The saints are God’s masterpieces, His greatest success stories. The Church holds them up to us for our veneration but also for our imitation.
As a good mother, The Church wants to provide us with concrete examples of men and women who were once in our shoes, and found a way to run the race to holiness and eternal life, as St. Paul put it. Their stories encourage and inspire us, showing us, that sanctity is possible in all circumstances, and that it’s the path to true happiness.
The saints show us how to live well.
And, of course, part of living well, for those of us called to marriage, involves having healthy and holy relationships. So it makes sense to turn to the saints for advice on how to achieve successful relationships and ultimately put romance at the service of sanctity. Here are 8 quotations from saints and blesseds on the subject of love, dating, and marriage. They’re dripping with the honey of wisdom, which can sweeten and strengthen our lives and relationships.
- “What some people love is not a person but the experience of being in love. The first is irreplaceable; the second is not.” ― Blessed Fulton J. Sheen. Bl. Fulton Sheen’s book Three to Get Married is full of great quotes such as this. This one reminds us of the important difference between infatuation and love. Infatuation focuses on the excitement and sweet feeling another person causes in me; I’m more interested in my own feelings than the person themselves. On the other hand, love is centered on the other person and pursuing their good. This is an important principle to keep in mind throughout the dating process.
- “When a husband and wife are united in marriage they no longer seem like something earthly, but rather like the image of God himself.” –Saint John Chrysostom. Here the golden-tongued saint speaks of the great dignity of the sacrament of marriage and the profound unity it creates between two people, a unity reflective of the Trinitarian life of God Himself. That grand ideal can inspire any dating couple to grow in virtue and aim for a truly spiritual unity.
- “You desire to hear often of me. Go often to visit our amiable Lord Jesus Christ in the holy sacrament. Enter in spirit his sacred heart. You know that to be my constant dwelling. You will always find me there.” –Saint Elzear. Saint Elzear wrote these lovely words to his wife, Saint Delphina, when he was travelling in Italy and she was missing him. Saint Elzear points out a path for couples who must suffer physical separation, showing them that their spiritual union can continue unabated in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If Christ is at the center of the relationship, the couple can always find each other in Him.
- “Now, we must help each other get to Heaven” –Blessed Karl of Austria. Blessed Karl of Austria, the last Catholic monarch of Europe, said these words to his beloved bride, Zita, the day after their wedding. They’re a beautiful reminder of the goal of marital love and what it means to seek the good of your spouse: the ultimate aim is union with each other and God forever in heaven. And that journey begins during the dating process.
- “If a man and a woman marry in order to be companions on the journey from earth to heaven, then their union will bring great joy to themselves and to others.” ― Saint John Chrysostom. Another beautiful quote from Saint John Chrysostom reveals to us that the pursuit of holiness–far from impeding earthly happiness or a joyful marriage–actually enhances it and is the best guarantee of a successful relationship.
- “The greater the friendship, the more solid and long-lasting the marriage will be, as we are united not only in flesh but in domestic activity.” –Saint Thomas Aquinas. With his usual clear-sightedness and grounded approach, Aquinas advises married couples to be not just lovers but friends, who truly enjoy one another’s company and share in the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful. That friendship begins while dating, and the stronger it is prior to marriage, the better the marriage will be.
- “We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become.” –St. Claire of Assissi. These words can be taken as an injunction to choose one’s spouse carefully, since they’ll exert, arguably, a greater influence on you than anyone else. Choosing a virtuous spouse will help you become virtuous.
- “Husbands, do you preserve a tender, constant, hearty love for your wives. It was that the wife might be loved heartily and tenderly that woman was taken from the side nearest Adam’s heart. No failings or infirmities, bodily or mental, in your wife should ever excite any kind of dislike in you, but rather a loving, tender compassion; and that because God has made her dependent on you, and bound to defer to and obey you; and that while she is meant to be your helpmeet, you are her superior and her head. And on your part, wives, do you love the husbands God has given you tenderly, heartily, but with a reverential, confiding love, for God has made the man to have the predominance, and to be the stronger; and He wills the woman to depend upon him,—bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh,—taking her from out the ribs of the man, to show that she must be subject to his guidance. All Holy Scripture enjoins this subjection, which nevertheless is not grievous; and the same Holy Scripture, while it bids you accept it lovingly, bids your husband to use his superiority with great tenderness, lovingkindness, and gentleness.” –St. Francis de Sales. This section from St. Francis de Sales’s classic work Introduction to the Devout Life is like a complete program for marital happiness. “The gentle saint,” as he was called, invites couples to an extremely gentle, tender, faithful, and patient love towards one another. The spouses should not become angry at one another’s faults but instead be more compassionate towards one another because of them. This holds true for dating couples, too!
There’s a lot to reflect on in these writings from the saints.
A common theme that we find recurring in the wisdom of the saints is that dating, love, and marriage are not opposed to the love of God, but rather find their most perfect fulfillment in it.
That should encourage all of us to place our relationships in the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Our earthly love can lead, ultimately, to heavenly love.
