Longing for Permanence

“My words will not pass away.” // Luke 21:33

I spent many years as a single woman and often spoke on the topic of life as a single Catholic. I loved being single, and I loved everything the Lord was able to do with me in those years because I was single. My single years were colorful, adventurous, contemplative, not the least bit dull or dowdy. When I married, it wasn’t because I was lonely or afraid to be on my own, but because I felt called to create a new kind of life, an even more fruitful life, with my husband. And thus it has been.

But in those years and for many years now after, I have ministered to women on their own, especially women who’ve been on their own far longer than they anticipated they would be, mature women with real prayer lives who feel called to marriage and yet remain single. It can be really hard: to sit with impermanence.

Marriage as a Sacrament bears a permanent, lifelong character. The soul of a priest bears an indelible mark, a permanent mark. A woman called to religious life takes vows progressively, but eventually, of permanence, “final vows.” A woman called to be a consecrated virgin does not consecrate herself for a period of time but for her lifetime. The heart in love wants to vow itself, longs to be “all in.” The human heart was created for permanence, for eternity, for Heaven, where Jesus reigns forevermore. And to enjoy a taste of that permanence in this life.

If you find yourself or someone you love sitting in that place of impermanence, for whatever reason, I encourage you, rest in God’s Word. Jesus says so clearly in today’s Gospel, “My words will not pass away” (Luke 21:33). Neither does His love for you. They are eternal, everlasting. He knows that ache inside for permanence, for resolution, for your place in the world—both this world and the next. Trust in that ache, lean into it, and take Jesus at His Word, like Psalm 37:4: “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”