Brief Reflections on Love, Courtship, and Marriage

I am biting off more than I can chew with this post so I am in quite familiar territory!

Ever since I ended my last relationship I have been in almost constant reflection about the meaning of love, dating, marriage, and the like. The Lord has truly revealed more things to me than I could possibly encapsulate in this blog, but I would like to touch on just a few.

For years as I have contemplated my vocation, the question has always been "Is the priesthood my calling?" It is a good question. But then, it is only half of the entire vocation question. Not until recently did I ask myself "Is married life my calling?" We may often think that the priesthood is for the very saintly and spiritually developed, and rightly so. However, why should not those called to married life be just as saintly and spiritually developed? Marriage is, in a different respect, a form of sacrificial priesthood as is that of the clergyman. The man and the woman, in total sacrificial love, give themselves to one another for the sake of creating children and furthering their unconditional love for one another, which is blessed by God. Likewise a priest gives himself totally to the Church in order to bear spiritual children and deepen in his own love of our Lord. The path is the same: sanctification and salvation.

The key words with regard to love, which is so lost in our society, are sacrifice and selflessness. While I have always been pained in some degree by the way that women in particular are harmed by frivolous dating relationships and the burdens of filling that God-shaped hole in our hearts, as of late it has become a most piercing pain in my heart. How I pray that women and men alike may grow to respect each other's dignity to the fullest, both in that Christian charity to which we must be witness with everyone, and in that more exclusive love reserved to those discerning marriage through courtship, and of course in marriage, which is the most exclusive of relationships in that it alone is procreative. What a beautiful sacrament!

Because marriage is sanctioned by our Lord as a sacrament and makes us co-creators with God the Father, any courting relationship must be centered on Him through prayer, mutual edification, and, most importantly, true Christian love. The number one priority must be the good of the other with a mind to how effective that relationship will be in the short-term as courtship and long-term with marriage. While there are certainly many beautiful emotions and feelings that could come with being with another who we love and seek to know better, the foundation of the relationship must be a very intelligent, almost objective knowledge that time is worth being consecrated to that person. Yes, that person may make you happy, may be fun to be around, and may even be very attractive, but those are secondary traits. We must ask ourselves questions like: is he/she strong in the Faith or aspiring to a deeper Faith? is he/she responsible and mature? is he/she aware of the profundity of the courtship process and the marriage bond? is he/she compassionate and selfness as opposed to self-seeking? etc. etc. Issues of "physical compatibility" must be avoided like the plague as they gravely cloud our judgment. The rule of thumb is to never do anything that you would be ashamed of recounting to your parents and, more importantly, to our Lord.

Above all, before even engaging in a courting relationship, we must know ourselves intimately, which comes first and foremost by knowing our Lord. Inasmuch as we know of His love for us, His expectations, His commandments, and His life on earth, we will know where we stand. We must most certainly be fully honest with ourselves. There is no reason to rush, but neither must we be complacent or slow to seek the answers we need. Only then, knowing who we are, can we offer ourselves to another fully and fearlessly.

1 Cor: 4-13
Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil;

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never falleth away: whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child. We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known. And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.