As expected, the essay below is generating feedback.

I have the Baronius Press ARSH 1962 Missal, and every Sunday has a very short blurb on the overarching theme of the Sunday.  Today is the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, and the little introductory blurb in my Missal is this:

The Liturgy shows us that our misfortunes are caused by our unfaithfulness in conforming to the will of God. Let us beseech the Lord, through the prayers of Holy Church, to pardon our sins, so that we may serve Him with a quiet and trustful heart, always obeying His precepts.

And the Introit:

All that Thou hast done to us, O Lord, Thou hast done in true judgment: because we have not obeyed Thy commandments: but give glory to Thy Name, and deal with us according to Thy mercy.  (Daniel 3: 31, 29, 35)

Blessed are the undefiled in the way; who walk in the law of the Lord. (Psalm 118:1)
Gloria Patri…

Do we understand what “blessed are the undefiled in the way” means?  It doesn’t mean blessed are the perfect (because no one is perfect), it simply means something like, “Oh, in retrospect, how I wish that I had never made the mistakes I have made.  How blessed are the people who never committed the sins that I have committed, made the mistakes I have made and tied the knots I have tied, that have so injured both myself and others….”

If you are in a faux-marriage, you cannot blame God for this.  Only yourself. What you can ask God for is His mercy, but ONLY IF you rectify the situation.  You cannot continue to sin and have any expectation of mercy.  Remember, compassion literally means “to suffer with”.  If you do not believe, and in fact militantly insist that your sins aren’t sins, then God, by definition, cannot give you His mercy, his COMPASSION, because you believe your sin to be a good thing, and want it to continue.  Only the penitent, shriven sinner is eligible for God’s infinite mercy and compassion.