and does not believe marriage can be dissolved by anything other than death (Mark 10:9), there was a process to go through to determine whether his previous marriages were valid or not. This took more than a year... and finally, in April this year we had our answer. There are certain criteria that a marriage has to meet in order to be understood as sacramental, and as Mr. didn't go into them with the right motives and goals, they were eventually recognised as never having been sacramental marriages, which left Mr. free to marry me. 

So our third (and final, I might add!) wedding - details on why it's the third are in this old blog post - finally took place in June 2023. We are now, at last, sacramentally married and the past is dealt with. So ten years on from our original marriage, here we are, walking into our future together... I loved that the kids were able to participate in this wedding and experience their parents committing again to a life together that welcomes children as blessings and strives towards a love based life together.

Just a few wedding photos below! 











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