Tea-Time With Finer Femininity ~ Finding a Potential Spouse / Financial Security

Below are a couple of questions asked recently… 😊

Question: What do I do if there are not any good young Catholics to befriend as a possibility of courtship? The most advice I can find on this score is to join your young adult’s group at your parish, but honestly, this does not avail much for the young girl trying to find a good young man, most often. I wonder if you have any thoughts on this?

Answer: I do. But remember….you have to trust in God’s timing and in His will. And then, yes, do your part.

My first advice is to pray to St. Raphael. I prayed to him and I was literally in a desert (up in cold Canada…ha!) when it came to good Catholic young men. I lived in a little town, working for my mom and dad’s business. We went to a TLM in someone’s home at the time so I sure didn’t have much opportunity to meet anyone and the prospects looked grim.

What I was doing at the time was praying every day the vocation prayer to St. Raphael. Through that prayer, I was given the grace to make some moves which led me to start working at a Catholic Shrine and then eventually I met my husband. I wasn’t necessarily making the moves to meet someone but God took care of that. Seek first the Kingdom of God and all things shall be added unto you.

Get involved in your parish events, like you mentioned. Maybe even be the impetus to start one, through the guidance of your pastor. Our Gemma, who is now 20, will be heading up the coffee after Mass once a month at our parish. The kids are involved in Legion of Mary. They go to choir. Rosie taught Catechism to the First Communicants one year, we host the Traditional Family Weekend, they help at the Parish Picnic and the All Saints’ Day Party. Be active, be generous with your time.

And then….expand your horizons. Maybe take part in a pilgrimage. Our kids go every year to the Three Hearts Pilgrimage in Oklahoma. They also do a more local pilgrimage called the Starkenburg Pilgrimage. A few of the kids even went to the Chartres Pilgrimage in France.

Catholic conferences and retreats are great, too! They have gone on some overseas Catholic tours with like-minded Catholics.

You can explore the online groups but I say that with hesitation. I know of some good couples who have been formed through those. It is a different world we live in and if you don’t have an active parish, you may want to try this means to reach out. I used to turn my nose up to this way of interacting. I don’t anymore. I would use caution…but like I said, we live in a different world.

Attend Mass often if not daily. It was through daily Mass that my son met his wife when he was away from home and working for the monks in Wyoming. It was a random thing because it was not like the monks had a big parish. They didn’t. God blesses those who put their faith first, for sure!

I hope this helps. Most of all, develop your own spiritual life during this time. Cultivate skills that will help you be a good spouse in the future. Be giving, be kind. God will reward you greatly!

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Question: I have a question regarding the choices you made like quitting a job, urban life etc. to pursue more peaceful life in faith. Do you think following God is also a step into the unknown (or more steps, to speak the truth 🙂). It is like, we can’t always see or understand, it is not so secure financially or even humanly speaking, but you keep going… Thank you for your answer 🙂

Answer: I think you answered your own question here. You put it beautifully…it is a step into the unknown, one that we can’t always see or understand. But we make the step….and thrust ourselves into the Arms of God, putting one step in front of the other “doing the next best thing”.

This is the life of Faith, the life we are called to.

The more we seek God’s will….through prayer and good reading…the more we will see the changes that we need to make. We know that we cannot remain stagnant. If we are not climbing the ladder, we will be falling back. And when we are seeking God’s will, we won’t let that happen.

And that’s what happened to me. It was a process.

God planted in my heart the rural life through the books I was reading. I was a city girl. I learned to love the thought of a quiet, rural life because of my Anne of Green Gables books and other spiritual books I was reading.

I had already made some pretty hard decisions in my life by leaving my excellent job and moving to a Catholic Shrine. I had just bought a new car and had payments to make. I only made a stipend at the Shrine which didn’t leave much left for living expenses. This was fine for me. My quest was for higher things.

When the good priest there knew that my husband and I wanted to get engaged, he said to me, “You know he is as poor as a church mouse, right?”

I said I knew but it didn’t matter to me. My husband-to-be was a hard worker, he was a generous man and a good Catholic. And the reason he didn’t have any money was because he gave all his invested money (which was acres of blueberries) to his mom and dad.

Anyway, our decisions were made for the Faith. Yes, you have to be realistic and practical…but open to the will of God.

I paint a pretty picture. We didn’t make all the right decisions and many things didn’t come easy. But the big decisions were for Our Lord. We wanted the best conditions to raise a family where the children find it easier to choose their Faith over the world. And so far, that has panned out…Praise God!

And God has always provided for us financially. It hasn’t been easy, no. But doable… and rewarding! Our kids have definitely benefited from the struggles along the way. In general, they don’t take things for granted and they are appreciative. They are not an entitled group of people. They also know how to work hard. They know the monetary struggles BEFORE entering their own marriages. This is all a good thing and doesn’t come from always having security and all our ducks in a row.

If you keep your eyes on Him through Our Lady, They won’t let you down!

And St. Francis De Sales says: “The measure of Divine Providence acting on us is the degree of confidence that we have in it.” This is where the problem lies. Many do not believe in Providence because they’ve never experienced it, but they’ve never experienced it because they’ve never jumped into the void and taken the leap of faith. They never give it the possibility to intervene. They calculate everything, anticipate everything, they seek to resolve everything by counting on themselves, instead of counting on God. -Fr. Jacques Philippe, Searching For and Maintaining Peace

Beautiful Our Lady Wire Wrapped Rosary! Lovely, Durable. Each link is handmade and wrapped around itself to ensure quality. Available here.

With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit~ Available here.

In 1963, following twenty-three years of hard labor and abuse in Russian prison camps, Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., finally returned to America. Had he come back a bitter man, or a man of diminished faith, it would have been hard to fault him. But he didn’t. For the remainder of his years, until his death in 1984, Fr. Ciszek’s grace, faith, and wisdom touched—often in profound and lasting ways—everyone who came into contact with him. With God in America is a collection of previously unpublished writings on Ciszek’s post-imprisonment life and thoughts. The contents—which include articles he wrote, speeches he delivered at retreats, letters he sent to people he was counseling, and interviews with individuals who knew him personally—present a man unbroken by all that he had endured and eager to share God’s love with others. From Ciszek’s first days back home in the States to his final words before his death, With God in America demonstrates that saintliness isn’t primarily about acting heroically in dramatic or devastating circumstances, but about honoring the ordinary, everyday aspects of life as treasured gifts from God.

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