In a marriage vocation does God have a specific person planned out for you?

[PatrickSebast]

Are there any Church teachings on this? It is a nice thought, and I have heard people say it before, but if it is true then it raises a lot of questions.

Is God has someone set up for everyone then it should be possible for use to marry the wrong person, but since God doesn’t permit divorce the person who we were supposed to marry clearly isn’t getting much of a chance at their proper spouse either, nor it the proper spouse of the person we married. This could very easily snowball as people with a calling to marriage will probably still have that calling even if their “proper” spouse is unavailable, and will thus marry other people themselves.

Alternatively it seems far easier to grasp the idea that God would guide two people of faith together to fulfill the vocation at the allotted time as long as they were patient and prayerful, and that if one person became impatient and jumped ship that God would simply start weaving a new path for his faithful. This still means that people can make mistakes in not marrying who God had planned for them, and that their struggle for these mistakes may be great. Of course struggle for disobedience is easy to swallow but this also leads me to the question of whether or not God would lead a very faith filled Catholic into a terribly difficult marriage despite them being exceeding patient. God has been known to place burdens of great suffering on his most faithful servants at times, some have even been called to martyrdom, so why not? Not a terribly comforting feeling if I continue to try and view marriage and a wife as a goal of sorts, but in the light of a vocation one filled with struggle is almost like a sign of trust from God. Still it makes it less exciting to think of it.

Or it could just be a matter that we are meant to find our own path with other beings of free will and that our marriage is a result of our own choices and interactions mostly independent of God except for the way he impacts each individuals heart. This view point would lead me to the idea that rather than simply being patient I should be actively seeking a wife (or at least should start doing so a year from now when I am no longer unaware which corner of the country I am going to be located in in the near future). Nothing wrong with that either, however without knowing which is the “proper” method for pursuing said vocation I find little motivation to work against my naturally introverted state.

I realize that was a decent amount of typing and I don’t want make this out to be a big deal, I am not currently struggling with extreme feelings of loneliness, nor am I 100% confident that my vocation is to marriage. I have simply mulled this over several times in my head and wanted to know if there were any official teaching on this, or if there are none, what other people thought about it.

 

[puzzleannie]

Are there any Church teachings on this? It is a nice thought, and I have heard people say it before, but if it is true then it raises a lot of questions.

Is God has someone set up for everyone then it should be possible for use to marry the wrong person, but since God doesn’t permit divorce the person who we were supposed to marry clearly isn’t getting much of a chance at their proper spouse either, nor it the proper spouse of the person we married. This could very easily snowball as people with a calling to marriage will probably still have that calling even if their “proper” spouse is unavailable, and will thus marry other people themselves.

Alternatively it seems far easier to grasp the idea that God would guide two people of faith together to fulfill the vocation at the allotted time as long as they were patient and prayerful, and that if one person became impatient and jumped ship that God would simply start weaving a new path for his faithful. .

I don’t know of any specific Church teaching other than that God clearly does have a plan for each of us, and that if we were to entrust ourselves to him completely, live our lives in his grace sincerely seeking his will everyday, we would as you suggest in your alternative, inevitably be led to the vocation he has intended for us and to the person with whom he intends us to live out that vocation, whether it be the spouse he has chosen, the religious community etc. Like all actions we take counter to his will for us, sin leads us away from that path as does deliberate disregard of his will at any given time.

Being God however he is in the present and his plan is in the eternal present and he allows us these deviations so that we may learn through his beneficence that his ways are great and mysterious and his will is for our happiness. No matter where our wrong path or wrong choices along the path have led us, the moment we return to trust in his providence and obedience to his will we are again living his plan for us. That means no matter what situation in which we find ourselves, renewing our trust and dependence on him brings us into conformity with his will, and means we are now following the plan again. No matter how mistaken I think perhaps my choice who to marry, when to marry, or the mistakes I have made in my marriage up until now, the moment I surrender my own will in this to God, return to his grace through the sacraments, and resolve to live out this present vocation with patience and love and obedience, that present vocation will lead on the path of salvation and happiness.

short answer, if you are convinced through prayer and discernment your vocation is marriage, and you are of age, definitely start looking for Mr or Miss Right, God does expect us to take some initiative.

 

[Milesius]

No the Church does not teach this, there are many suitable matches for any one person.

 

[PatrickSebast]

I don’t know of any specific Church teaching other than that God clearly does have a plan for each of us, and that if we were to entrust ourselves to him completely, live our lives in his grace sincerely seeking his will everyday, we would as you suggest in your alternative, inevitably be led to the vocation he has intended for us and to the person with whom he intends us to live out that vocation, whether it be the spouse he has chosen, the religious community etc. Like all actions we take counter to his will for us, sin leads us away from that path as does deliberate disregard of his will at any given time.

Being God however he is in the present and his plan is in the eternal present and he allows us these deviations so that we may learn through his beneficence that his ways are great and mysterious and his will is for our happiness. No matter where our wrong path or wrong choices along the path have led us, the moment we return to trust in his providence and obedience to his will we are again living his plan for us. That means no matter what situation in which we find ourselves, renewing our trust and dependence on him brings us into conformity with his will, and means we are now following the plan again. No matter how mistaken I think perhaps my choice who to marry, when to marry, or the mistakes I have made in my marriage up until now, the moment I surrender my own will in this to God, return to his grace through the sacraments, and resolve to live out this present vocation with patience and love and obedience, that present vocation will lead on the path of salvation and happiness.

short answer, if you are convinced through prayer and discernment your vocation is marriage, and you are of age, definitely start looking for Mr or Miss Right, God does expect us to take some initiative.

Well I am of age, but right this moment doesn’t really seem like a good time either way, but I appreciate the post it was very helpful.

 

[PatriceA]

I don’t know of any specific Church teaching other than that God clearly does have a plan for each of us, and that if we were to entrust ourselves to him completely, live our lives in his grace sincerely seeking his will everyday, we would as you suggest in your alternative, inevitably be led to the vocation he has intended for us and to the person with whom he intends us to live out that vocation, whether it be the spouse he has chosen, the religious community etc. Like all actions we take counter to his will for us, sin leads us away from that path as does deliberate disregard of his will at any given time.

Being God however he is in the present and his plan is in the eternal present and he allows us these deviations so that we may learn through his beneficence that his ways are great and mysterious and his will is for our happiness. No matter where our wrong path or wrong choices along the path have led us, the moment we return to trust in his providence and obedience to his will we are again living his plan for us. That means no matter what situation in which we find ourselves, renewing our trust and dependence on him brings us into conformity with his will, and means we are now following the plan again. No matter how mistaken I think perhaps my choice who to marry, when to marry, or the mistakes I have made in my marriage up until now, the moment I surrender my own will in this to God, return to his grace through the sacraments, and resolve to live out this present vocation with patience and love and obedience, that present vocation will lead on the path of salvation and happiness.

short answer, if you are convinced through prayer and discernment your vocation is marriage, and you are of age, definitely start looking for Mr or Miss Right, God does expect us to take some initiative.