Dear Suzanne:

According to Church law a marriage is invalid if either spouse has the intention of never having children. Marriage is ordered to the raising of children. Thus, if a person deliberately intends to never have children they cannot be validly married.

As for your guilt of past sins, you need only feel guilty until such time as you confess the sins in the Sacrament of Confession. Guilt is designed to humble us into confession. Once we confess our sins and are forgiven those sins no longer exist. Thus, there is nothing to feel guilty about.

The sins of your past that have been forgiven by God you need to let go. It is an act of Pride for you to hang on to these forgiven sins. I mean, who do you think you are not forgiving yourself when the God of the Universe has forgiven you. You think you know better than God? See what I mean. This is pride and this is what you are doing, whether you know it or not, when you hang on to guilt for sins that have been forgiven.

As for today, all you can do is to try your best to live the good Christian life. God knows your weaknesses and strengths. He doesn't expect you to be able to do more than you are able, but He does expect you to do what you can.

Learn your faith, develop devotions, particulate in the Sacraments, be a good Catholic as much as you know how to be. Then when you fall from that, God is good to give us the Sacrament of Confession to pick us up, "dust ourselves off, and start all over again" to quote a song from a musical. The Sacrament of Confession repairs and heals our soul from the wounds of sin. It removes those sins so that they no longer exist. This allows us to come out of the confessional a renewed person ready to live a life for God clean and pure --- until the next time we sin in which we go back to the Sacrament to get healed again.

I know you are afraid of hell, but try to think of sin as disappointing God which you do not want to do because you love Him. Be sorry for your sin because you love Him, rather than merely because you are afraid of hell. You may not be able to that right now, but that is a goal to reach for.

There is no reason for anyone to go to hell. God has given us all the tools we need to remain in a State of Grace, to die in a State of Grace and thereby spend eternity in His friendship.

Whenever you sin gravely, say an act of perfect contrition and then go to Confession at your next opportunity. Doing that when you fall, plus trying to live the good Christian life the best you can is the best bet to be in a State of Grace when you die. God does not try to scare us into heaven. He loves us into heaven.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary