By Fr. Thom Hennen
Question Box
Q: Does a person need to have an annulment to remarry after their spouse has died? I understood that marriage was “until death do us part,” but am I mistaken about this?
A: You are absolutely correct. A person whose spouse has died and who wants to remarry in the Catholic Church is free to marry and does not need an annulment for that previous marriage. Of course, the other party must also be free to marry, having no living spouse or having received a “declaration of nullity” from the Church for any previous marriage.
Where does this come from? You might recall in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt 22:23-33) that Jesus is given a tricky hypothetical by some Sadducees. The Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, asked Jesus whose wife a woman would be at the resurrection if she had been married seven times to seven brothers, one after another. They thought this would prove their point about how ridiculous a notion the resurrection would be.
In his usual fashion, with rapier-sharp wit, Jesus dismantles their argument. He says, “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.” In other words, marriage is an earthly reality and it is indeed “until death do us part” for married couples.
That does not mean that you will not recognize your spouse as such in heaven. You will rejoice in that reunion, made possible through the love, sacrifice and support you offered to each other throughout your married life. That is the point of marriage, to help each other and your children get to heaven. Yet, as Jesus says, in heaven we “neither marry nor are given in marriage” but are all caught up in the wedding feast of the Lamb. He is the Bridegroom and we, the Church, are the Bride.
Q: What do we do with our old blessed palm branches from Palm Sundays past?
A: If you are like me, you probably have a small collection of these in your home. I will often tuck them behind a crucifix or other holy images and forget about them until Palm Sunday. The rule of thumb with blessed objects is not to discard them in the trash. Rather, they should be burned or buried. I suppose that using old palms as garden mulch might be an acceptable and respectful form of burial.
As we approach Ash Wednesday, your parish may actually set out a basket to collect the old palms and dispose of them properly for you. If not, you might offer to arrange that. The ancient custom was that the palms from Palm Sunday were burnt and the ashes were then used on Ash Wednesday. I have actually tried this but found that the ash produced by the old palms was too light and fluffy to make a good smudge, even when mixed with a little water.
In the United States, we are used to that fine, dark ash that leaves a distinct cross on our foreheads. This is generally store bought — the “good stuff.” In other countries, ashes are not smudged on the forehead in the sign of a cross. They are sprinkled on the head, in which case the lighter ash would work just as well. In many ways, this makes more sense as, ironically, we are instructed in the Gospel on Ash Wednesday not to neglect our appearance but to wash our face so that we may not appear to be fasting (see Mt 6:16-18).
(Father Thom Hennen serves as the pastor of Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport and vicar general for the Diocese of Davenport. Send questions to messenger@davenportdiocese.org)
