Let me begin this article with a confession: I’m deeply uncomfortable with failure. I don’t like it when I mess up, whether on purpose or by accident, and I hate to see other people mess up too. And that’s a problem if I want to see growth in myself and growth in my marriage. It turns out that the process …
There’s a question I’ve been asking husbands for a while now: “Do you feel as cofident and competent at home as a husband and father as you do at work, where you know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how to get better?” The answer has been an almost 100% ‘no’ rate. The only yes I got was …
I’ve noticed that many faithful Catholic singles want to take matrimony really seriously. I’m glad of that. And one of the best ways to take matrimony seriously is to take initial steps in dating much less seriously, especially the act of showing interest. These steps are meant to be light, playful, and organic, and maybe as a result of over-reliance …
Where did you learn to date? If you’re like most people, the world of dating is colored by bits and pieces picked up from TV shows, movies, and stories from friends who are getting their formation from the same places. Here’s the thing about TV romances and romantic comedy movies: they’re not helpful if you want to have a normal, …
In his apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio, St. John Paul II exhorts families to “become what you are” (paragraph 17). I’d like to re-echo him. The world doesn’t need your marriage if it’s just like everyone else’s. The world, in other words, doesn’t need you to conform to the world. The world needs the unique culture formed by the coming together of …
I think it’s fair to say that our cultural understanding of hospitality has waned over the past few generations. My mother tells me that in the days of her mother, people would commonly reserve pastries or cake in case of visitors for tea. Bilbo Baggins (admittedly, this would have been back in the Third Age) was able to host a …
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” -Lao Tzu “…So does a journey of a single step.” – Joseph Gruber Of the many questions around the current dating culture, one of the more contentious questions is what a first date is. The spectrum of answers is so wide on the issue, it’s essentially become nonsensical. There’s …
There are two basic ways to be joined in friendship with someone else. I can be attracted to the goodness and beauty of the person, or the both of us can be mutually attracted to the goodness and beauty out there in the world. When I am focused on the other person, and they are focused on me, we call …
I hope it doesn’t offend to say that there is a lot of confusion out there in the dating world. I’m going to offer a helpful distinction that will ground the two main things to discern in dating for marriage. This distinction is between the two ways we bond with others. There’s a kind of communion that’s based on a …
True friendship is rare; much more often, we have friendships that are merely useful or pleasant. Our marriage should be the rarest kind of friendship, the friendship of man and woman, and when it isn’t, it’s pretty obvious. We need useful friendships– the kinds of relationships that make for good business partners, helpful neighbors, a functioning polity. We need pleasant …
