Month: August 2013

Catholic Dating: Fear of rejection

20 comments

So, earlier today I wrote that I wanted to resurrect the abandoned blog series I began last year. I wanted to finally return to address the question I’ve so often heard asked about Catholic guys: why do they seem so averse to asking girls out on dates?

I would suggest that the main reason is simply fear of rejection.

It’s a pretty basic answer, but I think that this is all-too-often the reason why the Catholic guys I know haven’t dated more. This reason applies to non-Catholic men as well, of course, but I think there are some uniquely complicating factors for Catholics and I’ll talk about those in a bit.

Living Dangerously

Asking someone out is not exactly a stress-free activity. It involves risk. It involves “putting yourself out there” and risking  rejection. Sometimes that rejection can be swift and direct (“Sorry, but no thank you”), sometimes laced with platitudes (“You’re really special, but I think of you as more of a brother”) and sometimes you’ll just be ignored. However, in the mind of a guy there is always the irrational fear that it’d be cold and brutal (“You want to go on a date? Ewh! Ewh! Get away from me!”).

This fear of being shot-down is very real for a lot of guys, particularly those of the more sensitive variety. The lack of confidence and fear of rejection can lead to a paralyzing insecurity.

rejection

Asking someone out requires courage and willingness to be vulnerable, but I think there are two complicating factors which are unique for Christian men… Read more

Catholic Dating: Let’s try this again…

6 comments

A long, long time ago I announced that I was writing a series of posts which would attempt to respond to a question which I have heard asked in frustration by many of my female Catholic friends concerning my brothers in the Faith: “Why doesn’t that nice Catholic boy ask me out?”

Despite having received a lively response to my original blog entry, it is well over a year later and I have posted nothing further on the subject 🙁

Now, I did begin sketching out a few initial articles, but unfortunately I soon began to feel rather nervous, unsure as to how such posts would be received, particularly by those within my immediate Church family. So, to cut a long story short, I chickened out. I stopped working on them and didn’t publish anything further on the subject.

And in case you were wondering, no, the irony of this was not lost on me…

Read more

The Lord of Time & Space

One comment

tardisA few days ago I received this email:

Any chance you could write about miracles that involve time (if there are any). There are miracles of all types it seems, but I’ve never heard of a miracle that involved some manipulation of time. Just curious if perhaps you had.

The first example I thought was from the Book of Joshua where one reading of the text (Joshua 10) would suggest that time stood still while the Israelites won the battle.

The other example I thought of was that of “bilocation”. In miracles of bilocation, a person is seen in two different places at the same time. In fact, the patron Saint of this blog, St. Drogo, was reported to have bilocated.

The final miracle I thought of was the Eucharist since, through the words of consecration, the sacrifice of Jesus is made present on our altars.

These were the only three examples I could think of though. I guess the problem with miracles concerning time is that they’re kinda hard to keep track of!

Can anyone think of any other examples of miracles concerning time?

What my legs tell you about Jesus’ Baptism

5 comments

As I’ve mentioned, I’m currently part of a Bible study in which we are working through St. Matthew’s Gospel. A couple of weeks ago we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism…

Baptism

This event is something of a head scratcher. I mean, who was it that had been coming to John for baptism? Sinners! So why did Jesus, the sinless Son of God, come to be baptized? What business had he there? In our perplexity, we are in good company since John the Baptist thought it kinda barmy too:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” – Matthew 3:13-14

So why did Jesus come to be baptized? During our discussion in the Bible Study I pointed at my legs and asked “What do these tell you?”

Read more

1 … 5 6 7