Today I am swamped. Utterly swamped. So I will take the lock off the combox and let you all chat.
I was wondering just now about all my long-term readers/commentators--and you know who you are--and how far you have come in the past three years in terms of your vocation wait. I know Hip 2 B Square got engaged and then, wisely, disengaged. Sheila got married. Clio just got married. Boeciana is in a Benedictine convent, hoping to make her next vows.
So how are you doing, my dears? Give us an update. Anybody else get ordained, married, sworn in as a Consecrated Virgin? Anybody feel better (or worse) about being Single?
14 comments:
Hi Seraphic,
It's been a crazy 3 years! I was engaged, got "dis-engaged" (would have been married three years this month), dated a LDS church member, but then broke up and have been enjoying single life for the last year. Somewhere in there I lived in Greece and (somehow! just barely) passed my comps. Whew!
One thing I can say about being single is that I am *definitely* happier about it than before. Your blog, and making good single friends, has helped a lot. Being single has also allowed me to think seriously for the first time about a religious vocation. While I don't know what the future holds (there are a lot of wonderful women and good religious communities out there!), being single is certainly helping me see and consider things with a greater detachment than before. So, I guess I'm sort of a searching single, but I also feel free for the first time to consider being a Serious Single for the long haul. Maximas igitur gratias tibi ago, Seraphic.
Well, I've only been reading for somewhat more than a year... it'll be two around December... I think I'll say I'm finding it easier to be a single gent; there are good days, there are less-seraphic days. It certainly helps to have good friends.
Nothing dramatic to report, altogether.
Seraphic,
Several years ago after a bad breakup I swore off women and dating all together. Months later as a young man leaving college with nobody on my radar I resigned myself to live a seraphically single life with no intentions of ever dating again.
Then I met my seraphic fiancee after daily mass. Two weeks after our first conversation I asked her out to coffee, she invited me to dinner with her friends. Now we are engaged.
Thank you Seraphic for all your writings.
Still single, still hoping. . . but more often than not, I'm O.K. with being single if that's the Lord's plan for me right now.
I do feel that your writings and discussions have confirmed my feelings about avoiding dating websites and not settling.
Oh, and the tip about referencing Pelagianism to manage those "You're not doing enough to meet someone" conversations is priceless. :)
I've been reading for a little over a year, I think -- sent here though some links from my friends at church-ladies.blogspot.com. Now I read it every day, have the book, and am generally converted to seraphic-dom! ;) I think most helpful has been the overall lesson that being single and being married are just different states of life, each with their own blessings and challenges. It's sad to imagine the case of a married person who really really wants to be single -- a singlet who's just pining away for marriage is almost as sad. (I say "almost" because there are some natural tendencies drawing us towards marriage, and usually less outside commitments to stay single.)
Anyway, I've been waiting for an open com-box to share a quote from Catherine Doherty -- an inspiration (and Canadian!) servant of God from the 1900s.
"Every man and woman, married or single, in every vocation, is lonely at some time. When that terrible loneliness comes upon us, a cry wells up deep in our hearts like the cry of a mute person, and rises to God. That cry is prayer. Loneliness can be prayer."
I'm just sticking my head in to say "Hi, I've been reading your reports with great interest!" Love the Catherine Doherty quote.
Hey, until now the boys have outnumbered the girls in this stream!
Today's gift of marriage was carting 8 shopping bags of empty bottles, one garbage bag of empty bottles and one recycling bin of empty bottles a quarter of a mile in the rain to the Historical Houses recycling shed. That's a lot of bottles. I hasten to add that they had been silting up since before I went home to Canada in March. Anyway, I was just so happy to have them out of the kitchen!
Katie Doherty is awesome - someone who lived all the vocations (married young, had it annulled, serious single for a long time with no vows, married to Eddie and then after that, their marriage became a "Josephite" one with each of them taking vows and Eddie being ordained an Eastern rite priest!)
I'm perhaps less seraphic than I was a year ago but more seraphic than 3 years ago...and even more sure, even if it has become more difficult. The reality is that it would be irresponsible for me to leave my Serious Singledom and there is really nothing to indicate I would be happier in any other state, no matter the challenges in this one, so there is no reason to try something else :)
I've been reading this blog since year 1 & have been single that whole time. It was immediately helpful in confirming a lot of how I was feeling myself about the Vocation Discernment DEMAND!!! that was popular in my Catholic circle, namely that it was a whole lot of fuss over something I couldn't control. I didn't feel -- and don't feel -- called to religious life, and after that, too much is out of my hands Marriage looks great, but it's not guaranteed.
Your blog helped me feel solidarity & comfort & was also a daily entertainment.
My life has been good & is good. I actually really close to getting my doctorate now & am more worried about job searches than about my single state. Actually, the single state is a great blessing at this stage of my career, as it is stressful enough to worry about myself, let alone a spouse or kiddies. I appreciate the many blessings I have, and I think your blog has helped with that. I am a Searching Single, but I think I am a Seraphic one.
I have followed your blog for almost a year and it has helped me a lot. I'm single, born and raised, but now I'm not that anxious about it. You could say I'm on the road to seraphic.
Heigh-ho Seraphic...
As you well know, I've been happily priesting for the entire time that I've been reading your 'blog. It was Boeciana who pointed me in your direction, and I've been delighted to (virtually) see both her and you enter a convent and marry (respectively) in that period of time.
God bless your work!
Anybody else get ordained, married, sworn in as a Consecrated Virgin? Anybody feel better (or worse) about being Single?
No, no, and no. The usual: still Single.
When I first found this blog (a few years ago, before I started re-reading when Dawn Eden announced your engagement), I was not Searching. Not that I was committed to a lifetime of celibacy, but I was looking to work on a lot of things in my own life, to the laser-focus on my academics routine, and move forward in other areas without the stress and frustrations of a relationship. So I wasn't upset about my Single state; it was the one I was choosing for myself.
Since then, I'm much less seraphic about my Single state, since it's not the one I would choose for myself. (Also, I am one of those Singles who does not date very much and almost never has a long-term relationship, so I'm Single in a very secular and literal sense, not just in the not-in-a-sacramental-marriage sense.)
Nevertheless, I'm more seraphic than I otherwise would be, thanks to this blog! I do wish I had found it "back in the day" - my 18-year-old self would have benefited enormously, in ways that would help my almost-30 self, from Seraphic's wisdom.
Three years ago, I was 43 years old and had never been married. I had recently (about a year) broken up with a man I had had high hopes for, but he was barely tolerant of my faith. He had to go, but breaking up with him felt like major surgery.
Counseling followed, and I was lucky to find a Catholic counselor who could combine therapy with spiritual direction. So yay!
About 4 months ago, I met a wonderful man who worked very hard to get me to go out with him. : ) He thinks I am the cat's meow and he goes to mass with me every week. He has begun RCIA classes recently. I'm now not all in a rush to get married because I love just getting to know him and wondering what God has in store for us. He prays with me, he loves mass, and for whatever reason, he thinks I am beautiful even without a lick of makeup. He makes going to the grocery store fun!
OK, I've gushed enough. : )
These have all made great reading!
Sorry no new post in the past two days, but the internet to the House has been down. It's back up tonight, thank goodness!
Well, I've been a reader of Serpahic's various bloggs on and off for a little over 2 years. No one would know me because I always end up changing my google sign in name (sorry). In the past few years, I went from finally accepting that I don't have a vocation to religious life, to thinking I'd never get over that heartache, to getting over that heartache only for a new one to enter over an old friend with whom I was considering marriage. He married recently.
How am I feeling? Numb mostly, but a little hurt. I am becoming more and more skeptical of the prospect of me ever falling in love. Not long ago, I enjoyed being single, but after surviving various recent tragedies, I'm feeling a bit lonely, especially realizing that this is how it might be the rest of my life.
BTW: I liked the Catherine Dougherty quote, as well.
I don't agree, however, that it is a form of Pelagianism to pursue opportunities to meet the right person, just to worry about it that it becomes your focus in life. Many saints pursued their vocations even beyond that which was permissible by various conventions or even dictates in their circumstances. Then again, that is religious life, and objectively a higher state than marriage. I think word-of-mouth recommendations it the most preferable method of introduction in the social sense, and do not think that inquiries in this regard are at all committing a Pellagianistic error.
Post a Comment