The Vocation to Love: Single Catholic Women — International Institute of Culture and Gender Studies

Some years ago for Women’s Day, a boyfriend sent me St. Paul VI’s Address to Women at the end of the Second Vatican Council. Although the boyfriend is long gone, the Address remained for many years on the back of my office door, where I could see it each time I passed. For in the middle of this powerful address, where the pontiff declares that “the hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness, the hour in which woman acquires in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved,” achieved,[1] St. Paul VI specifically speaks to single women:

“And you, single women, realize what you can accomplish through your dedicated vocation. Society is appealing to you on all sides. Not even families can live without the help of those who have no families."[2]

Lothar Wolleh, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

As a single Catholic woman, attempting to find my place in the Church and in the world, these words were a great support. They reminded me that although the single life is not a vocation – it is not a permanent state of life, with vows or promises, binding one until death – that being a single woman is also a gift to myself and to all those I meet.

But how?

With all my studies as a theologian, I had been able to find very little written by the Church on how to live as a single Catholic woman.[3]

St. Catherine before the Pope at AvignonGiovanni di Paolo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — St. Catherine before the Pope at Avignon
Giovanni di Paolo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Vocation to Love as Single

Some years later, I was in Kenya, browsing in the Pauline Sisters bookstore, and I fell upon Sigrid Undset’s book, St. Catherine of Siena. As her work on the saints had been highly recommended by a Norwegian Anglican priest friend, I immediately grabbed the book. And as I continued to read it, while preparing to attend my first ordination in Uganda, it struck me: St. Catherine of Siena was a single woman. A third-order Dominican, she was not a nun, and she never married.[4] And what was emblematic of her life as a single woman was clear: a radical flexibility in love.

St. John Paul II, when considering the relationship of celibate life to that of the married life, two permanent vocations, points out that the “perfection of the Christian life is measured…by the measure of love.”[5] The vocation to love is the vocation of all Christians, whether they are called to celibacy, marriage, or whether they are, for one reason or another, single. And single women and men have their own gift in living that out: a radical flexibility in who and how they love.

When we are younger, we tend to think of life as constructed of linear moments, all building upon one another: we go to school, maybe go to university, get a job, get married, have children, retire. And all of these, in way or another, presuppose the moment before. And yet, St. Catherine of Siena did not live this linear reality: she began life as a normal young girl in Siena until the age of 12, was then maltreated by her family and servants when she refused to marry, lived as a hermit for three years when her father realized she had received a call to a special relationship with God, began to work with the sick in Siena, and then went out, together with her male and female disciples, to the city-states of Italy, and even as far as France, to work for peace in her country and the return of the Pope to Rome. She was content already with her life as a hermit, with the prayer in which she was immersed in God – and still, He called her out, to love those people – in Siena, in Italy, in France – that He needed her to love at each particular moment, at each specific time.[6]

Being unmarried, without the joys and responsibilities of a husband and children, not being under the vow of obedience to a superior who could decide how she would best serve the order, St. Catherine was able to go when and where she was needed. She lived a flexibility in carrying out her vocation to love.

Having begun to consider my own life as a single woman in this light and meditating also upon the life of St. Joan of Arc, another single woman with a radical flexibility in love – who else could pick up an army and go?![7] – the beauty of living the vocation to love as a single woman became clearer to me. I was single until the age of 40, which means that, praise God, I had some years to appreciate the gift of my singleness. For the opportunity to live this flexibility in love is hidden everywhere in our lives. And I share this with those of you who are single, in the hope that you shall find these opportunities to live out your radical flexibility too.

Flexibility in Loving God

There is an amazing flexibility in loving God when we are single! As a young child, I was fascinated by the Liturgy of the Hours, and as a single woman living alone, I could order my life around the structure of prayer. Every morning began with prayer, with Lauds: after all, if God is the most important person in my life, shouldn’t I began each day with Him? This meant ignoring or turning off work notifications on my cell phone, sitting down with my coffee, praying, meditating, bringing petitions for all of the meetings or worries of the day before, so that it would be Him leading me, allowing me to love who and how He desired.

It also meant learning what moments in the day worked best for that consistent stream of prayer meant to permeate our lives: after lunch, a quick chaplet, and before bed, time for meditation or spiritual reading. And once a year, calling my favorite religious congregation and asking for a private retreat: five days in silence – punctuated by praying with a community – and finishing off with a giggling and profound breakfast with the sisters!

Flexibility in Loving Family and Strangers

There was also a beautiful flexibility in being present for the person who needs me as they needed me! My nephew, Joey, who lived almost three hours away, spent much time in the hospital. Thus, I lived with a suitcase packed so that the moment my sister called or texted, I could pick up and go: 15 minutes down the road, an hour, or two. I didn’t need to rearrange schedules with my husband, or figure out who would pick up the kids, or ask my superior: I was gone, to love the family that needed me then.

This meant too that I could be present for those I had met once – or never. Being single allows you a certain flexibility with your budget: it means that you can decide to fast or eat the same thing all the time, without anybody noticing, and you can take that extra money to serve those in need. Finding people on Kiva who could benefit from a loan,[9] donating to a charity close to a friend’s heart, or sharing a little something with a friend who had a difficult month: all of these were ways to love this person here and now, keeping them in my prayers and providing in some way for what they needed.

Flexibility in Loving at Work

Perhaps the biggest difference that strikes me now is the flexibility in loving at work that is a gift to those who are single. As a seminary professor, I could spend Mass and lunch with my students, sharing not only theology, but also prayer and our daily lives. When the crisis in the Catholic Church became clear in 2018, I instituted office hours “without end” for the seminarians to come and talk: “I’ll begin at this time -and the doors will remain open as long as there are people outside.” One seminarian arrived at the end of the first month with a cup of coffee and cookies 15 minutes before I opened my door. “There’s always a line,” he said.

This flexibility in love meant I could make the decision to take a sabbatical to travel the world in a year, to research masculinity and femininity, in service of the Church’s needs. And during that time, I could listen once more, encourage, and love my former-seminarian-students become priests and my former-lay students become teachers, sharing what I knew and being enriched by their own ministry and learning – sometimes even late into the early morning!

Chatting with Fr. Felix and Fr. Emmanuel in the Diocese of Tororo, Uganda

The Fruitfulness of Flexibility

Now, at four months of marriage, I am truly grateful for the 40 years that I was single. While my husband and I often wonder why God didn’t call us to marriage earlier – we met 13 years ago and fell in love this past June – the fruitfulness of all of those years that I spent loving this person, at this time, becomes clearer to me every day. I have learned how to be present to each person before me, how to sneak prayer into all the little cracks of my life, and how to develop my skills as a theologian in such a way that I can exercise them anywhere in the world.

For being single is not about “waiting,” like in the line at the supermarket.

Being single is not about hoping and bemoaning and avoiding the awkward conversations – “Don’t worry: you’ll find someone. Have you tried this online app? You can always adopt. You should just marry this one, despite his severe problems, or you’ll never have children.”

Rather, being single is about living your Christian vocation to love in the most radical and flexible way possible: by being prepared, every moment, for what God sends – and allowing Him to decide who or what that will be.

Single women and men: embrace your call to a flexibility in love and make your own the words of St. Paul:

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!

Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near.

Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.

Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:4-7)

This is your time to radically love!

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Footnotes:

[1] Address of Pope Paul VI to Women, 8 December 1965. Available online at http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651208_epilogo-concilio-donne.html

[2] While the English translation says, “women living alone,” the Italian more clearly indicates “donne nubili,” or “single women,” as the intended recipients of these words. See the Italian of the Address online at http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/it/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651208_epilogo-concilio-donne.html

[3] I did find two comments: one in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “2231: Some forgo marriage in order to care for their parents or brothers and sisters, to give themselves more completely to a profession, or to serve other honorable ends. They can contribute greatly to the good of the human family.” and the other in Love is Our Mission, 70, the preparation for the The World Meeting of Families, in Philadelphia in 2015: "Single persons 'deserve the special affection and active solicitude of the Church, especially of pastors.' Not only pastors, but also families and single people themselves, should take concrete steps to ensure that 'single' in a Catholic context is clearly not the same as being lonely or isolate. Single people need fellowship for sharing their burdens and sorrows, as well as accountability and opportunities for service. 'The doors of homes, the 'domestic churches,' and of the great family which is the Church must be open' to the unmarried".” However, currently there are no official documents or other teachings to help single Catholics navigate their life in the lay state.

[4] While St. Catherine of Siena did make a private vow of chastity to God, in the absence of a public vow, she is arguably a single lay woman. The third order to which she belonged encompassed lay widows and married women.

[5] St. John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books & Media 2006), 78:3. Italics in the original.

[6] Sigrid Undset, St. Catherine of Siena (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009).

[7] See Kathryn Harrison’s Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured (New York: Doubleday, 2014). While the author has an anti-love relationship with the Church, the historical research presented within shows the depth of the divine call for this young single French woman.

[9] See https://www.kiva.org/, which allows you to donate $25 to a loan that can help change someone’s life. When they repay the loan, you can use that to help the next person as well.