The start of lent. Not such a fun time – but hopefully a very rewarding time if we make the effort to do it well. It’s a great time to put more emphasis on developing the virtues and spending quality time with God. I, for one, know that I am always a little bit soft on myself, make many excuses, and then regret that I probably didn’t grow as much as I could have.
Anyway, last week I was thinking about faith and love. I have a couple of friends who find it hard to practice their faith, or start to practice it more, because they have long-term boyfriends or girlfriends who don’t believe in the same things they do. There are Church teachings like not sleeping with your ‘partner’ until you get married, whether you want to get married at all for that matter, and contraception that can be pretty challenging to hold your ground on for a lot of people – and even more challenging to do if you’re someone you doesn’t believe in them.
It is even harder if you decide you want to come back to your faith while already in such a relationship. Of course you really love the person you’re with – and when you’re dating seriously that person can become the most important and significant person in your life – you depend on them so how do you stay with them and take on Church teaching if it’s going to really affect your relationship? It is a hard question for a lot of people and it really only has one extremely hard answer if your partner is keeping you from God, His teachings and the truth about life and how to live it well. Is the relationship right for you? It is of course different if you are actually married (in the Church) to someone though, because then you have made marriage vows before God. Where is the line there though, when making your marriage work between you and your husband conflicts with God’s teaching a lot or in part? I’m not sure?
A lot of people I know also find being single really hard and wonder if it is actually possible to meet someone you like and who shares your values and faith. It is easy to start to wonder if it’s possible in ‘real life’ sometimes. Is it possible to meet a nice Catholic boy / girl who is at least averagely good looking, has brains and some personality? Will you be waiting forever? The answer is, of course, that everything is possible for God in his time (and if not you could convert one perhaps?!). He could even change your heart to allow you to love someone you thought you might not, right? And even if you really don’t meet anyone, life is very short isn’t it to be compromising everything you believe in for a relationship? Because eventually you will always regret that you did. Suffering is never without purpose, and isn’t it better to live by your values even if it means a boy or girl you are attracted to won’t go out with you because of it? And what’s more isn’t it a GREAT test to see if they really like you for you so you can save a lot of hurt in the long run? …and people who are sure of themselves and what they believe in are actually much more attractive anyway. A real relationship is feeling and being more you and a better you – not compromising all your values and beliefs.
Relationships are so important to us, and they can be so complicated. Yet, in my experience if they are right, in that you feel peaceful about it and peaceful before God, then it doesn’t have to be as complicated after all…
Being in love is a form of insanity – when love comes in the window, sense flies out the door. How many times I’ve heard some person in love say ‘we’re so much alike; he/she shares all my values – and he/she really respects my faith’ when it’s quite clear to any outsider that he/she sees the faith as a rival and is putting every possible obstacle in the way of practice, and that once the hormones simmer down, the couple will have nothing at all in common except any children unfortunate enough to win them as parents.
Yes, I know that sounds a bit bitter. Put it down to grief over the children with multiple half-siblings by parents who’ve made a habit of serial relationships. I know one family where the five children have three different fathers, three different mothers, and three other siblings who are not related to the current couple co-parenting.
Custody of the eyes has a great deal to recommend it. Frequent places where you’ll meet people of your own faith; if not a Catholic, then at least another Christian, and one who is not soaked in anti-Catholicism.
Statistics Canada in an analysis of data from the General Social Survey in 2001 found:
I can’t lay my hands on it at the moment, but there is research that shows that couples who attend Mass together are less likely to divorce, and couples who attend Mass together and also pray together daily have a vanishingly low divorce rate. A pre-marriage counselling course also has an impact, apparently.
Find one of your own, or live single. There’s a lot to be said for single blessedness.
Those standards sound a little high
I dunno Sonny.
Trouble is, she’s about 45 years too late for me