What is Christian courtship?
Courtship is a time to get to know each other, interact, and respect each other. It is not a simple stage prior to marriage, but an opportunity to learn to truly love. The Church invites us to live it with depth and joy, because it is the natural path to discern the vocation to conjugal love and to prepare for a total and faithful self-giving.
Getting to know each other: discovering the other to love better
Courtship is a time of mutual knowledge. In it, two people gradually discover each other: their character, their dreams, their faith, their way of facing life. Whoever has been called by God to marriage needs to know well the person with whom they are going to share their life. The greater the knowledge, the lower the risk of being mistaken.
For this reason, the Church desires that before marriage there be a time of courtship, to get to know each other more and thus love each other better. This knowledge is not reduced to external data, but implies discovering the other’s heart: their faith, their values, their wounds, and their virtues.
To love is not to be carried away only by feeling. True love integrates feeling, intelligence, and will. Feeling kindles, intelligence enlightens, and the will sustains. Love is not improvised: it is learned, cultivated, and decided each day.
Interacting: sharing life with sincerity and faith
One cannot know without interaction, nor love without sharing. The interaction between those dating should be deep and sincere, covering essential topics: faith, the vision of the family, children, work, values… Courtship cannot be based on appearances or passing emotions, but on the search for the truth of the other.
Christian couples treat each other with respect and patience, knowing that both are fragile and that love demands forgiveness and understanding. It is not about waiting for the other to change, but about learning to love them as they are, and discerning whether both are walking in the same direction.
Interaction also entails recognizing whether there is affective maturity. Immaturity is shown when one lives guided by one’s moods, does not know how to wait, needs to draw attention, or fears committing. A Christian courtship helps one grow in self-mastery, to leave space for the other, and to cultivate a free and sincere relationship.
Respecting each other: loving with purity and freedom
To respect each other is to recognize that the other is a gift, not a possession. Mutual respect is expressed in delicacy, temperance, and chastity. Chastity is not a denial of love, but its noblest defense: it protects the heart and teaches one to love without using the other.
Pope Francis reminds us that courtship is “a time of waiting and preparation, which must be lived in the chastity of gestures and words.” That waiting strengthens love, makes it free, mature, and capable of total self-giving. A love forever cannot be built on the pursuit of immediate pleasure.
Respecting each other also means taking care of communication, avoiding emotional blackmail, and not putting the other in extreme situations. Authentic love always seeks the good of the beloved, not one’s own satisfaction. Thus one learns to love as Christ loved: with patience, with self-gift, and without expecting anything in return.
The three phases of love
We can say that human love has three phases, which do not replace each other, but are integrated:
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Attraction: it arises spontaneously. Someone seems attractive to you; interest is born and the desire to get to know them.
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Infatuation: feelings are on the surface. One enjoys the other’s presence and dreams of a future together.
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Decided love: it is the most mature phase. To love is no longer just to feel, but to will to love: to decide to do so every day, even when it is hard.
Feeling is not chosen, but love is. To love is a decision that involves sacrifice, fidelity, and will. When one loves in this way, the feeling returns stronger and deeper, because gratuitous love—given without expecting anything in return—generates joy and fullness.
A path toward true love
Christian courtship is a path to learn to love like Christ: with freedom, tenderness, and self-giving. It is not about seeking perfection, but about walking together toward it, supported by God’s grace.
To live courtship in this way is to prepare the foundations of a solid marriage. As Pope Francis says, “living together is an art, a patient, beautiful and fascinating path that has rules that can be summarized in three words: May I?, Thank you, Forgive me.”
Three words that also summarize a holy courtship: respect, gratitude, and constant reconciliation.