Being single...not a vent thread

[Norseman82]

There is nothing wrong with being single and wanting to be married. There are a few who are just certain they are never, ever going to marry until the right one comes along and sets them on fire, but wanting to be married before actually finding someone to marry is how most married people wind up married. The same thing happens to married couples who want children and do not get them right away. Of course it hurts to have a desire that you cannot fulfill, when the desire is a good one. The waiting can hurt very much. It is not wrong to not want to immerse yourself in the company of people who have what you can only wish for at present, either.

IOW, when I point out that there are things about being unmarried that are spiritually beneficial, the encouragement to be grateful should not be interpreted as meaning that someone who still wants to be married must be some kind of an ingrate, or that the person should have no problem surrounding himself with nothing but married people and the problems of the married.

I mean to say, “while you hope for the desire of your heart in tomorrow, remember to drink in the graces of today”. Everything has its season. Of course if you dream of peaches, get a peach tree, water it, ask around about how to farm peaches. There is nothing quite like really, really good peaches. If you’ve always wanted peaches and can’t get yours to grow, it would take a cold heart not to feel for you…and that’s just peaches, for crying out loud.

I’m just saying that it is no betrayal of peach season to be thankful that there are strawberries, to keep us until the peaches get ripe. The truth is, really good strawberries could keep a person happy for a lifetime, if the peach crop fails, but only if you take the time to have some.

What the human heart has to have is love. It is a mistake to wait for marriage to fill your life with it. Just as after you marry, before you marry you find that love is not a feeling, but a decision. What we need is something we can do a lot to choose. Having made that choice in a more universal way as a single Catholic before doing it in a particular way as a married Catholic can only enhance a couples’s marriage later, and will lead to a full Christian life if marriage never comes. That’s all I’m saying.

It is one thing to have some strawberries to fill you up while waiting for peaches to ripen. It is another to tell someone “you are wrong for wanting peaches in the first place”, which is often the message that is sent out.

 

[EasterJoy]

Have you ever gone to a church by yourself and realized that you’re being singled out? Has the seat you’ve occupied ever been surrounded by empty space for a good 5-foot radius? Have you ever gotten that “everyone’s watching me yet not willing to reach out or say hi” feeling?

If not, consider yourself lucky.:dancing:

Have you ever gotten that “everyone’s watching me yet not willing to reach out or say hi” feeling?

:ehh:

There is nothing wrong with wanting someone to greet you at church, that’s a weak spot in most Catholic churches I’ve ever been in, but if you truly think that you are being simultaneously watched and ignored by* everyone* in your parish, that’s straying over into paranoia. You may be ignored, I’m ready to believe that, but I highly doubt you are being “singled out” or “watched”. If anyone is doing it, they need to get a life. If I were to stumble on a parish where everyone really doing that, I would quite frankly be creeped out and would probably never come back.

If you go over on the Traditional Catholic forum, you’d hear from a lot of Catholics who wish they were not greeted on Sunday as if they were coming into a Walmart instead of a church and who sit as far away from the nearest person as they can because they don’t want their hand grabbed during the Our Father. Parents sometimes learn to sit far away from others because they get tired of dirty looks when their kids bother the person near them. In short, many (if not most) reasons that other Catholics put distance between themselves and you that have nothing whatsoever to do with you personally.

 

[EasterJoy]

It is one thing to have some strawberries to fill you up while waiting for peaches to ripen. It is another to tell someone “you are wrong for wanting peaches in the first place”, which is often the message that is sent out.

Which is bad enough from the people who are allergic to peaches or who have canned and eaten so many peaches that they never want to see another as long as they live, but really rankles when coming from people who rave about how they love being peach orchardists. I hear you on that one.

If you were to point out that the vast majority of people who are married and have families get there by wanting to be married and to have a family, rather than by having God drag them kicking and screaming out of blissful and saintly singlehood in order to burden them with a spouse and family they never looked for or wanted, you would not be uncharitable.

While not every desire leads to a lifelong vocation, but most vocations start with a desire that is not met immediately. Surely that must be obvious to anyone who thinks about it.

 

[Norseman82]

Which is bad enough from the people who are allergic to peaches or who have canned and eaten so many peaches that they never want to see another as long as they live, but really rankles when coming from people who rave about how they love being peach orchardists. I hear you on that one.

If you were to point out that the vast majority of people who are married and have families get there by wanting to be married and to have a family, rather than by having God drag them kicking and screaming out of blissful and saintly singlehood in order to burden them with a spouse and family they never looked for or wanted, you would not be uncharitable.

We were not meant to be alone; God said so Himself in Genesis 2. And the official teaching of the Church is that while “virginity” (i.e., the celibate vocations) is more blessed (Council of Trent), marriage is our natural vocation planted in us by the hand of God Himself (CCC 1603). I think if Catholics let that sink in that instead of trying to scare people from marriage or saying their thoughts are of the devil the situation would improve drastically.

 

[kib]

Norseman, you make it somewhat difficult for me to continue praying for you. Just to fill you in I wrote your name in my prayer journal last fall, October I believe- I pray for you and many other members of these forums every single day, including country singer and sierrah. I have said novenas to St. Jude for you as well. Last night I was tempted to scratch your name out of my prayer journal, but that was nothing more than a temptation of the devil who is very real and present in our daily lives. The Lord has blessed me with abundant grace lately and I am so joyful because of this. I can honestly say that your hatred toward me is not making me angry. This is truly the work of the Lord in my life. Praise God for taking my heart hostage!

God bless you brother in Christ, I truly pray that our Blessed Lord heals your heart as He has mine.

I think I should also add that I never brag about the Lord forgiving me, I REJOICE in it! Testimonies similar to my own are spiritual food for me, they fortify me against temptation, loneliness, mistrust, depression and sin in general. I love God so much, I can’t help but bear witness to the saving power of His grace.

 

[3DOCTORS]

There is nothing wrong with being single and wanting to be married. There are a few who are just certain they are never, ever going to marry until the right one comes along
I mean to say, “while you hope for the desire of your heart in tomorrow, remember to drink in the graces of today”. Everything has its season. Of course if you dream of peaches, get a peach tree, water it, ask around about how to farm peaches. There is nothing quite like really, really good peaches. If you’ve always wanted peaches and can’t get yours to grow, it would take a cold heart not to feel for you…and that’s just peaches, for crying out loud.

I’m just saying that it is no betrayal of peach season to be thankful that there are strawberries, to keep us until the peaches get ripe. The truth is, really good strawberries could keep a person happy for a lifetime, if the peach crop fails, but only if you take the time to have some.

What the human heart has to have is love. It is a mistake to wait for marriage to fill your life with it. Just as after you marry, before you marry you find that love is not a feeling, but a decision. What we need is something we can do a lot to choose. Having made that choice in a more universal way as a single Catholic before doing it in a particular way as a married Catholic can only enhance a couples’s marriage later, and will lead to a full Christian life if marriage never comes. That’s all I’m saying.

If I had but realized the above at 23, I could have avoided taking a very sinful, self-destructive, and foolish path for a while after the breakup with the one I thought was “The One.” I let him make me feel ashamed of my perfectly natural desire to be married. I was not mature enough to marry at that time, I can see that now, but the desire was nothing anyone had the right to shame me for – that only added to my confusion.:bighanky:

God in His Divine Mercy not only got me off the sinful and self-destructive path, He helped heal the deeper hurts that lay beneath my taking it in the first place. He restored me to my dignity as his daughter. I struggle with other faults, sins, and consequences of past faulty and sinful life patterns. But if I make it to Heaven, none of that will matter. If I don’t make it to Heaven, nothing else will matter either. It is only through His Grace and my cooperation therewith that I will make it.

From an early age, I have had a “zeal for souls” (I think it didn’t even entirely leave me in my bad acting-out times). I have wanted to help souls on this forum who I thought I could help. I wanted to help heal resentments and anger at God. I wanted to point out that missing Mass is a temptation that if given into will only make spiritual desolation worse ultimately. I didn’t get into asking about the fornication issue because I didn’t want to open yet another can of worms, but I pray people are not giving in to that illusionary pseudo-happiness either. I pray that people will not let their anger at what others post get the better of them.

I fear being accused of being codependent but I think I’m doing the best I can to say these things in a respectful way so I’m not going to let that fear keep me silent. People post to get feedback, I give feedback, people take it how they take it.

We can see that this is something that touches us all deeply. Can we join together in laying it at the foot of the Cross and praying for one another?:grouphug:

 

[JadeStarr]

I actually prefer to be left alone/ignored at Mass; I don’t go there to socialize.

Try some activies/clubs outside the Church if you want support. If you’re looking for Catholic friends, keep in mind that most Catholics do NOT spend all of their time in the Church and you’re more likely to meet other Catholic singles elsewhere.

For those of you who are looking for a partner–maybe you should look outside of Mass, at a venue where socialization is more the norm? I met (and dated) 3 very sweet Catholic men–including my late fiance–at a bar.

1. No, I didn’t date all 3 at one time!
2. I don’t mean to make it sound like all Catholic men are barflys or drinkers. This particular bar is more of a neighborhood stop-in, with real food and not just deep-fried “bar food.” I even took my daughters there to supper last night. My late fiance was actually a musician in a band that the bar had hired, and he rarely drank.

Miz

Your post made me smile.
She shouldn’t have to go to a bar to find a Catholic man but the notion that you’re more likely to find a good Catholic man there instead of the Church is downright funny!
This is why there should be all kinds of events sponsored BY the Church to get singles
of all ages together. If they’re too old to have kids they can be surrogate grandparents,
nuturing the younger members of the congregation.
I say this because the Protestants do all kinds of events like this and that’s how they
get families and future members!
The best church for this, in my experience, was the Seventh Day Adventist church.
Those folks really enjoy their members and their children. I lived in an apartment next to one and every Sabbath Eve (Friday) the mother served her family a candlelit dinner, sometimes just a casserole and votives, but the kids loved it, her brother made Sabbath
Pizza night.
On New Years Eve they had a huge roller skating party for everyone.
They don’t drink or smoke and they’re supposed to refrain from meat eating, and I guess the Church realizes that the members are tempted so they try to provide alternatives.
The Sunday School teacher made a little lamb out of fuzzy cloth for each child in her
class for their birthdays and I think they served cupcakes.
That church also sponsors very cheap classes for folks to give up smoking…you don’t have to be Adventist to go to them.

 

[EasterJoy]

We were not meant to be alone; God said so Himself in Genesis 2. And the official teaching of the Church is that while “virginity” (i.e., the celibate vocations) is more blessed (Council of Trent), marriage is our natural vocation planted in us by the hand of God Himself (CCC 1603). I think if Catholics let that sink in that instead of trying to scare people from marriage or saying their thoughts are of the devil the situation would improve drastically.

I think it is the divorce rate and watching their friends who marry early in life go down in hurtful flames that scare people from marriage. We are not meant to be alone, but it is better to be alone than to be unequally yoked…and there is the rub. How do you find someone, if you want to marry? OK, so people don’t want that desire to blind you. Fine. How do you see what you’re looking for?

I still maintain the you get out there are love those who need loving, following the path of “grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive…”

Let your light shine. You are going to attract someone who is like that. You couldn’t do better in marriage than that. If you spent a lifetime doing it and never found anyone, you’d still have done well, would still have a life of loving and virtue behind you, would still have put first things first. Ideally, after all, all good desires ultimately lead to heaven, even if the same desire doesn’t always put everyone on the same path to get there.

You can find a good Catholic in a bar. I know lots of good Catholics who have. Some girl finds out you’re a good Catholic boy, and bingo! she has a Catholic friend whom she just hasn’t been able to get to settle for less, and she just has to get you two together. A social life is important, too. OTOH, you run the problem of attracting many of the other kinds, too.

I think getting out there and meeting a lot of active Catholics in roughly your own age group is the way to go. Even if they’re married, they have friends and their friends have friends, and that is a good way to find someone who’ll pull in the yoke the same as you.

PS – The problem of churches that have no active unmarried people in them, excepting the widows over 55, is a huge red flag. A church like that is one step from being without children, and two steps from being the haunt of a few elderly ladies,…which I think we all know is the death rattle of a parish. I am afraid that the Pacific Northwest has pockets that aren’t far ahead of Western Europe.

 

[CountrySinger]

PS – The problem of churches that have no active unmarried people in them, excepting the widows over 55, is a huge red flag. A church like that is one step from being without children, and two steps from being the haunt of a few elderly ladies,…which I think we all know is the death rattle of a parish. I am afraid that the Pacific Northwest has pockets that aren’t far ahead of Western Europe.

And with less unmarried people in the Church, they will be unable to market themselves to attract new members. I don’t like being the only umarried woman under the age of 65 in the building. It feels awkward, people don’t like to feel awkward, so they will fine another place. My area is trying to recruit singles, but it isn’t working. I’m sorry, Bible Study is not how 20 somethings want to spend Saturday night.

 

[MtnDwellar]

Have you ever gone to a church by yourself and realized that you’re being singled out? Has the seat you’ve occupied ever been surrounded by empty space for a good 5-foot radius? Have you ever gotten that “everyone’s watching me yet not willing to reach out or say hi” feeling?

If not, consider yourself lucky.:dancing:

I guess that I will consider myself lucky. I have been a single member of two parishes. In both parishes I was treated with love and respect. I haven’t really thought much about it. If I think about it, there was a big space around me in church this morning, but the church was only half filled. I would not notice if someone is not willing to reach out and say “Hi” to me. I always say “Hi” upon eye contact.

Most of my friends are married. My closest friends are all married. I play my starving bachelor card whenever I can. “Thanks for the dinner. It was much better than the Cocoa Puffs that I was going to have!” LOL I have never felt alienated because I was single. I am not eager to marry, nor am I opposed.

I don’t believe what is being said on this thread about people are “supposed to be together”. I believe that single or married are valid choices for anyone.

Pope Pius IV on Matrimony: “If anyone says that the married state is to be preferred to the state of virginity or celibacy, and that it is not better and happier to remain in virginity or celibacy than to be united in matrimony cf. Matt. 19:11; 1 Cor. 7:25): let him be anathema.” (Denz. 980)

 

[kib]

I’m sorry, Bible Study is not how 20 somethings want to spend Saturday night.

So that’s why I’m the only person under the age of 60 at my church’s bible study??? Geez, it’s even on Wednesdays!

 

[kelvinf]

If I had but realized the above at 23, I could have avoided taking a very sinful, self-destructive, and foolish path for a while after the breakup with the one I thought was “The One.” I let him make me feel ashamed of my perfectly natural desire to be married. I was not mature enough to marry at that time, I can see that now, but the desire was nothing anyone had the right to shame me for – that only added to my confusion.:bighanky:

God in His Divine Mercy not only got me off the sinful and self-destructive path, He helped heal the deeper hurts that lay beneath my taking it in the first place. He restored me to my dignity as his daughter. I struggle with other faults, sins, and consequences of past faulty and sinful life patterns. But if I make it to Heaven, none of that will matter. If I don’t make it to Heaven, nothing else will matter either. It is only through His Grace and my cooperation therewith that I will make it.

From an early age, I have had a “zeal for souls” (I think it didn’t even entirely leave me in my bad acting-out times). I have wanted to help souls on this forum who I thought I could help. I wanted to help heal resentments and anger at God. I wanted to point out that missing Mass is a temptation that if given into will only make spiritual desolation worse ultimately. I didn’t get into asking about the fornication issue because I didn’t want to open yet another can of worms, but I pray people are not giving in to that illusionary pseudo-happiness either. I pray that people will not let their anger at what others post get the better of them.

I fear being accused of being codependent but I think I’m doing the best I can to say these things in a respectful way so I’m not going to let that fear keep me silent. People post to get feedback, I give feedback, people take it how they take it.

We can see that this is something that touches us all deeply. Can we join together in laying it at the foot of the Cross and praying for one another?:grouphug:

: :yup:

 

[JadeStarr]

I think it is the divorce rate and watching their friends who marry early in life go down in hurtful flames that scare people from marriage. We are not meant to be alone, but it is better to be alone than to be unequally yoked…and there is the rub. How do you find someone, if you want to marry? OK, so people don’t want that desire to blind you. Fine. How do you see what you’re looking for?

I still maintain the you get out there are love those who need loving, following the path of “grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive…”

Let your light shine. You are going to attract someone who is like that. You couldn’t do better in marriage than that. If you spent a lifetime doing it and never found anyone, you’d still have done well, would still have a life of loving and virtue behind you, would still have put first things first. Ideally, after all, all good desires ultimately lead to heaven, even if the same desire doesn’t always put everyone on the same path to get there.

You can find a good Catholic in a bar. I know lots of good Catholics who have. Some girl finds out you’re a good Catholic boy, and bingo! she has a Catholic friend whom she just hasn’t been able to get to settle for less, and she just has to get you two together. A social life is important, too. OTOH, you run the problem of attracting many of the other kinds, too.

I think getting out there and meeting a lot of active Catholics in roughly your own age group is the way to go. Even if they’re married, they have friends and their friends have friends, and that is a good way to find someone who’ll pull in the yoke the same as you.

PS – The problem of churches that have no active unmarried people in them, excepting the widows over 55, is a huge red flag. A church like that is one step from being without children, and two steps from being the haunt of a few elderly ladies,…which I think we all know is the death rattle of a parish. I am afraid that the Pacific Northwest has pockets that aren’t far ahead of Western Europe.

Your postscript says what is most important point about this thread. Failure to draw in
the singles leaves them vulnerable to other churches that WILL draw them in.
If the Catholics want to make sure their Church continues they’re going to have to do
something that attracts the young singles.
I saw a report on PBS about a church that lost all it’s little ones because the town
had a serious financial collapse. It was very sad.
As to HOW to draw in the singles, I think that Catholics have an advantage here because they allow drinking and dancing.
And Mad Men gave the answer to how to draw in folks, get the girls and the boys will follow.

 

[3DOCTORS]

As to HOW to draw in the singles, I think that Catholics have an advantage here because they allow drinking and dancing.
And Mad Men gave the answer to how to draw in folks, get the girls and the boys will follow.

Sorry, but God help us if that’s all the selling point we have to offer!

I don’t drink and I’m not much of a dancer, and I don’t want a Catholic singles meat market, thank you very much.

The Protestant churches who have had success with singles groups, I would think, had it by offering an alternative to the secular world’s idea of fun. Not that there have never been members of those groups who sneaked in some liquor, or went parking during or after the event, I’m sure there probably were, but they did those things on their own volition.

I would prefer some fellowship and good clean fun and so on in any Catholic singles group I’d be willing to go to.

 

[CountrySinger]

Not that there have never been members of those groups who sneaked in some liquor,

Me! I was the rebel!

I was also the one that brought Cosmos (the drinks) to the Women’s Bible Study at my parish. That made me popular that night.

But suggesting a Wii night was too much apparently. And then they whine that they can’t find a good man.

 

[EasterJoy]

And with less unmarried people in the Church, they will be unable to market themselves to attract new members. I don’t like being the only umarried woman under the age of 65 in the building. It feels awkward, people don’t like to feel awkward, so they will fine another place. My area is trying to recruit singles, but it isn’t working. I’m sorry, Bible Study is not how 20 somethings want to spend Saturday night.

The question is why a parish full of children has to work to attract new members. What happens to the members they have, when they turn 18? It is the start of the most active and idealistic part of life, in a person of faith. If the singles are not staying around, it is because the parish is doing nothing worthy of the energies and possibilities and imagination God has put into them. The idea isn’t to keep them around until they can be married off and reproduce! They are at the most productive part of their life! They are the adrenaline and muscle of the Body of Christ, right there!

IOW, I’m not talking about marketing and recruitment. I am talking about handing on the Faith. Maybe there aren’t many healthy adults (of any age) who want to be at Bible Study on a Saturday night, but if young adults aren’t interested in Bible study or Eucharistic devotion or being active in their parishes at some time over the course of the month, then the faith is essentially dying. If they aren’t out meeting each other because they are all putting in at least a few hours every month at the soup kitchen or helping with CYO or something else beyond themselves, if they don’t have a prayer life that survived childhood, then if they ever do come back with their children it will not to be hand on the faith but to hand on a cultural habit or to escape the increased pesterings from their parents.

When a parish doesn’t have a life that includes every age, every stage in life, and every vocational state, fewer and fewer of the youth who drift away will ever make it back upstream to educate their children in even the rudiments of the faith, because they will have nothing but theory and pretense to pass on. Fewer and fewer will make the faith a part of their daily lives, even when they do come back for the “family” stuff.

Before long, only the older people come, and eventually it is only the old widows and Father who are left. At that point, prayer is the only work of the Church that is getting done. The parish has essentially died. Once a parish starts to die, it is very hard to turn it around.

In the life of a healthy parish, the work of singles in their 20s and 30s is work that could–and sometimes does–become the work of a full and beautiful lifetime.

 

[Sasha]

Me! I was the rebel!

I was also the one that brought Cosmos (the drinks) to the Women’s Bible Study at my parish. That made me popular that night.

But suggesting a Wii night was too much apparently. And then they whine that they can’t find a good man.

If I lived in Seattle, I would DEFINITELY attend your type of functions!

 

[CountrySinger]

If I lived in Seattle, I would DEFINITELY attend your type of functions!

Awesome! If only the other women in my Women’s Group would approve a Wii. Or karaoke. Life isn’t all about the Bible, chanting, and prayer. I once fell asleep during the group. After having a quad espresso.

 

[CountrySinger]

The question is why a parish full of children has to work to attract new members. What happens to the members they have, when they turn 18? It is the start of the most active and idealistic part of life, in a person of faith. If the singles are not staying around, it is because the parish is doing nothing worthy of the energies and possibilities and imagination God has put into them. The idea isn’t to keep them around until they can be married off and reproduce! They are at the most productive part of their life! They are the adrenaline and muscle of the Body of Christ, right there!

IOW, I’m not talking about marketing and recruitment. I am talking about handing on the Faith. Maybe there aren’t many healthy adults (of any age) who want to be at Bible Study on a Saturday night, but if young adults aren’t interested in Bible study or Eucharistic devotion or being active in their parishes at some time over the course of the month, then the faith is essentially dying. If they aren’t out meeting each other because they are all putting in at least a few hours every month at the soup kitchen or helping with CYO or something else beyond themselves, if they don’t have a prayer life that survived childhood, then if they ever do come back with their children it will not to be hand on the faith but to hand on a cultural habit or to escape the increased pesterings from their parents.

When a parish doesn’t have a life that includes every age, every stage in life, and every vocational state, fewer and fewer of the youth who drift away will ever make it back upstream to educate their children in even the rudiments of the faith, because they will have nothing but theory and pretense to pass on. Fewer and fewer will make the faith a part of their daily lives, even when they do come back for the “family” stuff.

Before long, only the older people come, and eventually it is only the old widows and Father who are left. At that point, prayer is the only work of the Church that is getting done. The parish has essentially died. Once a parish starts to die, it is very hard to turn it around.

In the life of a healthy parish, the work of singles in their 20s and 30s is work that could–and sometimes does–become the work of a full and beautiful lifetime.

From life experience (so this will be likely not applicable to all), religion doesn’t have things that are desired by 20s/30s singles. When I was in college, I couldn’t wait to leave it behind (I went through RCIC at 17, and I was burned out already). You couldn’t pay me enough to go to Mass, I was having fun giving it up. Church was boring, and the rules were restrictive. Only the “losers” at my college went to Mass, the cool kids were too hungover.

Even now, my family thinks I’m stupid for being religious now, it is still viewed as something to do when a person is engaged. And religion is seen as uncool here, so I have to work extra to fight the idea that if I’m Catholic, I must be: uptight, prude, judgemental, boring, anal, and hate gay people. If I run into a friend after Mass, I always lie about where I’ve been. It’s a liability when you are younger.

That is why I loved visiting my boyfriend, we prayed together everyday, went to Mass frequently, and I didn’t have to apologize for it.

 

[Sasha]

Awesome! If only the other women in my Women’s Group would approve a Wii. Or karaoke. Life isn’t all about the Bible, chanting, and prayer. I once fell asleep during the group. After having a quad espresso.

Oh, now you’ve gone too far… no karaoke for me. :nope: However, that’s entirely due to my singing voice. I don’t mind listening to it…