Ellen Gable's Blog, page 136

An Incredibly High Ideal

Today's post is another excerpt from Full Quiver's book, "Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship." Chris and Micki share how their courtship began:

Chris: We were sitting at our mutual friends' house, talking about courtship and marriage. Somehow or another, she said that she wouldn't marry someone who didn't love her enough to save himself for her even before they met. He absolutely had to be a virgin. That struck me as an incredibly high ideal. But also – and I think this is why she thought I was argumentative and pompous – I got a little bit defensive about what she was saying. When I was younger, and wasn't well-formed religiously, I came pretty close to falling in that area, and not saving myself for the girl I'd eventually marry. But I see now that the grace of God preserved me in that. So I was argumentative, because I wanted to defend myself and where I had been when I was younger. That's why I posed questions like, "What if somebody only fell once, and it was many years ago, and they really regret it now, and they repented of it and never did it again?" She kept insisting that no, that wasn't good enough for her. The person had to have saved himself for her.

Micki: I explained that I could still be friends with that person. I wouldn't judge that person. We can still be best buds for life. But I wouldn't marry that person, because he didn't love me enough to wait for me.

Chris: My first thought was "good luck with that." Her ideals seemed a little too high, and she didn't seem flexible enough. But after I'd left, and had the chance to reflect, I was really inspired by what she'd said. Partly, it was because I realized, "Hey! I still do qualify!" and that this is a woman who is a pearl of extremely high price. She knows that she's worth a lot (and not in an arrogant way). She knows her value and her dignity, and she's not going to allow herself to be bought cheaply. She wasn't going to be given away to just any guy who came along.

Micki: I was not desperate. I was not looking for a man and I was going to wait until I found the right one.

Chris: Right. I concluded that Micki was a person who was worth striving to get to know, and to see if something could really happen with her. That was why I was so dogged in calling her, and why I continued to call for a month. It helped that she didn't let on that she wasn't interested. So I thought, Wow, she keeps taking my calls. She keeps staying on the phone with me for an hour and a half. She must really be interested in me. Of course, she wasn't, but I didn't know that. That's what kept me going through that month or whatever it was before we actually got together for our first date.

Micki: We met on November 20th of 1993 and we went out for the first time on January 6th of 1994. I should explain a little more why I said what I did about not marrying someone who didn't love me enough to wait for me. Something happened when I was 16, just kind of by happenstance. I was laying in bed one night, and I just prayed (and I'm sure it was the grace of God that inspired me to pray this), "Dear God, please help me to save myself for the man that I'm going to marry, and please help me to wait for marriage." That simple prayer kept me out of a lot of trouble as I got older and went through life. When I was in college, someone had said, "Start praying now for whomever it is you're going to marry." So, probably freshman or sophomore year, I started praying, "Dear God, please bless whoever it is you have for me to marry." And I might have even added, "Please help him to love me enough, even now, to save himself for me, even though he doesn't know me yet."

When Chris started calling, I tried to find a way to gently tip him off that I wanted him to stop calling. I kept dropping these little hints that had always worked before to scare guys off…like, "I've already got my wedding dress, because it was on sale 75 percent off when I was a second year law student, and I couldn't pass that up." Usually, guys would say, "She's scary." But he said, "Wow, what does it look like?"

Chris: You're thrifty.

Micki: Rats, that didn't work. So the next phone conversation, I say, "My dad has hated every guy I've ever dated." He said, "Oh, you just haven't brought the right guy home yet." Darn, that didn't work either.

Chris: I had encountered fathers much worse. I was confident with anything her dad could throw at me.

Micki: But my ace in the hole was always, "When I get married, I want to have four kids." I was a Protestant at the time, so four kids seemed like a whole lot of children. He said to me, "What? Only four?" I said, "How many kids do you want to have when you get married?" He said, "Oh, 10, 12, however many God sends me." I had the same reaction to that that he had when I said "I'm not marrying someone who hasn't saved himself for me." I thought, man, this guy is crazy. But later on when I reflected on it, I realized this guy values family. He likes kids. Maybe I'd better rethink trying to blow this guy off. That was the beginning of the turning point.

Chris and Micki have been married for 15 years and have four children. This is an excerpt from their story "An Incredibly High Ideal" in Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship, to be published this June.

Photo and Text copyright 2011 Full Quiver Publishing

Atheist Meets Catholic Prince Charming

The third in my series of excerpts from "Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship" recounts Robert and Sarah Reinhard's journey towards marriage and the Catholic faith.

Sarah: By the time I was working at the country's largest John Deere dealership after college, I was cynical and rather atheist. God had proven that He didn't exist as far as I was concerned. Though I had been raised Christian — mostly Methodist, with some non-denominational charismatic varieties thrown in — I was convinced that reason and logic disproved the supernatural.

Robert: I had been raised Catholic, attended Catholic schools from first grade to graduation, and so I never knew any different. It was an irrevocable part of my life.

Sarah: We had many long conversations over the back parts counter at the dealership, when Robert looked at me and was actually interested in what I had to say (instead of where listening could lead). I found out about his faith life after I had been on a date and bared parts of myself no one else had really cared to hear about; I found out quite by accident. We were on the phone, planning a hiking date for a Sunday, when he said, in his typically no-nonsense way, that he couldn't get to my place before 10, because he went to 8:30 Mass.

This is the man who couldn't talk before about 10, getting up to go to church? Just what was so special about Mass that he would want to go? Well, I didn't care enough then to pursue it beyond a little smile at the fact. But as we continued to date, six months, then a year, I did get curious. What was so special about Mass? How could it be better than time spent with me?

Robert: I had only just started attending Mass again. I had gone two or three years without it and had been far from regular for the ten years prior to that.

Sarah: His mother was very devout and very excited about her faith. Yeah, I thought, she's just that way. Some people like to sew, she likes to be Catholic. It's her thing. Big deal.

I had decided to go and see what Mass was all about. The colorful stories about Father Pat enticed me and, I reasoned, they have a book that tells you what to do – they must be pretty organized in the Catholic Church, and I value organization a great deal. That first Mass, and for about the next year, Robert held my hand and sat with me and encouraged me. He didn't ever say anything about me joining the Church. He didn't ever express that he did or did not prefer that his future wife be Catholic. He didn't have to.

I used to justify that, rationally and logically, God was a silly notion that was both irrational and illogical. Come on! I would cry in my mind, this makes no sense and besides, none of these defenders of God's use rational or logical arguments. In my upbringing, I saw the stalwart Methodists and the charismatic Baptists. I spent a good part of my before-bed prayer time wondering if I should be speaking in tongues, as the Evangelical non-denominationals insisted we should. It didn't take long for me to wonder why it was so wonderful to be saved…and saved…and saved. I was saved at least three times, telling Jesus that He was welcome in my heart. But what if being five made that not count? My mother recounted a story to me where, when I was three, I had asked Jesus into my heart. But at twelve, knowing that I certainly hadn't held up my end of the "good Christian" bargain, I asked Him again. Because, you know, you can never be too saved, can you? And if you can be saved more than once, how do you know which one counts for good?

Robert: I, for my part, kept silent. I had my own struggle with the Catholic faith. As well, my older brother and I were the main providers for our family for ten years before I met Sarah.

As Sarah wondered about the value of the Catholic Church, I found myself coming home. I sat with her at Mass and felt the comfort of the routine and the ritual. I woke up early on Sunday mornings because I desired that peace. My life had been a maelstrom as my parents struggled, but the Church remained unwavering, and I found I needed that. In the years directly following my coming home to the Church, my family would weather some major storms, including my parents' divorce and annulment and the death of a baby.

Sarah: By the time I had decided to step foot in a Catholic church, there was a part of me that recognized that the relationship we were building was worth something as silly (I thought then) as marriage. So many people divorced, so many families torn apart: wasn't your family comprised of more than just the many step-families you might have accumulated? After I met Robert and the thought of marrying him occurred to me, I was alarmed. Was I not a contemporary thinker, freed of such antiquated ideas as marriage? Hadn't I experienced divorce twice in my own family, and hadn't I seen how much havoc it wreaked, how much pain it caused, how much hurt it sowed?

I had been attending Mass for a few months when our priest gave a homily on Mothers Day about Mary, our Mother. He talked about how we all have a mother who is unconditional, who is waiting for us, who understands our trials and tribulations. His words spoke to my soul, and for the first time, my hard heart melted. Unprepared for this, I began crying, and then sobbing. I had to leave the sanctuary. I perched on the steps to the choir loft in the vestibule, and after the recessional at the end Mass, Father asked me if I was okay. I could only nod. What was this Church?

Robert and Sarah Reinhard have been married for seven years and have three children. Their entire courtship story is included in Full Quiver's upcoming book "Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship" to be published in June.

Copyright 2011 Full Quiver Publishing

Novena to Marry the Right Girl

This is the second in my series of excerpts from Full Quiver's upcoming book, "Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship." Today's post is entitled "Novena to Marry the Right Girl," and tells the story of Leon and Mary Lou DuBois, who are originally from Philadelphia, and who have been married for 58 years.

Lee: I was overseas in the Navy and I had made a novena on board, and the intention of the novena was that I would marry the right girl. Of course, I had been going around with a girl for more than four years. Normally, I would get letters from her and at the bottom, it would always say, "All my love, Your Peggy." I did get a Christmas card, and when it finally came sometime in January, it said "Peggy." So I figured there was something wrong.

When I returned home, I called her and I said, "Is this what I think it is?" She said, "Yes." As it turned out, her father told her that now that I'm in the Navy, sailors can't be trusted.

For some reason, I wasn't completely all broken up about this. I had called two girls to go out, and neither one of them would go out with me because they figured, "He's going with Peggy."

John, my best friend, went around with Mary Lou's best friend, Helen. We were going to go out on a double date and I said, "I can't get anybody to go out with me." John said, "I'll take care of that."

I didn't have a car, but he did and so they came around to my house to pick me up. When I opened the door, who was in the back seat but this good looking girl, and that's what attracted me. I don't know, we just hit it right off. She was going with somebody else at the time. I told her that I had to go back overseas again and said, "Don't do anything until I come home." So when I came home, we got together.

Mary Lou: I knew about Lee from all the dances we went to; we would go to the dances. Back when I was a freshman, he was a senior and he always won all the jitterbug contests. He was so handsome. I never thought that I would ever have a date with him. At the time, I was actually engaged to another fellow, and I had accepted the ring. So Helen called me and she said, "You remember Leon DuBois? He doesn't have a date. He's only home for a few days. Could you break your date?" So I broke my date.

He didn't have the sailor suit on; he had this navy blue pinstripe suit with a white shirt and I thought, Oh, he's so handsome. And everybody in that group was so funny. We just laughed all the time. So I said, "Where are we going?" They said, "We're going to go over to New Jersey." There were all these clubs where you can have a drink and we all loved to sing and dance, so they ordered me a Brandy Alexander, and I had quite a few of them. We got up on the stage and we sang, "Abba Dabba Honeymoon." The next day, I said to my girlfriend, "I'm so sick. It's a good thing my mother isn't home," because I would have been grounded for ten years. So my friend said that Lee had to go back soon. Lee called me up the next day and I thought, well, come on over. So the big thing back then for going on a date was the movies and the ice cream parlor. Again, he came in his navy blue suit, and we talked about the fun we had. We used to sit on the sofa before he went back overseas and we would talk. We had the music on, just talk, talk, talk, lots of kissing, but nothing else, just kissing and talking.

Our romance, really our courtship, was mostly by mail because he was away for six months. We started writing back and forth. I have every single letter he ever wrote. And we used to do a poem together. I would write a line and the next letter, he would write a line.

Lee: One of the things that I think is really great is that we got engaged in the 69th Street Terminal in Philadelphia. We were waiting for the train. I got down on my knee and I proposed to her, and I gave her an engagement ring.

I believe the most important thing is to have a sense of humor and to be able to laugh at yourself. A sense of humor is so primary because people don't realize what effect it has on your metabolism. If I start thinking, I'm old and can't have a sense of humor, I'm going to sit here like this, that's not the way it should be. I believe this is one of the things that has helped us, that we have a sense of humor and being able to laugh at yourself.

Now, my father wasn't a big churchgoer, just my mother. But here's the thing. Back then, if you went to a Catholic school through grade school, you had to go to Mass. There was no ans, ifs or buts and they took attendance. In high school, the church paid your tuition. And they would also take attendance. Now, if you didn't go to Mass, the priest would come to your house and say, "Do you want to pay your tuition yourself? No? Then make sure your son starts going to church on Sunday."

Mary Lou: You wouldn't think of not going to church. And even if we were away on holiday, we used to go down to the seashore, and the first thing Sunday morning, you go to church. And we always went to daily Mass during Lent. We used to take the subway to go to Mass.

Lee: Even when I was in the Navy, they had Mass aboard ship, and it would be jammed with people.

Mary Lou: Anyway, not only do you have to love the person, you have to like them. A lot of people are madly in love. After you're married and all that glitter wears off, you have to like the person.

Lee: Like Mary Lou says, love is one thing, but you have to genuinely like each other, and I think that's really paramount.

Lee and Mary Lou DuBois live in Arnprior, Ontario and have been married for 58 years. Their courtship story, in its entirety, is included in "Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship."

Text and photo copyright 2011 Full Quiver Publishing

An Old-Fashioned Love Story

My maternal grandparents, John and Bessie May, met as teenagers. In this photo from 1916, they look very much in love. They went on to build a happy life together, welcoming and raising five children. My mother was their fourth living child, and the first to proudly graduate high school.

According to my mother, and from what I observed as a young child, they continued to grow in love and remain happily married. Over the years, my grandmother gained a lot of weight, but my grandfather told her that it didn't matter to him, because there was "a lot more of her to love."

In July of 1967, my grandmother died of a stroke. My grandfather passed away a year and a half later (on the 7th of February, 1969), my mother said, of a broken heart.

"May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen."

Text and photos copyright 2011 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Staying Connected

Another reason I love the 21st century is because it's easier than ever to stay connected to your spouse. Email and texting allow me to contact James while he's at work without interrupting him with a phone call.

Back in 1979, at the start of our long distance romance, we only had snail mail letters (sometimes taking up to two weeks to arrive). While I'm grateful that we have boxes and boxes of those beautiful and heartfelt letters, texting and email would have made the long distance relationship less frustrating.

In retrospect, I think the separation allowed us to realize that we could remain "close" even though we had 500 miles separating us. And…absence truly makes the "heart grow fonder." Living in different countries also made us appreciate those times that we were able to be together (and we continue to be thankful for our togetherness, even after nearly 29 years of marriage).

However, if I could do it all again, I'd want the texting and email. Although our cartoon takes it to an extreme, these modern conveniences truly do help a couple "stay connected."

Text copyright 2011 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Image copyright 2011 James and Ellen Hrkach/Full Quiver Publishing

You Should Get Married Again

This month on my blog, I will be featuring excerpts from Full Quiver Publishing's new book, "Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship" to be published this summer. Most of the stories are taped and edited interviews.

Today's excerpt is entitled "You Should Get Married Again," and it tells the powerful story of David, a widower and Posie, a widow:

Posie: As part of my discernment, it just worked out that someone anonymously gave me this amazing gift of a trip to Medjugorje in 2004. I was so thrilled, and felt so confirmed and cared for that someone would do this for me. On that trip, part of my discernment was "God, show me; Our Lady, show me. If you have anyone for me, tell me. If you don't, tell me that, too. I'll follow wherever you want me to go, whatever life that you ask of me."

During that pilgrimage, I really felt God saying to me, "Give me your heart and I'll give you mine. I'll give you a new heart." It was sort of like my heart had been broken by losing my first husband, and He wanted to heal it, and really did. I experienced a very deep healing, which was a really profound spiritual experience for me. But there weren't any concrete answers, other than that, just that my heart was healed, that I was whole, and I had this heart that was Jesus' heart. How can you really love again with a broken heart? It was very shortly after I got back from Medjugorje that David came back into my life as friends.

Whenever I thought about the idea of getting married again, I knew it would have to begin with friendship, and be built on that foundation. I just couldn't imagine getting into the dating scene, and I couldn't imagine ever falling in love without it being based on mutual faith and trust and sharing of our deepest values. I began to realize what a precious and rare thing that is.

When David came along, I was really glad to see him again, because we had been quite close as families, but as you can imagine, we'd known each other as married to someone else, so of course I didn't fall in love with him back then. It really showed me how love is from God. When He wants to manifest what we call "falling in love," He can do it. But it's not the way it's often portrayed in movies, where these married people are so attracted to each other, they end up having an affair because they cannot resist it. I think that would really be 'falling in lust.' I think of falling in love as more like falling into God together, and allowing His love to be made manifest between us. It's still a very powerful attraction, as I was to find out.

David: The last year of Anna's life was a very intense time. So when Anna did pass away, I was really burned out. Anna died in February of 2003, so when I did come up to our family cottage the following summer, in June, I was looking forward to just being in nature and resting. I wasn't in the mode of wife-hunting by any means. I just relished the thought of some down time, and my children came up now and then through the summer. So we had some good quality time with the children, good tears. Then in the summer of 2004, the Lord just somehow chose that time for Posie and I to meet once again and begin our courtship.

Posie: There was one night – it was the Feast of the Assumption which has always been a really powerful feast for me – he made me dinner again. And there was something electric going on in the air, but we weren't really talking about that yet. It was just something unspoken was going on. I was trying to figure out if I was imagining it or not. But when I went home that night to my house, my mind was going around and around and I couldn't sleep. I think it was fairly early the next morning, I drove back to the cottage because I just had to talk to him. I just had to ask him. I figured I've got nothing to lose because if there isn't anything going on in his heart, then I'll just carry on the way I have been going; we'll be friends. But if there is something going on, then maybe we can talk about it. I had gotten to the cottage and he was already out sitting by the water. I went down and I just spoke from my heart. I said, "It just seems like I'm falling in love with you and I don't know what to do and I just have to say that."

I remember thinking, it's getting real now, speaking from the heart, being vulnerable and yet not jumping to any conclusions, trying to do it gently. But then the topic was opened, and we started talking more about a relationship and what was going on and yes, there was something happening and what is this? Neither of us had any other relationships since our spouses had died. I remember one time, probably a few days after that, when we saw each other at Mass, I invited him back for brunch. We were sitting on the porch and he said, "Hmmm…that would be 14 children…" This was sort of the first time we started to talk about marriage. He was really genuine and sincere: "…how would we do that?" Then gradually, we talked more and more about it. We started to talk about marriage and what that meant and how it would happen, and how it would impact our families. Then we started talking about the timetable of it all. We didn't want to wait around too long. We knew how short life can be.

David and Posie Douthwright were married in December 2004. Together, they are the parents of 14 children. The complete version of their courtship story is included in Full Quiver's new book "Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship" to be published this summer.

Copyright 2011 Full Quiver Publishing

Going Courtin'

One of my favorite movie musicals is "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." In this entertaining number, sister-in-law Milly explains to the six brothers how to "court a girl."

God's Natural and Beautiful Design

My new column at Amazing Catechists is entitled "God's Natural and Beautiful Design."

"The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse." Paul VI, Humanae Vitae

God's natural and beautiful design is that women are only fertile for a short time each month. Taking into account ovum life (48 hours at most) and sperm life (up to five days depending on the type of mucus in the woman's body), there are approximately seven days in each cycle that a woman is fertile. Other factors include each woman's particular level of fertility: the type of mucus, their age (the younger they are, the more fertile) and the man's level of fertility (sperm count and quality of sperm).

As Pope Paul VI writes in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae (On Human Life),"…new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse." And contrary to popular belief, the Catholic Church does not teach that a couple must actively seek pregnancy each time they engage in marital relations. But she does teach that intercourse must at least implicitly retain its procreative meaning. Contraceptives destroy the conjugal act's procreative aspect. Therefore, if the couple has serious need, and spacing or avoidance of pregnancy is desired, they may use Natural Family Planning, that is, relations during the infertile time.



Natural Family Planning is safe, healthy and effective and works as good, if not better, than most of the popular birth control devices and without the unhealthy side effects of contraceptives.

Let us pray each time we approach the marital bed: "I promise to be faithful to you. I come here freely, I love you totally and I am open to creating children with you."

Copyright 2011 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Happy Marriage Increases Longevity

To celebrate Valentine's Day, throughout the month of February, I will be featuring stories of happily married couples. I'll also be including excerpts from Full Quiver's new book entitled "Come My Beloved, Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship," tentatively scheduled to be published this June.

In a recent article on LifeSiteNews , researchers have concluded that "stable, long term, exclusive relationships" lead to "more healthy lifestyles and better emotional and physical health," and have a marked effect on longevity.

"The take home message is simple," the authors conclude. "Exclusive and supportive relationships confer substantial mental and physical health benefits that grow over time."

Image copyright 2011 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Marriage: A Noble Purpose

"Blessed are you,

O God of our fathers;

praised be your name

forever and ever.

Let the heavens and

all your creation

praise you forever.

"You made Adam and

you gave him his wife Eve

to be his help and support;

and from these two

the human race descended.

You said,

"It is not good for the man to be alone;

Let us make him a partner like himself"

Now, Lord, you know that I take this

wife of mine, not because of lust,

but for a noble purpose.

Call down your mercy on me and on her,

and allow us to live together to a happy old age."

Tobit 8:7

This beautiful prayer was the second reading of our Nuptial Mass in 1982 when my husband and I were married. When I first read these words many years ago, they affected me deeply, especially when I learned the history of why Tobias said this prayer.

After losing seven husbands before she could consummate her union with them, Sarah entered into marriage with Tobias. Tobias knew the history and understood that he could die if he married her. But he trusted God, recited the above prayer fervently and went on to a happy marriage with Sarah.

Nowadays, many Catholic couples live together or are sexually active before marriage. As much as they may desire to love one another – and most, I'm certain, really do feel love and affection towards the other – they cannot love each other in the way they are called to: freely, totally, faithfully and fruitfully, truly loving as God loves. Sexual relations are meant to be the renewal of a couple's marriage vows. If there is no marriage, there are no vows and there can be no renewal. Essentially, pre-marital sex is a lie.

I realize that this may not be an easy thing for engaged couples to hear, especially if they are already living together. But if a couple wants to be close to each other and to God, it is essential for them to live the truth of God's laws on marriage: chastity before marriage and no contraception within marriage.



"God help us to love each other freely, totally, faithfully and fruitfully. Help us to love and not to lust."

Copyright 2011 Ellen Gable Hrkach