BECOME BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST

John's Gospel says that all who receive Jesus are given the power to become children of God, born not of blood nor of flesh, but of God.  This family love as brothers and sisters in Christ is the primary foundation of romantic love.

In the great book of passion, The Song of Songs, the bridegroom declares, "You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride."  There is no contradiction here between sibling love and romantic love.  Sibling love should always precede romantic love.  We have to learn to love each other as brothers and sisters before we'll ever be able to succeed properly at nuptial love.

In other words, all of our relationships must be defined by our relationship with God.  When we recognize ourselves and others as children of God, then we are in touch with the truth about love and about its ultimate source.  So, a great way to check to see if we're ready for romance is to simply look around and see if we have strong relationships with both men and women as brothers and sisters.  If either of these pieces is missing, if we don't have both strong brother and sister relationships, we're just not ready for dating.  Instead, we should concentrate on growing stronger bonds with other Christians through many varied activities in our faith community, through groups focused on charity, prayer, scripture, sports, and other types of fellowship. 

There is simply no possible substitute for having these sibling relationships in place.  A marriage is a family, forged by two people who are already living within the family life of the church. 

Yes, we should spend time alone with God.  But SINGLE DOES NOT AND CANNOT AND MUST NOT MEAN ALONE.  We must have the love of our brothers and sisters.

Every romantic relationship should begin with a relationship as brother and sister.  We prepare for this by learning to have these brother and sister relationships with an ever growing family of Christians.

Let me offer one example.  This morning at church I was eyeballing a gal I've been interested in for a while.  She has an amazing smile.  She has a smile that would put an Easter sunrise to shame. I was thinking that life sure would be nicer if I was spending time in close proximity with that smile.  But I was nervous about whether to ask her out.  She's the sort of gal who always seems to have everything together, immaculately groomed and composed and all of that.  I guess I'm somewhat intimidated by her. 

So, I was going through all of this in my mind, reasons we might or might not should get married and have fourteen children and how her first name would sound with my last name and on and on.  All of it had me feeling anxious.  I was afraid I would ask her out on a date, and I was afraid I wouldn't.  In the past I had already chickened out on a couple of opportunities to ask her out.

Then, it came to me.  I'm focusing on what I can get from her--her smile, fourteen children, what have you.  What I'm supposed to be focusing on is being a brother in Christ to her.  I think I might be able to do that.  I can imagine how that could be a good thing.  We seem to have a good bit in common in some areas (except for the having it all together part) and we could encourage each other in our faith, and maybe I could just be a good brother to her.  Then I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not it led to more.  And, if it turns out that God does want me to be a brother to her, and her a sister to me, then I'll get to be on the receiving end of her wonderful smile.  And there's nothing wrong with desiring that.  I just had not been desiring enough.  I hadn't been completing the desire.

As soon as I completed the desire by realizing that God is calling me into a deeper understanding of what it means for me to be his son, by recognizing her as his daughter, and my sister, then the fear began to diminish.

So, after Mass, I followed her out to the parking lot and called out her name and she turned and smiled and stopped and we chatted for a while.

I still chickened out and didn't ask her if we could get together sometime.  But that's okay--because the next thing I did was stop by the sandwich shop down the street, and there she was.  No, I did not follow her.  But I did ask her out then.  I talked about her smile so she'd know I am attracted to her, and I talked about us becoming brothers and sisters in Christ and just being open to whether he might call us to more.  And she said she'd like that and gave me her number and smiled real big.  Cool.