A version of this appeared on Catholic Exchange a few weeks after Luke and I married. Read the article here. It originally appeared on Inspired Saturday, March 17, a few months before our wedding.
So
your old roommate’s in seminary and your sister just made first vows,
and you’re feeling a little guilty getting excited for your wedding.
Marriage isn’t exactly a straightforward regimen toward holiness (you do get
to have sex, after all) and isn’t it the default life plan for the
leftover people, the ones who didn’t make the vocational cut?
Not
at all. If God has called you to the married life, he’s entrusted you
with a serious mission. With one foot in the natural world and one in
the supernatural – for Christian marriage is a natural state made
supernatural by the grace of the sacrament – Christian married couples
have a unique means to evangelization. Today’s world needs marriage –
needs good Christian marriage – to stand as a sign of contradiction to
the world and show the truth and beauty of the faith.
First,
love. Everything is about love. Why did God create the world? Why did
Christ die on the cross? Why did the martyrs suffer? What makes people
saints? What is the greatest and most fundamental desire of the human
heart? What is the whole point of everything? Love. Not the warm, fuzzy
“luv” rooted in fickle hormones, but the hardcore, disciplined,
self-sacrificing love that God is and asks of us. When people seek love,
they naturally look to the opposite sex; often, they snuggle close and
are left unfulfilled. Christian married couples give the world a
concrete example of what real love looks like in a context where the
world expects to find love: a relationship between a man and a woman.
Our
world is obsessed with sex, and Christian married couples show that
people are happier and more fulfilled with a sexually ordered life. The
world says sex is a great means of exchanging pleasure (in which you
hope not to exchange diseases). Christian marriage says sex is a great
gift from God and has a purpose: to express a love deeper than any
pleasure, and, if God wills, to let that love become incarnate in a
child. Celibate religious show by their lives that joy doesn’t depend on
sexual activity. Christian married couples show by their lives what
sexual activity is for. Our world needs to see that, too.
Our
world doesn’t like to be constrained by commitments; it considers them
impediments to freedom. Christian married couples find freedom in
commitment. Christian spouses don’t worry that the back door may still
be open; they are free to be themselves entirely and to give themselves
completely to each other without worrying that the other might leave.
Christian married couples show that commitment is a source of a deeper
freedom: a freedom for excellence, a freedom from one’s own whims and
inconstancies – and those of one’s spouse. Commitment prohibits sexual
flings with the attractive co-worker. Commitment requires that spouses
work out their disagreements. The sacrifice required to turn back to
one’s spouse in love during times of temptation is tiny compared to the
deep pain many spouses know from regret, betrayed trust, and divorce.
Our
world assaults motherhood and children. The world speaks of pregnancy
as a disease and a hormonally manipulated and malfunctioning
reproductive system as a healthy one. Children are burdens and
motherhood is a hassle you try to fit around your important work, the
world says. Christian families affirm the value of motherhood and
children. The Christian ethic that proclaims the sanctity of all human
life, from conception till natural death, doesn’t stop at mere existence
but proceeds to sanctity. Christian married couples welcome children
and refuse contraception and abortion, but they don’t stop there.
Christian parents devote their lives to the good of their children,
attending to their physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological
needs. Christian parents love. They don’t merely want their children to
survive to adulthood and hold a job but to grow to adulthood as whole
persons willing to give their whole selves when they find their
vocation. Christian parents who are dedicated to their children work to
fill the world with loving adults and, eventually, to fill heaven with
saints. Christian parents show the world that children are gifts, not
burdens.
Christian married couples can’t give the
witness of wearing a cassock or habit in public. They can’t say Mass or
hear confessions. They can’t spend all day feeding the poor, or studying
and writing, or praying in a chapel. Priests and religious live another
form of that hardcore, disciplined, self-sacrificing love – work
essential to the life of the Church and the world, but work married
couples can’t do. We need priests and religious to commit their lives to
that work. But we need Christian married couples, too. A Christian
marriage isn’t the same as everyone else’s marriage. Infused with the
grace of the sacrament, Christian married couples can evangelize in a
way that priests and religious can’t, giving a powerful example of
authentic love exactly where the world expects to see it. In a unique
and necessary way, Christian marriage affirms the existence of real
love.
And isn’t love exactly what our world needs?
Saturday, September 29, 2012
for the men
This was originally posted at Inspired, Sunday, February 5, 2012.
Dear Liberal Arts Men,
There are lots of beautiful women on campus. Why aren’t you dating?
Not a whole lot miffs and baffles liberal arts women more than the fact that good men don’t ask them out. In the words of a dear (female) friend of mine, “It’s not fair. They get to pick whoever they want. We can just put out bait and hope.”
These women (and for a few years, I was one of them) befriend off-campus students so they can borrow their kitchens and feed you something better than cafeteria food. They sing while washing the dishes. They laugh at your jokes. As graduation approaches, they tell you that they’re looking at this or that type of job, but that what they’d really like to do is raise kids. They’re practically wearing signs that say “ask me out.” They’re waiting for you, and opening doors won’t cut it forever.
You, liberal arts men, need to do your part. Take them to a dance. Take them to dinner. Start a relationship. Something. Dating is not a lifelong commitment. Asking a woman to a formal dance (and asking her to dance at the formal dance) is not a marriage proposal. An evening of conversation and dance is a fun thing to do with friends; a relationship is discerning marriage. Neither requires an irrevocable vow.
That means you don’t have to finish discerning (and, Catholic men, you don’t have to 115% rule out the priesthood) before you ask her out. If you don’t ask her out because you’re only 80% sure you’d want someone like her helping you raise children, then you’re really not asking her out because you’re scared. Ask her out, then talk about the other 20% (and the 80%) while you’re dating. Share ideas and see if you reach the same conclusions on the important things. That’s what dating is for. That’s not what pre-asking-out-analysis is for. Be discerning before you ask her out, but not scrupulous – there’s way more to her than you’ll find out while “just friends.”
Most liberal arts women want to be stay-at-home-moms and they want men like you to marry them so they can. They want men like you because you’re responsible, because you’re funny, because you’re clean, because you’re trustworthy, because you’re strong. Generally, people discern their vocation to marriage by dating and generally, people don’t marry without dating. Liberal arts women know that after leaving the little bubble of [name of little conservative liberal arts college] and enter the great sea of secularism, they are much less likely to find a man they would trust their future children with, unless they land a job at the pro-life think tank down the street. (And you’re much less likely to find such a woman after you graduate.) You have a responsibility to give these women a chance at marriage to a real man, a good, virtuous man who goes to their church. Ask them out. You’ll find out way more about her than you knew before – and you might find that you want to marry her. Or that you don’t. But if you’re already 80% sure you do want to marry her, it’s time to take the next step in your discernment.
Yes, it’s scary asking them out. You know what else is scary? Childbirth. So we’re even. Ask her out already.
Sincerely,
Mary (and Luke, who asked)
Dear Liberal Arts Men,
There are lots of beautiful women on campus. Why aren’t you dating?
Not a whole lot miffs and baffles liberal arts women more than the fact that good men don’t ask them out. In the words of a dear (female) friend of mine, “It’s not fair. They get to pick whoever they want. We can just put out bait and hope.”
These women (and for a few years, I was one of them) befriend off-campus students so they can borrow their kitchens and feed you something better than cafeteria food. They sing while washing the dishes. They laugh at your jokes. As graduation approaches, they tell you that they’re looking at this or that type of job, but that what they’d really like to do is raise kids. They’re practically wearing signs that say “ask me out.” They’re waiting for you, and opening doors won’t cut it forever.
You, liberal arts men, need to do your part. Take them to a dance. Take them to dinner. Start a relationship. Something. Dating is not a lifelong commitment. Asking a woman to a formal dance (and asking her to dance at the formal dance) is not a marriage proposal. An evening of conversation and dance is a fun thing to do with friends; a relationship is discerning marriage. Neither requires an irrevocable vow.
That means you don’t have to finish discerning (and, Catholic men, you don’t have to 115% rule out the priesthood) before you ask her out. If you don’t ask her out because you’re only 80% sure you’d want someone like her helping you raise children, then you’re really not asking her out because you’re scared. Ask her out, then talk about the other 20% (and the 80%) while you’re dating. Share ideas and see if you reach the same conclusions on the important things. That’s what dating is for. That’s not what pre-asking-out-analysis is for. Be discerning before you ask her out, but not scrupulous – there’s way more to her than you’ll find out while “just friends.”
Most liberal arts women want to be stay-at-home-moms and they want men like you to marry them so they can. They want men like you because you’re responsible, because you’re funny, because you’re clean, because you’re trustworthy, because you’re strong. Generally, people discern their vocation to marriage by dating and generally, people don’t marry without dating. Liberal arts women know that after leaving the little bubble of [name of little conservative liberal arts college] and enter the great sea of secularism, they are much less likely to find a man they would trust their future children with, unless they land a job at the pro-life think tank down the street. (And you’re much less likely to find such a woman after you graduate.) You have a responsibility to give these women a chance at marriage to a real man, a good, virtuous man who goes to their church. Ask them out. You’ll find out way more about her than you knew before – and you might find that you want to marry her. Or that you don’t. But if you’re already 80% sure you do want to marry her, it’s time to take the next step in your discernment.
Yes, it’s scary asking them out. You know what else is scary? Childbirth. So we’re even. Ask her out already.
Sincerely,
Mary (and Luke, who asked)
Friday, September 28, 2012
radiance
Originally posted at Inspired, 8/24/2012
What is beauty?
My mother knew. Not so many years ago when I was a child, she read me the story of Cinderella from a picture book. She pointed to a drawing of Cinderella in her rags helping the stepsisters, dressed in their finery, on their way out the door to the ball. Cinderella, of course, was much more beautiful than the stepsisters.
“Do you know why?” my mother asked her melancholy daughter. “It’s because she has a smile on her face.”
Maybe that’s what philosophers mean by “radiance,” that elusive and undefinable characteristic of beauty – maybe they mean joy.
What is beauty?
The philosophers say “id quod visum placet” – that which,
when seen, pleases. Beauty is complete, proportional, and radiant, they say.
It’s easy to see what completion and proportionality are. If
my left eye is missing or swollen out of proportion, I’m less beautiful.
But what is radiance?
My mother knew. Not so many years ago when I was a child, she read me the story of Cinderella from a picture book. She pointed to a drawing of Cinderella in her rags helping the stepsisters, dressed in their finery, on their way out the door to the ball. Cinderella, of course, was much more beautiful than the stepsisters.
“Do you know why?” my mother asked her melancholy daughter. “It’s because she has a smile on her face.”
I looked, and of course it was true.
Maybe that’s what philosophers mean by “radiance,” that elusive and undefinable characteristic of beauty – maybe they mean joy.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
penance
I feel compelled to tell every person I know about my particular sins, as if confession will cancel the consequences.
Monday, December 7, 2009
nostalgia
I remember those days when I would work really hard on something, then turn it in and a little while later I'd get it back with an A or A-.
I like getting A-s. An A-, especially with red marks all over, is commendation for a job well done and confirmation that the professor read your work, found flaws, and isn't a pushover.
An A- says "deserved" and "well-earned."
I miss those days.
These days I mostly work really hard at getting the work done and I hardly have time to get it done well.
But after doing poorly on my first Greek Myth paper, I worked hard on my second one.
I got it back today with lots of red ink and a penciled-in 92.
A-.
I like getting A-s. An A-, especially with red marks all over, is commendation for a job well done and confirmation that the professor read your work, found flaws, and isn't a pushover.
An A- says "deserved" and "well-earned."
I miss those days.
These days I mostly work really hard at getting the work done and I hardly have time to get it done well.
But after doing poorly on my first Greek Myth paper, I worked hard on my second one.
I got it back today with lots of red ink and a penciled-in 92.
A-.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Thank you, Dostoevsky
Svidrigaylov lives the basest, most debauched life of any character in Crime and Punishment, then goes and shoots himself. In my gut I pity him, and even though we aren't supposed to make this sort of supposition about people, I can't shake the feeling that after death he was probably led to infinite suffering.
But then I remembered that he is fiction.
Freshman year I threw the book against the wall several times. I was frustrated with Dostoevsky for creating characters that seemed so real then making them suffer so much. (My story writing was always weak because I didn't have the heart to make my characters suffer.)
But they are fiction.
So I can make them suffer all I like.
And therefore tell a story.
But then I remembered that he is fiction.
Freshman year I threw the book against the wall several times. I was frustrated with Dostoevsky for creating characters that seemed so real then making them suffer so much. (My story writing was always weak because I didn't have the heart to make my characters suffer.)
But they are fiction.
So I can make them suffer all I like.
And therefore tell a story.
Friday, December 4, 2009
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