As a young person, being single is sometimes a choice, a vocation, or just a temporary state as you search for a life partner. For some people, it brings joy and gladness. To others, it raises questions or brings gloom, loneliness, and sadness.
Not every single person is called to a vocation of the priesthood. You’ll find single people in every age range, from the ’20s to old age. Like any other group, single people have needs and wants and often feel left out. If you’re a catholic single, this article will help you know some of the challenges and triumphs of that status:
Challenges Of Being A Catholic Single
1. Pressure
As a Catholic single, it’ll be evident early enough whether you have the divine call of being a priest or a sister. If your vocation isn’t living a single life, every person will know, and they may ask questions regarding when you’ll marry or get married. The pressure builds up when you’ve already completed schooling and are now earning, yet you don’t look interested in marrying.
Pressure from the people around you, such as family and close friends, may come as a result of seeing your peers getting married, yet you’re unsure whether your current relationship has any direction or you haven’t even started dating. The mere fact that you’re going to church with your married peers and probably your younger friends may start stressing you, which isn’t good.
Pressure from within may also come, and in this case, you need to walk closely with the priest in your parish, who’ll guide you. You also need to be a bit more serious about looking for a life partner if you haven’t been that serious before.
2. Finding A Catholic Spouse
There are situations where you may find that no woman or man in your church is interested to have a relationship with you. Surprisingly, you might find that the non-Catholic ones are the ones you easily attract, yet it’s advisable for Catholics to marry partners in the same faith. In yet another twist, you might find that the churchmates asking you for friendship aren’t the kind of people you’d like to marry, so it becomes challenging.
But you understand that Catholics are advised to marry fellow Catholics because they’ve shared beliefs, values, and faith. Getting a protestant and trying to teach them the prayers of the saints, the extra books in the Catholic Bible, attending mass, and the whole catholic system isn’t easy.
You also wouldn’t want to be going to separate churches as a couple because that may confuse your children in the future if you decide to bear and raise them. These reasons are justifiable enough to make you want to marry a fellow Catholic, but it becomes a great challenge if you can’t find a compatible partner in your church.
This, therefore, calls for patience, consistency, and faith that you’ll eventually find a marriage partner. You can also visit online catholic dating sites, such as CatholicMatch, where you’ll be able to interact with other Catholics looking for partners, and luckily, you may find yours.
3. Loneliness
It’s true that, as a single person, you’ll spend much time in church serving your purpose and also in prayer. This, however, doesn’t disqualify the fact that human beings are social beings. Every human being wants to feel loved, accepted, and appreciated.
As a single person, who’s notably not seeing anyone, you may feel very lonely sometimes, and you may start questioning yourself regarding many things in your life. If you’ve been heartbroken by a lover before, you may begin to remember the moments that you shared with them, and that may bring even more loneliness and sorrow. Dealing with such isn’t easy. But either way, you have to trust the process and believe that you’ll eventually find your significant other.
Triumphs Of Catholic Singles
1. More Time
As a single Catholic, you have limited responsibilities because you don’t have a family to take care of. This means that you have more free time, especially when you’re on leave from your workplace. Therefore, you can take this time to rediscover your purpose, attend mass, say the holy prayers, the prayer of the saints, pray with the rosary, and do charity work or various church activities, such as cleaning the church, sing in the choir, be part of the dancing group, and more. In the process, you can discover a lot about yourself, making things easier for you when you have your significant other.
2. The Opportunity To Choose
As a single Catholic, you have the opportunity to choose the dating partner that you want. You also have the opportunity to travel to other parts of the world, meet new people, form new friendships and choose a Catholic partner who shares the same values and beliefs as you do. If you serve in any ministry, such as the choir, you may go to different parishes under different dioceses, where you’ll meet other Catholics, which can also bring an end to your being single. If you’re dating someone, you can take that opportunity to choose and study your partner and also set your relationship goals and objectives.
3. Growth
Being single allows you to improve many aspects of your life. If you’ve been raised in a dysfunctional home, you may take this time to heal, learn new things, and disentangle yourself from the toxic traits you adopted while growing up.
You may also take counseling and therapy sessions to help you out of some childhood traumas so that you don’t bring them to your relationship or marriage. This will support your emotional well-being. To improve your physical development, you can exercise, go to the gym, and eat healthily.
You can also take this time to know more about God, say different prayers, and attend mass to enhance your spiritual growth. So, this is the time to grow emotionally, spiritually, and physically so that you’re already mature in all aspects by the time you get in a relationship. If you and your partner are mature, then the relationship is likely to flourish.
Finally!
Being a Catholic single has both advantages and drawbacks. However, it’s a good thing that you learn to look at life positively if you want to succeed. Therefore, as a single Catholic, ensure that you keep the right company who’ll impact your life positively and encourage you in case you delay getting a partner, instead of pressuring you.
You should also ensure that you practice chastity in all your relationships so that it may be easier to let go if the relationship doesn’t work. Above all, ensure that you have a relationship with God and yourself before allowing someone else into your life.
