Some articles, blog posts or songs come very quickly. Others tend to percolate for a longer period of time. This post was on my mind for a couple of years, and in my draft folder for about 7 months when Ellen Gable sent me a review copy of her recent book, Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship, an anthology of courtship and engagement stories from committed Catholic couples.
I love hearing people’s proposal stories, and birth stories, … and conversion stories, … and wedding stories, … and vocation stories. What do all these events have in common? They are milestone moments in a person’s life and people can easily relate to them. Each of these events is unique. They are deeply personal and yet anyone can relate. Because they are so personal, when someone shares one of these life stories with you, it feels very intimate. Over the past couple of years I have been impressed by the witness to faith offered by several young Catholic couples on their blogs: Jeff and Natalie, Kyle and Kathleen, and Blaise and Heather. A common thread in these engagement stories is that each of these couples treated their courtship as a process of discernment, not just in the secular sense of “Is this person The ONE?”, but in a deeper faith context of whether each of them were called to the vocation of marriage and to a call to grow in faith though a lifetime together.
Over a year or so of reading courship stories such as these I began to wonder if I should begin to chronicle such stories of faith filled courtship on my blog or commemorate them during the Celebrations portion of the Catholic Roundup podcast. Then this winter, Ellen Gable Hrkach, began to feature Catholic courtship stories on her blog, Plot Line and Sinker. These stories were exactly what I had been contemplating– stories of Catholic couples coming together to discern their vocation to marriage, of falling in love, and of growing deeper in love with each other, and deeper into their love of Christ and His Church.
This spring, Ellen Gable and Kathy Cassanto released Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship, a short volume containing interviews with 12 different Catholic couples about their experience of courtship and engagement. The couples range from young married couples, to those with young children, all the way to a couple married for over 50 years. They chronicle both the joys and challenges of courtship– of wondering whether there is anyone out there, if this is the one, of struggles with chastity, of challenges with family planning and NFP, and of mixed reactions from family and friends.
Taken together, these stories paint a picture of living experiences of the Catholic concepts of sexuality, marriage, family and vocation which differ greatly from the secular understanding of marriage which is commonplace in popular culture. From a Catholic perspective, the ultimate goal of the sacrament of marriage, is for each person to grow in holiness in their own faith, to call and support their partner to a deeper faith, and to foster the same faith in their children and families. Indeed, this call to holiness is at the root of all vocations whether to religious life or for laypersons.
Come My Beloved may be purchased though Full Quiver Publishing.
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