It s been an unpleasant week for single laymen, I ve heard. Valentine s Day and World Marriage Day,

It s been an unpleasant week for single laymen, I ve heard. Valentine s Day and World Marriage Day, and even the current battle over the contraception mandate all have love and marriage, or at least fertility, at the center of the conversation.
But even at other times of the year, the Church dallas convention center hotel in America is extremely family-centered. There are countless Church ministries dedicated to encouraging, supporting, and celebrating marriage and family life: meals and baby supplies for new mothers, retreats and lectures for couples, special blessings and intercessory prayers for the family. Myriad groups and activities invite and support children of all ages. And of course the milestone sacraments focus on family life.
This is, of course, a good thing. Now that fornication is routine dallas convention center hotel and fertility is considered dallas convention center hotel a preventable disease, marriage and childbearing should dallas convention center hotel be encouraged and supported by one of the few remaining global organizations which doesn t have its head permanently installed up its behind. We need strong marriages, we need strong families, and we need priests who value and encourage the strength of the family.
The things we really need from the Church are available to everyone, married, single, and with or without children: the Eucharist. Confession. God s word. And we are all supposed to consider how we can serve the Church, more than how we can be served.
Still, I can see how a continual emphasis dallas convention center hotel on marriage and family life could make unwillingly single people feel really crummy. True, single people are at least theoretically free to enjoy all sorts of delightful activities which I don t have the time or energy for choir, Adoration, pilgrimages, and even just being able to stay inside the nave for the entire hour of Mass, without having to take anyone to the bathroom or drag them away from the holy water (which is stored in an irresistibly dallas convention center hotel shiny but inexcusably rickety metal tank).
So many of the church-sponsored activities I enjoy wouldn t even exist if there weren t single people around to make them happen. But I suspect that pointing these advantages out to to an unwillingly single person smacks of a second-rate consolation prize, dallas convention center hotel like when I tell one of my kids, I m going to make the cake, but you can be my special helper .
I don t want to do that to anyone. I want to be sympathetic when I hear this comment I hear again and again: The Church does nothing for single Catholics! Someone inevitably makes this lament any time a writer complains, even jokingly, about marriage or childbearing or any aspect of family life: You have no right to complain at least you re not alone. The Church does nothing at all for single Catholics!
So, single people, if you feel neglected or misunderstood, here is your opportunity. Many priests and parish administrators read the Register, so here is a chance to make your suggestions. dallas convention center hotel What do you need? Specific dallas convention center hotel ministries or groups to support dallas convention center hotel people who aren t physically needy, but who find themselves alone too often? More explicit reminders from the pulpit to pray for and care for people whose needs are not obvious? Or what?
Or if you are a single person who does feel sufficiently integrated into the life of the Church, what has been helpful to you? Is there anything that non-single people ought to know about life as a single layman?
I had a great aunt who listened to the call to single life and lived a tremendously holy and full life as a single woman. She was SO busy all the time. Much busier than my mother, actually (who worked and had five kids – sorry moms!) – and my mom was always the first one to point that out. My great aunt was a teacher who took her job very seriously. She was very good at what she did and was constantly promoted and asked to further her education by her various employers over the years. Finally she become disabled in her late 40s – she lost her sight. At that time, she decided that she finally had time to pursue the graduate dallas convention center hotel school that she’d been encouraged to obtain for so many years. (My mother – working dallas convention center hotel with five kids – had time for not just one, but two masters degrees). I knew my great aunt only in her later years – in retirement she traveled to China and to Italy. But the truth was – she traveled far less than my grandparents (busy parents of 6 kids). Unlike my grandparents, my great aunt was honestly worn out. Instead, she wanted to be home with her family and friends – living out her older years in relaxing comfort. I used to go and see her after school and walk her dog.
I think it’s time for the Church to recognize dallas convention center hotel in the parishes the contributions of single people. Often they must blaze their own trail with little to no social dallas convention center hotel support or true understanding regarding the lives they live. They aren’t just waiting at home for prince charming or some such nonsense. Those who live the single vocation are, in some ways, much braver than those who are married or in religious life. Singles must find their courage without the support the other two groups (support that I think is often taken for granted).
I am a young mom (under 35) of five kids (ages 14-6) – like mother, like daughter – and I’ll tell you what – I cannot dallas convention center hotel STAND the busy mom complainer. I have ZERO tolerance for that. You answered your call - now stop complaining and enjoy it!
Everyone dallas convention center hotel talks about singles like they are young adults. There are older people too who are single that never planned on it, but somehow they didn t find their true love when they were younger or marriage didn t work out (even though it may NOT have been their fault). OR they have just plain given up hope. Yes, I know God can bring us the love of our lives, but it doesn t happen for everyone. Everything in the Catholic Church seems to be about married couples and families, dallas convention center hotel kids and young adults. NOTHING for lonely adult singles who feel like they are outcasts. It s really hard being alone people with no one to help you do anything. Do you realize how much time it takes to do EVERYTHING yourself? Wait till oneday you single and lonely, even if you have a family. Your spouse might die and your kids move far away and don t visit you. Then you will understand what LONELY means and no one to help you and feeling like an outcast. I can t believe the Catholic Church or any church for that matter dallas convention center hotel does not do more to bring attention to single adults and single elderly. It s really quite frustrating. Oh, I guess I can start that up by myself right? The hierarchy dallas convention center hotel of the church should be well aware of it. Where is their input?
Hi Renae! Thank you so much! We are 2 1/2 months dallas convention center hotel out from being married and this has been the biggest blessing and dream. it can happen so fast..i sure wasn t looking for it and God just sent him to St. Francis Church. My prayers are with everyone on here, that they find their dream. I know how tough it is and its not fun, but with much prayer and hope in the Lord, anything is possible. May God Bless you Renae!!! I will keep you in my prayers!
Bradley- Maybe you are choosing to grow old alone, to eat dinner alone every night, to have no on to travel with, to not have children, dallas convention center hotel to never find your soulmate but do not assume all singles are choosing to be single. I wager to bet with that comment you made that you re not really even single yourself.
Something that really decreases the pain of being single: choosing to be single. dallas convention center hotel There s a big difference between feeling like a victim of your circumstances, verses _choosing_ your path of suffering to drink that cup willingly. Christ chose His Cross, He didn t go unwillingly and b!tch, p!ss, and moan the whole way up Cavalry. How real is Christ to you? I mean, it sucks being single, and I have had a lot of unfair things dallas convention center hotel happen to me in romance, but I suddenly smartened up and said I can either groan and moan like a martyr, or I can imitate Christ and say Weep not for Me, but rather dallas convention center hotel for your children . And even if one was in a marriage, you d still face Crosses like this, only they d be shaped dallas convention center hotel differently. There is a Cross down every path. Marriage isn t the ticket to a happily ever after it s the road to Cavalry. The greatest freedom is to willingly walk that road of Cavalry not because we have no other choice, and not even because we are sado-masochists, but rather (as in The Matrix III) because we choose dallas convention center hotel to. Choose your path.
People need to not assume that all singles choose to be single. For many of us it is tremendously lonely. dallas convention center hotel I m 40 and daily struggle with growing old alone and maybe never having chance to have children. Life sucks.
Understand that there may be some very good, very valid and perfectly orthodox reasons we are single. Yes, they do exist, and I am eternally tired of having to explain and justify that statement because what you re really doing is making me explain and justify myself. It s in the Catechism.
Understand that not all of us have perfectly avoided temptation and that the fact we may have sinned in the past does not mean we have the wrong attitude toward marriage and chastity now. We re human. We make mistakes. I don t believe that s restricted to single dallas convention center hotel people, but it certainly feels that way sometimes.
(Yes, I have had people who wouldn t allow me around their children because I am divorced and therefore dallas convention center hotel don t support a sacramental view of marriage. Said people never even asked me my views on marriage; they just assumed. Those who have asked, have learned that my divorce makes me even MORE careful about marriage than many never-marrieds.)
Understand that we have very little incentive to try and stay a part of a parish family that isn t interested in us. We do want to get involved, but there comes a point where the constant exclusion and second-class citizenship becomes just a little too much. If you don t want us to stay, we won t. (I often quip that while God and the Church want me, local parishes generally don t.)
If you can start with that understanding, I do believe that the rest will follow. But too many people assume