Enduring Singleness: Your Vocation & the Father’s Will

All of us have the same vocation: to get to Heaven, and take as many people as we can with us. Despite this universal call to holiness though, we each have a different method of getting there. For some, it takes the form of religious life, and for others it means marriage and family. But just because we have a deep desire for a certain vocation, doesn’t mean we’ll see it come to fruition during our lives. And that, ladies, is what we’ll be discussing today.

Vocations are only present in our lives on earth because they are tools for us to reach our final vocation, which is holiness in Heaven. Plainly speaking, there are 2 different kinds of vocations: vocation to religious life and vocation to marriage. 

While vocations are tools to get to Heaven, they are not necessary to achieve salvation (this is very important for the remainder of this article).

Our desires are a beautiful way of discerning the vocation God may will for us, but it’s not the ultimate end. The end is Heaven, and the way we get there is through the Father’s will, not our own. Let’s dive deeper into that.

God has a plan for all of us. An intentional, specific plan that caters directly to our skillsets, strengths, weaknesses, and circumstances. This, of course, includes our desires. God made us to desire the good and the beautiful, and it’s only natural that we long for specific aspects of life. But if we’re not careful, we can become so absorbed in our own will that we forget Who gave us those desires in the first place, and what He may want us to do with them.

Think about the amount of times you thought something would go one way, and it turned out going the complete opposite. Or a time when you thought you were doing the right thing but found your judgment clouded by pride, envy, or another hidden vice. We are only capable of knowing a small degree of all this world has to offer us, and there’s no possible way to know for certain what God may will for us. 

This life on earth can only offer us a tainted joy: never full, never satisfied. But the joy in Heaven sings abundantly of God’s glory, and never longs for anything more than the warm embrace of our Lord. 

I’m currently single, and all around me people are entering into relationships, getting married, and creating beautiful families. My heart aches every day for someone to call my other half; for someone to share life with, build a family, and strive towards Heaven as one body in Christ. But if this ache is what gets me to Heaven, then I pray the Lord amplifies it. 

If this longing sanctifies my soul in preparation for the Kingdom of God, then multiply it tens times over. 

If this desire for marriage and family life is never fulfilled until the gates of Heaven are before me, and I get to spend eternity with my Savior - who held me through every heartache I’ve ever known - then I pray the Father gives me 3 lifetimes worth so I may be with my Love all the sooner. 

St. Gregory the Great talks about this beautifully in relation to the ministry of St. Mary Magdalene in his gospels. He talks about how steadfast Mary was while waiting at our Lord’s tomb after his resurrection, saying:

“At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love.”

St. Augustine talks about a similar concept of the Lord amplifying our virtuous desires through patience, saying in his Tractates (Lectures) on the Gospel of John:

“The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he comes you may see and be utterly satisfied… Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.”

It is in our waiting, our longing, our patient cooperation with the will of God that we find the fulfillment of our desires - especially toward paths as holy as marriage or religious life. 

I don’t know what the Lord has in store for me. I hope it’s marriage, but I’m not holding Him to that. All I want is to be within the Father’s will because I know that will get me to Heaven. Yes, this will involve an incredible amount of surrender, courage, and suffering - I’m sure of it. But the reward? I don’t doubt it’s worth for even a second. 

So I encourage you today to have faith in those vocational desires but surrender them to the Lord for transformation in His will. It’s not a loss, it’s an incredible gain, and it’s a courageous step towards your ultimate vocation: your call to holiness. 

This life is temporary, but eternal life is forever. And I’d much rather spend 30, 50, 70 years on earth with a heart that aches for a spouse, than an eternity with a soul that suffers the loss of my Savior.