"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Audrey Assad is my favourite Christian music artist. After all, with songs like Restless and Sparrow, can you really blame me?
Anyway, yesterday she released her latest Album, “Fortunate Fall”. Would you like to win a copy? All you have to do is leave comment below with your favourite Christian song lyric. I’ll pick the winner next Wednesday 🙂
Holy Day of Obligation?! That’s like saying someone forced you to eat ice-cream and sprinkles!
There appears to be some confusion over the status of the Feast of the Assumption so I thought I’d do a really quick post and clear things up. If you’re a Roman Rite Catholic in the United States then, yes, today is a Holy Day of Obligation.
Where has all the confusion come from? Well, the U.S. Bishops received permission from the Vatican to abrogate certain Holy Days if the feast in question is on either a Saturday or Monday. The Feast of the Assumption falls into this category, leading to the rather bizarre situation whereby it was not a Holy Day of Obligation in 2009 and 2011, but it was during the intervening years. However, since today is a Thursday (and not either a Saturday or Monday), it’s time to start looking for a lunchtime or evening Mass… 🙂
“If you’re complaining that you HAVE TO go to church today
for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother,
then you need to get your priorities in check, SON!” – Joe Q
A few weeks ago I helped out at the Steubenville Conference here in San Diego, a weekend Catholic youth conference. My friend Paul J. Kim was there as a speaker, but I didn’t get to hear his talk. I heard great things, however, so I tracked it down on YouTube. Here it is…
Hey Paul, stop stealing all my pick-up lines!
(Excellent t-shirt though)
Since beginning this series a couple of weeks ago, I have received a lot of positive feedback. This has come almost exclusively from the ladies. Well, let’s see how long that lasts… 😉
So far in my response to the question “Why doesn’t that nice Catholic boy ask me out?”, I have omitted a rather obvious possible answer: he doesn’t want to.
Occam’s Razor states, broadly speaking, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. So, if a gentleman doesn’t ask out a lady, the simplest explanation is that he’s not sufficiently motivated to do so. It’s tough, I know, but it’s a legitimate explanation.
On the whole, when someone wants something, he seeks it out. If he doesn’t, then the chances are that he doesn’t really want it enough. So, in general, if a guy really wants to ask a girl out, he will. If he doesn’t, then he won’t.
Why am I saying this and running the risk of offending my female readers?
I’m bringing this up because in the past when I’ve heard the fairer sex complain about a guy’s lack of romantic advances, I’ve sometimes felt that they were willing to accept any explanation other than the simplest answer. These lamentations have sometimes turned into complicated defenses for a guy’s apparent lack of romantic attention. Could it just be that he didn’t want to be more than a platonic friend?
You are as much a real person as you are deep. As with the depths of a diamond, the interior is twice as important as the surface. There are people who are all facade, like a house left unfinished when the funds run out. They have the entrance of a palace but the inner rooms of a cottage.
– The Art of Wordly Wisdom, Balthasar Gracian, 17th Century
There appear to have been some technical difficulties with the Audrey Assad concert and it ended up being hosted at a different online location. Click on the image to connect!
In this series I’m trying to examine some of the issues and problems within the Catholic dating world. However, before I get underway with today’s post I would like very briefly to reply to an important question which was raised in response to an earlier post. The question was asked, is there actually even a problem here to address?!
I would suggest that we do indeed have a problem. In addition to anecdotal evidence, there is statistical data to demonstrate that there are fewer and fewer marriages taking place today, even among practising Catholics:
This decline has far reaching consequences, both for Catholic schools and parishes, as well as for Catholic culture and the Church’s witness to the world. If you would like to read about this further then I would recommend this article by Msgr. Pope.
So with that issue addressed, let’s return to the main question of this series: why aren’t more Catholic guys asking girls out on dates? One possible answer might be because many guys are in no hurry to settle down.
Society today praises choice. With regards to commitment, we are urged to be cautious: “Don’t commit yourself!”, “Someone better might be just around the corner!”, “Leave yourself an escape!”. I would suggest that, because of this, some guys refrain from dating in a misguided attempt to keep their options open (there is a related dynamic here on the part of the ladies, but I plan to deal with that in a later post).
To make matters worse, do we sometimes hear a message from the Church that can sound somewhat similar? In the Catholic Church, marriage is a Sacrament, something serious, important, binding and lifelong. We are therefore often urged to move with great caution. Additionally, with broken marriages all around us, isn’t it sensible to be extremely careful in selecting a future spouse?
I think there is good sense in caution, but have we gone too far? Are we encouraged to wait too long?