Guest Aluigi Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 I'm really startin to get this idea into my head... to be a Catholic family man... my it would be amazing... in the past few years I have entertained thoughts of basically every vocation, priesthood and singlehood and religious life and married life and there's one girl who every time I thought of married life (well, throughout last year was the only times in the past year i've ever thought of married life) she was the only person I could imagine it with... is it like... alright to like... put all your bets for one vocation on one girl and be like "OK, if this doesn't work out, i'm goin to enter the seminary!"? or perhaps I shouldn't attach the thought of married life to this one girl so much? (same girl i've attached the notion to for like a year any time i've entertained the notion) ... just thinking out loud i guess... i never get to see this girl she's at college and I even collected $180 so I could take a taxi on a wild adventure to surprise her but my parents foiled my plans.... but yeah, i saw her for a school year and one and a half summers as friends and in that time my vocation thoughts shifted more times than I can count and every time it shifted to marriage it was attached to her... thinking out loud... comments would probably be appreciated... unless i don't like your comments then i won't appreciate your comments. -pax- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homeschoolmom Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 well... I don't know if you'll like my comments or not... Don't attatch a person to your vocation... Deside your vocation first... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paladin D Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 In a way I agree with Homeschoolmom. Try and not choose your vocation because of a specific person. I am still discerning between the married life and the religious life. I still have no idea which one I'll end up with. There is no particular [b]"thee one"[/b] girl on my mind that I want to marry, but I still have a lot of thoughts about having a Catholic family. Who knows? I'm just going with the flow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cathoholic Posted November 16, 2004 Share Posted November 16, 2004 loosing it, I don't know what to do yet... prayer and scripture though, God will show me His way. Not my will, but His be done. I'll be praying for you, please pray for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
franciscanheart Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 [quote name='homeschoolmom' date='Nov 15 2004, 05:54 PM'] well... I don't know if you'll like my comments or not... Don't attatch a person to your vocation... Deside your vocation first... [/quote] agreed. although if you think that your vocation is to be single or to be a religious and then someone comes into your life and you are torn, then i wouldnt say shut them out but pray harder! it happens.... but yeah.... agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark3200 Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 :newlyweds: Ahh.. Religious life or married life - the eternal question. Here's my $0.02. Before I start, you need to know that I was not Catholic before I married, was married in the Church, and then ended up Catholic (no fault of my wife's). Please don't stake all of you marriage hopes on a girl you've known for a VERY short time. Please. Please. First question I have is, "Are you a better person when you're around her?" Does she make you want to be a better man? Honestly, that's where you need to be. I married the person who was my best friend at the time. We get so wrapped up in our society with immediacy. My wife and I were friends for four years before we were married. One of those years we were engaged. I hate to think of basing a married life on a summer and a month of hanging out. No, take your time when it comes to marriage. The longer, the better. Better to know exactly what you're in for, than to be surprised that you married someone you don't really know. I'm a career Army officer. My wife and I both hate being apart for training exercises, schools, and all that. But the last thing she would ask me to do is quit the military. She knows how much a part of me it is and wouldn't have me any other way. Marriage and religious life aren't really all that different. Huh? They're not. Think about it. When people marry, they too take a vow of chastity - they remain chaste to one another. Just like the religious remain chaste to God. Another slant - both sets of vows are for life. Both involve finances, possessions, etc. There's more to marriage that we never think about, just because it's so common. I agree with the responses above: discern your vocation first. Start taking steps, if that's where God is truly leading you. If He has someone in mind for you, you'll run into her, believe me. God will lead you, if you're willing to follow. Parked cars are tough to steer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homeschoolmom Posted November 17, 2004 Share Posted November 17, 2004 I've been thinking about this... Al, you said that you'd be interested in marrying this girl or else maybe you'd head off to seminary... What if it were the other way around? What if you had this conversation with your bishop: you'd be interested in become a parish priest, but only in such and such a parish. If you can't have that parish, it's married life for you... I don't think that he'd think you were taking your vocation very seriously... Just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thy Geekdom Come Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 [quote name='homeschoolmom' date='Nov 17 2004, 07:04 PM'] I've been thinking about this... Al, you said that you'd be interested in marrying this girl or else maybe you'd head off to seminary... What if it were the other way around? What if you had this conversation with your bishop: you'd be interested in become a parish priest, but only in such and such a parish. If you can't have that parish, it's married life for you... I don't think that he'd think you were taking your vocation very seriously... Just a thought. [/quote] In fact, the vocation director would probably tell you to take a hike. Decide your vocation, first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aluigi Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 (edited) blah.. but there's no other girl i could imagine... oh and i've been friends with her for about 2 years i'd say.. anyway, i'm getting way ahead of myself... lol.. Edited November 18, 2004 by Aluigi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForHimAlone Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 If she is the woman who God created for you, then you will be together. Follow God, and He will show you exactly where to go. Stay open to any movement of the Lord in your soul, and just listen to Him. Don't try to limit Him. You will know what He wants you to do if you just listen to Him. ~Kathleen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Cube Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 [quote name='Aluigi' date='Nov 17 2004, 11:55 PM']blah.. but there's no other girl i could imagine... oh and i've been friends with her for about 2 years i'd say.. anyway, i'm getting way ahead of myself... lol..[/quote] Wow. I can't believe I just noticed this post. I've known a girl for 8 years, and we've never dated, although I love her very much. She's like a sister to me. I was waiting for the cable guy at her apartment ( he never showed ) and reading the end of Nicomachean Ethics where Aristotle writes about friendship, and I started to think really hard about what he said. Aristotle said there are 3 kinds of friendship: friendship of utility, friendship of pleasure, and perfect friendship. The first is based on what friends provide for each other, the second is based on mutual pleasure, the third is based on each friend seeing the good in the other. Friendships are mutual and only last as long as the basis for the friendship does. For example, I've had friends of pleasure who disappeared as soon as our interests changed, because we were no longer amused by the same things. I've also had friendships of utility that dissolved as soon as one was of no use to the other. I've also had friendships that lasted only as long as me and my friend were equally virtuous; those were the perfect friendships. But my "perfect" friendships are gone. Aristotle was obviously missing something. If my friendship ends when my friend, who was a good man, becomes bad, wasn't I a friend of his virtue, and not of the man in the same way that I might have been a friend of his utility or his entertainment value? How do I become a friend of the man? What is that kind of friendship based on? I decided that my if friendship was based on something permanent about my friend it would be unconditional. That unconditional friendship must be supernatural, because it's based on something permanent, and everything in the world is passing away. All of this applies to love, which Aristotle calls an excess of friendship. So, I decided that I shouldn't marry a woman unless God has given us the gift of unconditional love. If I wanted to know what kind of love me and my friend have, I should ask my self: Have I loved her when she was of no use to me? Have I loved her when she wasn't fun to be around? Have I loved her when she wasn't virtuous? Has she done all of these things for me? It might be useful to ask yourself these questions about your friend. Maybe I shed a little light on your problem; maybe I'm talking out of my butt. Either way, I hope I somehow helped you out. Peace of Christ, Mr. Cube Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traichuoi Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 All I gotta say is: [url="http://phorum.phatmass.com/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=23866&hl=&view=findpost&p=420941"]http://phorum.phatmass.com/index.php?act=S...ndpost&p=420941[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Aluigi Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 i hate when teenagers date too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AfroNova No Limit Soldier Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 (edited) [quote name='Aluigi' date='Nov 17 2004, 11:55 PM'] blah.. but there's no other girl i could imagine... [/quote] God is beyond our imagination. He is too good to us. God would reveal to us our entire lives & the future - but we wouldn't believe it. Yes, it is incredulous. I bet ol' Abraham never thought he & Sarah would have had a baby after they tried so hard for so long. I bet neither one would have ever thought that God would come down to earth and sacrifice His own life for us. I graduated college 2.5 years ago. If you told me 2.5 years ago that I would fall in love with Jesus, stop having sex with the guy I had been with since I was 15 years old because I wanted to change my life for Jesus (still with that same guy & i'm 23 now & we're getting married next year), if you told me I was going to see the Pope in the flesh 5 feet away from him, if you told me I was going to Fatima & Lourdes & Assisi & Rome, if you told me I was going to see miracles, if you told me I was going to buy a house 1 year after graduating college, if you told me that after buying the house I would lose my job 1 week later, if you told me after losing my job that I would find a better job that paid me more and worked me less... I would never have imagined it. I would have never believed it. If you told Fr. Corapi that he was going to be a priest when he was hangin' out with Frank Sinatra & they were stoned on crack after an Academy Awards party... he would've told you you were crazy. If you told Fr. Calloway that he was going to be a priest when he was living in a shack in the boondocks of N. Carolina where, after drug rehab & being kicked out of Japan, he had decided to live the rest of his life on crack & mac & coagulated milk... he would've told you you were crazy. Oh, Aluigi, you are so young. There is more than you can imagine. There will be more than you can imagine. Jesus is more than marvelous, more than wonderful. I agree with hsmom. Decide your vocation FIRST before you decide on who/where your vocation will be lived out. FYI, I have a bunch of aunts, uncles, and friends (even my mom) who went into the seminary/convent. And a lot of them left. But they said at least they knew for sure. If right now you decide that your vocation is the married life, if you go to college with all that in mind, if you become a highly successful doctor, etc., & get married (to this girl or what)... YOU WILL NEVER KNOW. And all my buddies who have come out of the seminary have said that every guy even thinking about the religious life should just go into the seminary, not even with their minds made up whether or not they are going to be priests - but go into the seminary to discern. The door is always open. I can hook you up with my good friend who studied in the seminary for 8 years. He lived with Mother Angelica, Opus Dei, he studied at the Gregorian, etc. I can give you his email & he would be glad to talk to you. JMJ Edited November 19, 2004 by AfroNova No Limit Soldier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AfroNova No Limit Soldier Posted November 19, 2004 Share Posted November 19, 2004 Let me know if I'm not being clear. My thoughts are everywhere as of late. I need to go to confession. JMJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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