Letters! O We Get Letters! We Get Your Letter Ev’ryday!!!

A reader writes:

First of all, please do not e-mail me back! I would prefer if you would reply via your blog. I’ll explain.

I don’t want to upset my wife by her seeing this or your reply. Thanks.

I am Catholic, she is Mennonite Brethren. Our married life has been challenging. We have a 13 year old daughter and 5 year old son. Both baptized and our daughter celebrated First Communion and Confirmation this year. You can see by the times of these events how it has been a challenge from the start and more so with time.

I am really hoping to order your books on Our Lady but I was wondering if you could recommend a title or two that could help me understand my wife. MB’s are anabaptist, faith alone, the bible alone Christians.

Last year I attended the Marian conference in Winnipeg and explained all this to a priest ( a convert himself – married, was a bishop in his former denomination). He suggested that I only pray for God’s will to be done for my wife ( no prayers for conversion, etc). Another priest at that conference advised me to back off on my own practicing of the faith – i.e.: attending Mass and adoration less frequently so as not to be taking away from family, etc. This second one was in the sacrament of reconciliation.

I have tried to implement this advice as follows: I stopped going to Adoration and mass on Fridays (out of town – different parish – same priest). I still go to Mass every Thursday and Adoration and Mass on Tuesdays. I recently felt convicted by Our Lord to let my wife go and give her back to Him. Ouch!! I am trying. I pray a lot! It is extremely difficult to let go – even when it is to Our Lord that we are entrusting our loved ones. I know – I have a lot of growing to do yet in my spiritual walk.

Anyway, before I confuse the crap out of you and bore you to tears, what I am looking for is a book or two that could help me to relate to her without hurting her. I want to understand and accept her for who she is. I want to be able to share and explain my faith without making her feel like she needs to defend herself. Do I make any sense? Is there hope for me? We pray together everyday (mostly) and this is our prayer – to understand and love and accept each other.

Okay, I ramble! Sorry. I need someone to talk to. Any help you can offer in the form of good books to read would be greatly appreciated.

May Our Lord bless you and Our Lady guard you!

I generally hate involving myself in such matters, but since you want my opinion publically, here it is:

Several things: First, as far as books go, I think the best thing to do would be to ask your wife what books she loves and then read those. That’s the quickest way to come to understand what makes her tick. Second, I don’t have a big problem with you not trying to “convert” your wife (though I don’t see the harm in praying for her to become Catholics, as long as you don’t try to control that process). We can’t convert anybody, only the Holy Spirit can do that and when we try we just gum it up and make people feel pressured.

However, I feel I much register a *very* strong reservation and dissent about the advice the priest gave you to cut back on your own practice of the faith. You do your wife no good and yourself much harm, I think, by deliberating crimping your own access to the sacraments and the grace of God. It’s one thing to pressure your wife to going to Mass if she does not want to. It’s quite another to neuter your own faith and I doubt any good can come of it at all. I do very much agree that you should entrust her and your marriage and family into our Lord’s hands. But exactly the way you do that is by availing yourself of his grace in the sacraments, not by cutting yourself off from that grace. So I’d get back to Adoration and the sacraments as you used to do.

Just my two cents.

Note to comboxers: please, please, please prayers only. Nobody wants to hear your adjudication of this marriage and if you offer anything *besides* prayers I will delete you. The great danger about all such posts is the overwhelming temptation ignoramuses feel toward pontificating about relationships of which they know nothing. Stow it and pray. Sincerely, The Management