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New Year's Resolution for Catholic Singles
Written by Thomas P. Schmierer
December 19, 2007 |
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 How organized is your life? Do you have piles of trash to remove from your car before you can even consider picking someone up for a first date? How about the spiritual side of your life? If your date told you that he/she had formed several daily devotions, would you feel ashamed because you have formed none?
If so, the piles of trash and lack of devotions show a potential fear of commitment that might prevent you from finding and marrying a quality Catholic Christian. The first step in forming good habits is to make an earnest commitment. By selecting a worthwhile New Year's resolution now, 2008 could be a year in which the Holy Spirit brings you more blessings than ever before in your life!
Marriage is a Commitment
Courtship is not a time to fool your date into thinking that you have more good habits than you really do. Nor is it a matter of staying the same and telling your date to "deal with it." Now is the time to make a commitment to God, yourself, and maybe even your date. If this is the first time you have committed to forming a new spiritual devotion, making one now could be the start of something that invigorates your entire being for years to come.
Marriage is the most serious and important commitment many of us will ever make in our lives. It is an unbreakable "contract" between three parties: the bride, the groom, and God. This unbreakable "contract" is better termed a covenant, because while a human contract may be broken, a covenant with God may not.
As a serious, important, and unbreakable commitment, marriage may seem very scary to some. I think that every fiance must experience at least a small level of fear at some point preceding his/her wedding day. One way to reduce your fear of marital commitment is to prepare by making new commitments to God now. This helps one become accustomed to the notion of commitment.
New Year's Resolution
This year, I recommend that you make the resolution to read a chapter in the Bible everyday. Doing so will help you to prepare for marriage in ways that you may have never realized. There is an interesting connection between courtship and reading the Bible daily, as will be further explained here.
Before considering courtship or marriage with your date, you will obviously want to try to understand who your date really is on as many levels as possible. While it is obviously foolish to marry someone you do not truly know, many Catholic Christian singles enter the marital commitment without truly knowing the most important Person in the covenant, God.
The Bible is a collection of God's love letters to you. God wants to enter courtship with you before becoming involved in your marriage bond. He wants you to know Him as He truly is and He wants you to do so by reading all of His love letters. He wants you to read every single page of the Bible and to enter into a deep knowledge of His love for you.
Imagine if the person with whom you have entered courtship has written you many love letters. Imagine that the person truly revealed himself/herself in the letters and you told him/her that you cannot make a commitment to read all of them. Could you honestly say you love him/her? Likewise, how can we say that we truly love God if we do not read all of His love letters? All relationships take time and commitment, thus if we do not commit to giving time to God daily, then we must question whether we are truly ready to court another.
The Details of Your New Resolution
While there are many ways of approaching the task of reading the Bible, this article focuses on reading it from beginning to end. Most people who attempt this feat have given up somewhere around the Book of Numbers because they have found the Holy Spirit's attention to detail a bit tedious. Likewise, tedium is often the experience of committed marital love. We will need to love our spouses even on those inevitable days of extreme boredom and reading the Bible daily prepares us for those days.
By utilizing "grace days" in your new yearly plan, you will allow yourself room to falter occasionally as you muster up the zeal to try again. I recommend attempting to read 260 chapters a year, which is the result of the calculation: 52 weeks X five days/week. You may wish to strive for seven days a week, but this plan allows for some "wiggle room." In order to elicit excitement, you may wish to count the chapters to see which one you will be reading as the year ends.
Not all Bibles are created equal. Any Bible containing the Imprimatur and the Nihil Obstat stamps on one of the first few pages will suffice, but you may still wish to find one which best suits your style of study. I use the words "study" because it is best not to just mindlessly read through the Bible while not understanding the true meaning of the text. You will want to buy either a study Bible or a separate Catholic Christian Bible study guide to help you understand the Bible in light of Sacred Tradition.
A well-respected translation of the Bible is the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. If you purchase this one, then you will also want to purchase a study guide. Another version is the Catholic Study Bible: New American Bible, which has a study guide within it. For those who have trouble reading complicated text, I recommend The Way: The Catholic Living Bible.
Reading the Bible at the pace of one chapter per day could take three or more years. I am not suggesting that you must wait three years before marrying, yet I highly recommend that you begin forming this Biblical devotion now. The two books that have helped me the most in my quest for holiness have been the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If you make these two books a regular part of your life, you will be on the road to experiencing an abundance of joy and will please Our Lord.
Conclusion
Since marriage involves what is likely the most important commitment that you will ever make in your life, your courtship is a time to prepare for this commitment. Courtship is the time to form devotions to God such as reading the Bible daily.
The Bible is a compilation of God's love letters to you. You will want to know God, since he is one of the three parties in your marriage covenant, and reading His love letters is one of the best ways to grow in true knowledge of Him. Now is the time to commit to forming a devotion to the Bible. May your New Year's resolutions in 2008 help you to keep your car clean, to truly know God, and to find and marry a quality Catholic Christian!
Thomas Schmierer is a Catholic counselor, writer, and evangelizer for V2C®. Visit www.vaticanvalues.com to learn more about Mr. Schmierer's work.
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