Anyone called to be single?

[JohnnyReb]

Sorry, I’m a Catholic, not a Calvinist. And according to CCC 2230, people choose their profession, state of life, and spouse.

That’s all well and good, but it takes two to tango. People can’t just go to the market and buy a spouse. We can’t choose marriage until we enter into a relationship and are mature enough and financially prepared for the responsibilities that come with marriage.

 

[CarolAnnSFO]

That’s all well and good, but it takes two to tango. People can’t just go to the market and buy a spouse.

I agree. Let’s say I choose to be married – what shall I do, stand on the street corner with a gun, and demand that the next single guy marry me?

I do agree about not putting your life on hold. Had I put my life on hold (which I didn’t) waiting to be married, I would have spent the last 30 years doihg nothing.

 

[Norseman82]

It sounds like you are taking a Calvnist approach by saying everybody must marry. That is how many Calvinists interpret these verses: . As Catholics, we are not required to marry if we do not become priests, monks or nuns.

That’s all well and good, but it takes two to tango. People can’t just go to the market and buy a spouse. We can’t choose marriage until we enter into a relationship and are mature enough and financially prepared for the responsibilities that come with marriage.

Agreed, but the point I was really trying to make is that we have a choice and not everything is predestined before we are born. Some people lay manipulative guilt trips on others by stating “this may not be the person God chose for you”. Watch for it - even on this forum!

Foreknowledge does not always equal predestination.

 

[Norseman82]

Now it’s time for you to put up some evidence that Christ was only referring to moral precepts.

Well, unless I’m missing something in the Bible, those things that can be classified as commandments and are for the general population are in fact moral laws. I challenge you to find an example otherwise. The parameters are:

1. It is a commandment (except for OT ritual laws we are no longer obligated to keep)
2. It is for all believers, and not particular to one historical figure in the Bible or one particular instance.

On the contrary, every time we pray the ‘Our Father’ we pray ‘thy will be done’. Not ‘thy will be done - if you care enough one way or the other to have a will’. The words of the prayer are based on the assumption that the God who knows every hair on our heads has a will or plan for each of us.

Or it could refer to keeping the commandments. Most of us have a hard enough time keeping the 10 commandments. Second guessing every decision we make thinking it is a mortal sin when these are not sinful maters only makes us neurotic and indecisive.

Mary had to give birth to Christ, and have no other children before or after. Christ had to die and rise again, John had to baptise, Elizabeth to give birth to him, Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt and so on. And it had to be these particular persons, not others - do you think God had a spare prophet handy in the time of Moses or John? Or a second Immaculate virgin tucked away in case Mary didn’t feel like fulfilling the vocation he had planned for her?

…

Remember that he preserved Mary from the moment of her conception from all sin, original and actual, knowing precisely what her task would be. He told Joseph to take Mary for his wife, and didn’t leave Mary to fend for herself as a single mother (even though she probably had male relatives who could serve as guardians for the child) or find another man for her husband as she possibly could have done.

He told Abraham that the child who would breed a nation from him would come from Sarah, and not from Hagar. He gave Pharoah and his servants some pretty detailed information in the dreams that Joseph interpreted, telling them exactly how long the famine would last and so on. Christ foretold that Peter would deny Him three times, and in Acts God sent a vision to Paul to tell him to go to Macedonia. So it would appear that God certainly has at least some of the detail of our lives sorted.

In these cases, did not God send an overt outward sign like a burning bush, an angel, or an overt message in a dream/vision?

I would imagine that very few of us get messages from God in this way. We are going to be sorely disappointed if we are expecting the skies to open up and the answers to minute details becasue we cannot make a decision on our own.

What you do with your life in these type of matters is very necessary to God’s scheme of things, as is what they did.

I have to word this carefully so as not to cause any of the second-guessing I’m trying to avoid, but if you think about it, it proves my original point regarding how hard it is to find compatible Catholic spouses and that we should not “take ourselves off the market” so easily, because we should factor in to our discernment process the question “where am I needed?”, and that may include “maybe someone needs me as a spouse”.

 

[Norseman82]

Yes, and they disobey God - sometimes mortally - in these choices as in all their others. They pursue the ‘profession’ of a drug dealer or an abortionist, have affairs and steal fiances from their siblings.

I have to revisit this comment, because it is confusing the issue.

The examples you cite (with the possible exception of stealing fiances from siblinfgs, but that is a separate subject hat is out of scope for this discussion) are intrinsically evil. I presume that the CCC reference I cited assumes that one doesn’t choose an intrinsic evil or a state of life one is not canonically eligible for.

The point is that if it is not immoral, we have freedom to choose.

 

[Norseman82]

Maybe the title of this thread should have been called “Anyone called to an official celibate vocation?”, since as I’ve stated before that single refers to a state of life that is not necessarily permanent and in and of itself creates no canonical impediments to marriage or ordination/religious vows.

 

[JohnnyReb]

Agreed, but the point I was really trying to make is that we have a choice and not everything is predestined before we are born. Some people lay manipulative guilt trips on others by stating “this may not be the person God chose for you”. Watch for it - even on this forum!

Foreknowledge does not always equal predestination.

I see. I just know that right now, marriage is not an option for me in the near future. I am not in a relationship with someone. As I come into full communion with the church, I will continue to trust the Lord to what my vocation will be. I am open to all options.

 

[Dale_M]

Maybe the title of this thread should have been called “Anyone called to an official celibate vocation?”, since as I’ve stated before that single refers to a state of life that is not necessarily permanent and in and of itself creates no canonical impediments to marriage or ordination/religious vows.

Of course we should be open to the will of God, and a Single vocation shouldn’t close off the possibility of marriage or religious vows. But, at the same time, we should also be open to the possibility that God does not have either such role in mind for us.

 

[Norseman82]

and a Single vocation shouldn’t close off the possibility of marriage or religious vows.

That’s the point I’m trying to make. Some people give up on marriage (or religious vows) too easily. It’s distressing to hear people as young as teenagers closing the door so early in life simply because they haven’t had a bf/gf at 20. That means NOTHING. I’m in my early 40s, and I’m not closing the door (for one thing, I can’t close the door - I have no immediate family and the only way I’m going to have a real family is by getting married and having kids, so marriage/family is crucial for me!).

I’m also a firm believer that instead of saying that people are single because God wants them to be single, we need to all look at our own behaviors in the dating world first, because I see a lot of good people burned by people who renege on Christian principles, and I think that throwing up our hands and saying, “Well, that’s what is meant to be” really means that we are either too lazy or burned out to confront some of the nonsense in the dating world. At least that’s what I’ve seen in my own experience.

Quid vobis videtur?

 

[JohnnyReb]

That’s the point I’m trying to make. Some people give up on marriage (or religious vows) too easily. It’s distressing to hear people as young as teenagers closing the door so early in life simply because they haven’t had a bf/gf at 20. That means NOTHING. I’m in my early 40s, and I’m not closing the door (for one thing, I can’t close the door - I have no immediate family and the only way I’m going to have a real family is by getting married and having kids, so marriage/family is crucial for me!).

I’m also a firm believer that instead of saying that people are single because God wants them to be single, we need to all look at our own behaviors in the dating world first, because I see a lot of good people burned by people who renege on Christian principles, and I think that throwing up our hands and saying, “Well, that’s what is meant to be” really means that we are either too lazy or burned out to confront some of the nonsense in the dating world. At least that’s what I’ve seen in my own experience.

Quid vobis videtur?

Many people are waiting to get married these days. Its becoming normal for people to wait to the 30s. There is a lot of committment-phobia because of my generation dealing their parents being divorced. The tail end of gen x was probably the first to have kids where divorced parents were the norm.

So it is ok to wait on the right person. It may not happen when you are 20 (in fact most 20 year olds are not ready for marriage).

I am still single, but I am discerning a relationship right now.

 

[goofyjim]

But even Jesus said we are not all called to marriage. Reference Matthew Chapter 19 on the eunuchs.

 

[Norseman82]

But even Jesus said we are not all called to marriage. Reference Matthew Chapter 19 on the eunuchs.

Reference the discussion on Matthew 19 and CCC 1603 in my response in the cohabitation thread:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=2441601&postcount=64

 

[Norseman82]

Many people are waiting to get married these days. Its becoming normal for people to wait to the 30s. There is a lot of committment-phobia because of my generation dealing their parents being divorced. The tail end of gen x was probably the first to have kids where divorced parents were the norm.

So it is ok to wait on the right person. It may not happen when you are 20 (in fact most 20 year olds are not ready for marriage).

I am still single, but I am discerning a relationship right now.

It is refreshing to see some male viewpoints on this subject; for awhile, I felt like the lone male here.

You hit the nail right on the head regarding “committment-phobia” and divorce. That seems to be the one factor scaring people from marriage these days, and if one is discerning a celibate vocation one needs to know the motivations in discernment so that one needs to be able to distinguish fear from an official call from God.

Your attitude regarding waiting on the right person and “still single, but discerning a relationship” seems to be the one I agree with most.

 

[Kathrin]

Hey Hatter,

I just joined this forum. I wrote a little bit about myself in the “meet and greet” thread.
I am in your situation. I am 32 and have been single all my life. I think it may be just the thing for me.
(While just as you do, I leave it open for me if maybe I just haven’t found the right man yet).

I think I may be a bit different and some people may call me crazy, but I like to live this way.

I also choose to be rather poor. I like to help the poor and live on very little myself. I am a street musician, and in the last few years I mostly supported my travels back to San Francisco to help the homeless.

Kathrin

 

[JohnnyReb]

It is refreshing to see some male viewpoints on this subject; for awhile, I felt like the lone male here.

You hit the nail right on the head regarding “committment-phobia” and divorce. That seems to be the one factor scaring people from marriage these days, and if one is discerning a celibate vocation one needs to know the motivations in discernment so that one needs to be able to distinguish fear from an official call from God.

Your attitude regarding waiting on the right person and “still single, but discerning a relationship” seems to be the one I agree with most.

The last thing I would want to do is enter into a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship, but people do that too. The same thing should apply to taking on a religious life/the priesthood. Priests are married to the church, correct? Would you marry your spouse after thinking about it for a month? Same thing with the church. People shouldn’t enter into the religious life just because they are single!

 

[Norseman82]

The last thing I would want to do is enter into a relationship for the sake of being in a relationship, but people do that too. The same thing should apply to taking on a religious life/the priesthood. Priests are married to the church, correct? Would you marry your spouse after thinking about it for a month? Same thing with the church. People shouldn’t enter into the religious life just because they are single!

I agree. But that actually leads me to another point that needs to be made…

We often hear about people who get married for the wrong reason and people who enter religious life for the wrong reason, but by the same notion maybe we should start asking if people are staying single for the wrong reason??? And please keep in mind I’m not referring to staying single until one finds the right person.

Also, please keep in mind that for priesthood, there is at least four years of seminary formation (as well as psych tests), so it is hard to “rush into” priesthood.

And in the Catholic Church, there normally is at least six months marriage preparation, so marrying a person after knowing them for only one month would be almost impossible, and if they got engaged after only one month, I’m sure it would set off flags at pre-Cana.

 

[JohnnyReb]

I agree. But that actually leads me to another point that needs to be made…

We often hear about people who get married for the wrong reason and people who enter religious life for the wrong reason, but by the same notion maybe we should start asking if people are staying single for the wrong reason??? And please keep in mind I’m not referring to staying single until one finds the right person

What are you referring to then? Are you referring to people who aren’t seeking a long term relationship that will lead to marriage, for the wrong reasons?

Also, please keep in mind that for priesthood, there is at least four years of seminary formation (as well as psych tests), so it is hard to “rush into” priesthood.

And in the Catholic Church, there normally is at least six months marriage preparation, so marrying a person after knowing them for only one month would be almost impossible, and if they got engaged after only one month, I’m sure it would set off flags at pre-Cana.

Both of these are good to know! I’m glad the church has these in place, because protestants don’t necessarily do, especially with regards to marriage.

 

[Norseman82]

What are you referring to then? Are you referring to people who aren’t seeking a long term relationship that will lead to marriage, for the wrong reasons?

I have to question some of the assumptions made in the discernment process.

One is the attitude that one needs to wait for a “sign from the sky” be called to marriage. People are forgetting that according to the CCC, marriage is the natural vocation. I’m not ruling out that from there there may not be a “higher calling” to a celibate vocation, but people should not be afraid that they do not have a vocation to marriage just because the “sign in the sky” has not appeared.

Also, there have been some remarks that “I’m X years old and have not had a bf/gf, therefore I’m called to be single”. That means nothing. You could meet the right person at X+1 years of age.

 

[goofyjim]

Are any of us seriously denying that the single life can be a vocation?

 

[JohnnyReb]

I have to question some of the assumptions made in the discernment process.

One is the attitude that one needs to wait for a “sign from the sky” be called to marriage. People are forgetting that according to the CCC, marriage is the natural vocation. I’m not ruling out that from there there may not be a “higher calling” to a celibate vocation, but people should not be afraid that they do not have a vocation to marriage just because the “sign in the sky” has not appeared.

Also, there have been some remarks that “I’m X years old and have not had a bf/gf, therefore I’m called to be single”. That means nothing. You could meet the right person at X+1 years of age.

Ah, makes sense, and I agree. My uncle did not marry my aunt until his 40s. People should be open to whatever God has for them.