“Look for a Girlfriend on Sunday in the Confession Line”
“Look for a Girlfriend on Sunday in the Confession Line”
If you hope to share your life with someone of faith, it matters where you look and what you can learn about that person there.
Duration: 9:56 · Reading with an AI-generated voice. Audio in Spanish.
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Imagine the conversation lingering after Sunday lunch. Two cups of coffee remain, a plate holds a few crumbs, and a young man has been saying for a while that he cannot find a woman he could think of marrying.
His sister listens as she gathers the teaspoons. She asks whether he has met anyone new. He replies that he goes out, has friends, and does not exactly spend his life shut indoors.
The grandmother, who until then has followed the conversation without joining in, sets her cup on its saucer.
“Look for a girlfriend on Sunday in the confession line.”
The sister laughs. So does the young man.
“Grandma, am I going to confession or looking for a girlfriend?”
The remark could end there, among the jokes over coffee. But it is worth listening to what lies beneath it.
If you hope to find someone who loves God, tries to live her faith, and is willing to acknowledge her failings, it matters that those things have a place in the settings you frequent.
The same question applies to a woman who hopes to meet a good man. She may imagine a future husband who respects her faith, takes responsibility, and is willing to serve. On what occasions might she meet people for whom those goods are more than a subject of conversation?
There is some truth in the advice. But if we follow it to the letter, we can go wrong.
Confession is an encounter with God's mercy. Someone waiting for their turn needs recollection and freedom to approach the sacrament. That moment deserves our respect, without our trying to attract their attention or turning their presence into an opportunity to win them over.
Nor do we know what is happening in their conscience. Seeing someone enter the confessional does not entitle us to suppose what they have done, how much they have changed, or what they would be like as a husband or wife.
We can be grateful that they are seeking God's forgiveness. The rest will have to be learned through getting to know them.
The grandmother's remark helps us, then, to look beyond the line: toward a life in which faith is received, learned, and put into practice. There can be friendships there, encounters, and perhaps a love that grows naturally.
In the previous article, we were making room in our days and widening our circles of company. Now the question takes on another shade: what can the setting we are entering help us learn?
Think of a morning spent helping others. A group is preparing food parcels for several families. There are open boxes, bags no one can manage to separate, and a table too small for everything they have put on it.
A young woman arrives for the first time. She knows the friend who invited her, but no one else. She stays by the door with the smile of someone who wants to help and does not yet know where to fit in.
A young man looks up.
“Come over here; we're counting the rice. I didn't know what to do the first time either.”
He brings a box closer to her. Someone asks whether they have had coffee yet. Someone else discovers that they have spent ten minutes counting the same bags twice. There is laughter. The work goes on.
During the morning, they can talk without having to invent an entire conversation. A question about Saturday leads to talk of work; another, to a hobby. Names begin to acquire faces, and faces a little story.
When they finish, more hands are needed to put away the tables. Some people have to leave; others can stay. The young woman and the young man carry on helping for a few minutes alongside the others.
We do not know whether they will come to like each other, whether either is already in a relationship, or whether they will simply enjoy a pleasant friendship. The scene does not need to end in a wedding to have been good.
But there was a real possibility of getting to know each other while doing something useful. Neither had to introduce themselves as the perfect future spouse. They shared a task, a small difficulty, and a moment of joy.
That is one of the gifts of a community: we can get to know one another while sharing something, without burdening every greeting with an expectation of marriage. That morning they could talk and see how they treated one another while working together. If their paths cross again, there will be a chance to get to know each other a little better.
Parish life can offer those occasions: sound formation, a task of service, a little conversation afterward. If you hope for a home in which you can pray together and give your children a Christian upbringing, sharing the faith matters a great deal. It makes sense to look also where that faith is nurtured and lived. Later we will consider more closely what that shared commitment means within a couple.
We can also meet someone through our studies, work, a cultural activity, or friends. A beautiful story can begin there. We will need to discover what that person believes and how they try to live it.
And within a Catholic group, we will need to do the same. We all need conversion. Taking part does not by itself erase impatience, vanity, or selfishness. Prayer and the sacraments help us; we must cooperate with grace and bring faith into our everyday treatment of others.
A simple room can hold rich conversations and noble friendships. An elegant place can also bring together superficial people. Formation, culture, and shared interests matter for life together, but money, a diploma, or a trade do not by themselves tell us what someone is like.
It is worth listening to them and getting to know them before drawing conclusions from their studies, work, or where they come from.
Sometimes it will help to ask a friend of sound judgment what an activity is like before joining it. What people do, how newcomers are welcomed, whether there is a chance to talk, and whether we can take part with some regularity.
We may discover that a group has a promising name, but hardly anyone spends time together. Or that a modest activity brings together people with whom we share interests and convictions.
Choosing calls for that simple attentiveness. Then we need to take part.
If we arrive at a community task and spend the morning finding out who is single, we may end up neither helping nor getting to know anyone. Other people have a right to be welcomed as persons. Their friendship deserves our interest even if it never turns into courtship.
We can carry in our hearts the desire to find a husband or wife and, at the same time, take a real interest in what we are doing and in the people before us.
There is no need to hide that desire as though it were shameful. Nor to bring it into every conversation from the first minute.
A woman may find herself drawn to a man she works alongside. A man may be glad to discover a woman with whom conversation comes easily. How lovely when that hope appears in the midst of an ordinary morning.
We can give it time and take a proportionate step. After an activity, suggest having coffee with a few people from the group; on another occasion, pick up a conversation left unfinished. If mutual interest develops, there will be room to express it clearly and respectfully.
We also need the freedom to accept an answer different from the one we hoped for. A healthy community should remain a welcoming place for someone who does not return our interest. Courtesy and service remain.
We can also help someone who is arriving for the first time.
Let us return to that young woman by the door. Had no one looked up, she might have spent the morning feeling she did not belong. Sometimes we are all so comfortable with familiar faces that a new person cannot find a way to join in.
Introducing her, explaining the task, or making room for her in a conversation may be enough for a friendship to begin. It is a gesture within the reach of men and women, single and married alike. Families, too, can help people meet discreetly, without announcing possible romances before two people have even spoken.
I find it beautiful when a community takes care to offer that welcome. The good we do together can widen everyone's life, including the life of someone who hopes to build a home.
None of this guarantees finding a partner. Valuable encounters may remain friendships. There may be a long wait, even when someone has prudently done what lay within their reach.
That wait does not measure their worth or make the good they have received and offered useless. We can bring our desire to marry to God, ask for light, and keep living in hope, without demanding that every new activity settle our whole life.
Perhaps, after that Sunday conversation, the young man will remember his grandmother's words differently. On Sunday he will go to confession because he needs God's forgiveness. And when the group's activity ends, perhaps he will stay to talk for a while, help put away the tables, and welcome the person who has just arrived.
In what setting could you meet new people while sharing with them something good that you also hope for in your future home?
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