Spera in Deo: the Single Life Before Marriage

I know Dr Kwasniewski personally, and I'm totally amazed at how he finds time to write his many books, lectures, and articles whilst singing in the schola of his Parish, and being a husband and father!

From One Peter Five

By Luke Parks

For Catholics in search of a spouse, bitterness and resentment slowly start to creep in.

In a recent conversation with Peter Kwasniewski, the much-beloved defender of the Roman Rite remarked: “I’m *known* (for better or for worse) for talking about liturgy, but not so much for talking about other topics.” In this article, my goal is to change that narrative by providing you with a personal reflection onKwasniewski’s brilliant book Treasuring the Goods of Marriage in a Throwaway Society.

As a single Catholic who has unsuccessfully searched for a woman to wed for nearly a decade, there has been a strong temptation to abandon hope of ever finding “the One.” In times of despair, the Devil turns our unfulfilled desires against us by directing our attention, not to goodness, but to the world. In our technocratic age, social media is the most accessible and effective means by which the demons do their dirty work. Commenting on the dangers of too much screen time, Kwasniewski urges us to “find ways to reduce the constant noise that surrounds us.”[1] Often, Our Lord is shouting at us, but we are so preoccupied with our own obsessive lack of trust in His plan that we refuse to listen. For Catholics in search of a spouse, bitterness and resentment slowly start to creep in. We exasperatedly ask: “Why are you making me wait so long, God? Don’t you want me to be happy?” Deep down, we know that His answer is yes, but because we want Divine Providence to go our way instead of His, we become frustrated and turn to the noise of the world out of spite. Not only is such behavior childish, but it refuses to acknowledge the good owed to one’s future spouse. Therefore, instead of feeding our own egos, Kwasniewski advises us to “prize and protect our interior purity and moral quietude” so that we may learn to listen to the inner promptings of the Holy Ghost.[2] Only then will we be adequately prepared to discern marriage with another person.

Speaking of which, as beautiful as the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony is, it is important for us to recognize its crosses prior to making a lifelong commitment. Kwasniewski comments:

Humanly speaking, there are times when you may want to kill your spouse, or, more modestly, get away as far away on the planet as possible…In [these] hard times, which can last for days or weeks or months or even years, your selfish self (if I may so put it) insists that you stand on your rights, that the other unconditionally surrender, or even that you should sever a relationship so unconducive (as it may seem) to your own happiness.[3]

Unlike the world, which sees the indissolubility of marriage as “oppressive,” Christ calls the children of Adam to pick up their crosses in this life so that they may attain eternal bliss in the next (cf. Saint Matthew 16:24). Similar to His everlasting, faithful love for the Church, men and women are called to imitate His love as precisely as possible. Thus, while not being in a relationship right now may seem like a curse, God is giving us the opportunity to prepare ourselves for bearing marital burdens in the future (cf. Galatians 6:2). If we’re unable to put up with ourselves in a spirit of humility, then how can we expect to endure a spouse’s shortcomings?

Finally, Kwasniewski reminds usthat the paragons of Holy Matrimony are the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. Paradoxically, their ratum sed non consummatum marriage is “an exemplar of religious life no less than it is of married life,” for their renunciation of the conjugal act allowed them to attain a deeper spiritual bond between God and themselves.[4] Although only a select group of saints throughout the centuries have been inspired to enter into a Josephite marriage, Kwasniewski encourages us to “see in this (admittedly atypical) path a genuine ‘vocation within a vocation,’ a different mode of nuptial love to which the Lord has called and will continue to call Christians.”[5] Does not the Apostle himself exhort spouses to abstain from intercourse “by consent, for a time, that [they] may give [themselves] to prayer” (1 Corinthians 7:5; Douay–Rheims Bible)? True, he bids them to render the marital debt “lest Satan tempt [them],” but for those couples called to emulate the Holy Spouses, their sacramental union is not diminished on account of their abstinence (1 Corinthians 7:5). On the contrary, Kwasniewski assures us of the Church’s traditional esteem for Josephite marriages.[6] To quote the Angelic Doctor: “Those marriages are more perfect that are accompanied by a vow of continence.”[7] In short, regardless of whether or not we follow in their footsteps, we can learn a lot about the cardinal virtue of temperance from the Holy Spouses. May we pray to them for the grace to find a husband or wife molded in their image!

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[1] Peter Kwasniewski, Treasuring the Goods of Marriage in a Throwaway Society (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), 133.

[2] Ibid., 136.

[3] Ibid., 76.

[4] Ibid., 179.

[5] Ibid., 181.

[6] Ibid., 180.

[7] Saint Thomas Aquinas, The Commentary on the Sentences, Book IV, 26-42 (Aquinas Institute, 2018), dist. 34, q. 1, art. 2, arg. 1, https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~Sent.IV.D34.Q1.A2.