Whether single or in a relationship, dating can be a wonderful, exciting, intimidating, and sometimes bizarre event. The stress of just figuring out what to wear can send you over the edge. Then there are all the other details. Who is paying? Where do we go? Do we show affection? How do I flirt? Or more importantly, how do we just survive those crippling embarrassing moments.

Maybe you are like me and awkward moments never seem to end. If so, here are some fun tips to help your dates go a little smoother than mine:

Dance.

Dating is like a dance.

• For the guys: Learn to take the lead. Initiate. Ask a girl out and make a plan. One of my worse first dates I ever had was getting into a car with a guy and him saying, “So, what do you want to do?” We ended up driving around the city for 45 minutes never finding a place to eat. It was horrible. Although I like to share my input in the date, I really want the man to show some initiative early in the relationship. It shows me the guy cares and is interested in me enough to think through the date.
• For the girls: Learn to also receive. Accept his compliments. And acknowledge his efforts. Guys need our affirmation, too. So make sure you are appreciative of their time and care. Let them open the doors for you. And don’t try to dominate. It is a beautiful gift when we allow men to pursue us.

Be Creative

“Dinner and a movie night” again!? The same boring dates can get pretty lame after a while. So get creative. Go to the zoo, the symphony, or play minature golf. One of my favorite dates was carving pumpkins for Halloween in my boyfriends mom’s kitchen . . . Your date doesn’t have to even be expensive: Go sleding in the winter. Play in the leaves in the park. Having some fun activities keeps the time moving and conversation flowing.

Ask Questions

Good conversation is the key to a great date. There is nothing worse than when there is an awkward silence or when one person is controlling the conversation. And for the gentleman, (let me give you a hint): women like to talk about themselves. It’s a known fact! So get to know her: ask about her interests, what she likes, and who she is. This makes us feel desired and cared for. Women, return with a similar interest in the guy. Great communication is the key to a successful date.

*** Top Secret Advice and Tips***
Before the date, spend some time thinking of some questions or ideas, conversations starters in case you get nervous. (Write bullet points out with a few ideas if that helps you) It may sound dorky, but it will ease your anxitey. Think of topics like what happened at school, sports, funny stories from your week, questions about music, your faith, favorite subjects, etc. (I used to prep like this before sales meetings when I had to converse with new people I didn’t know. It really helped.) With a little mental prep time, you can walk into the date feeling confident you will have a few stories and questions to move conversation along.

Focus on the Friendship

The key to a happy dating relationship is focusing on the friendship. Guys: don’t make jokes or focus on physical aspects with the girls (that’s a big turn off). Girls: don’t start imagining your children with them after the second date either (you will scare them away). The key is to trust in God and focus on the friendship as the center piece before the romantic.

Emotional Boundaries

Don’t share too much. Don’t talk about your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend or your weird uncle who is in jail on the first date. I have had that happen, too. Bad news. Just remember to take your time to unveil the beauty of the relationship slowly.

Turn off your cell phone!

There’s nothing more unattractive then having a date text or pick up calls during a date. (Unless your grandmother is in the hospital or it’s some emergency, it can wait!)

Be Yourself and Roll With the Punches

As we all know not everything goes perfect on a date, but if you are perfectly YOU that is all your date can ask for. Don’t try to put on a front or something you “think” you should be. Because the person with you is not trying to date an “idea” or image of you . . . They are trying to date the true YOU.

• So Ladies: Don’t be afraid to eat more than a salad at dinner if you are hungry . . .
• Men: don’t be afraid to be show you actually like that chick-flick. It makes you that much more endearing.

Be patient with the dating process, and don’t swear the small stuff. If something goes wrong, spinach gets stuck in your teeth, roll with it. Dating is all about the adventure. So jump in, ask Life Teen and me allot of questions, and enjoy what God has in store!

First Sunday of Lent: Gn 9:8-15; Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Pt 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15

One of my favorite things about being a man is that we know everything. Or . . . no . . . wait a minute. We think we know everything. There, that sounds more like it.

But seriously, in high school I thought I had it all figured out. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it was because I got my driver’s license and drove a really cool beige minivan, or maybe it had to do with my ability to make sweet graphs on my TI-83 calculator. Perhaps my ever-increasing bench press played a role. (Ok, that last one may be a bit of a stretch.)

But yet, for some reason, I thought I knew it all. If you had a question, I had an answer. If you couldn’t figure something out, I could. And, armed with this array of knowledge, I was gonna teach the world a thing or two. That is until I started getting older and realized something: I didn’t know as much as I thought.

So, here we go. After many mistakes and lessons learned in my own life, let me share a few things I think every Catholic guy should know:

1. Start discerning your vocation now. Let’s be honest. You know about the future, you’ve thought about the future, and you probably want something more for your future. For many guys, this is as far the discernment process goes. Yet, there is so much more. While you may not know your vocation in high school, now is a good time to start praying about it. Am I called to be married? Am I called to be a priest? What is God asking of me? You may not get the answer right now, but it’s best to start asking the questions.
2. Write (and stick to) a monthly budget. No matter what vocation you are called to, you are going to need to know how to budget. Priests need to know how to budget for their parishes, and husbands need to know how to budget for the sake of their families. Whether you like it or not, money is important. It may not be the most important thing, but last time I checked, it plays a pretty big role in our lives. Learn how to use it properly now. The best way to do that is to setup a monthly budget. If you don’t know where to start, ask your parents, or check out a financial expert like Dave Ramsey.
3. Go to confession regularly. If there’s one thing I wish I had taken advantage of more often in high school, it’s the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Think about it. The Savior of the world is waiting to forgive all our sins if we simply come before him in Confession. And yet, somehow, we make excuses. I’m too busy. I’m too afraid. What will the priest think? As I reflect back on my high school years, I could have gotten a lot of weight off my shoulders if I had just been humble enough to make frequent use of the Confessional.
4. Eat healthy. One of the greatest things about high school was that I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted and work it off through exercise without gaining a pound. Pizza. Soda. Fast Food. You name it. It had little effect on me. Want to know how this habit works now that I’m in my 30s? Not so well. It turns out that eating poorly not only causes me to gain weight, but it decreases my energy level too. Now, you may think, “That’s alright. I’ll be able to change and adapt.” Well, unfortunately, that’s not as easy as you think. Start eating healthy now, and give yourself some bonus points if you can cook some basic meals. This way, the next time you’re hungry and think, “Why wait? I’ll just grab a snickers,” you’ll go for the healthier option.
5. Be a prudent voter. When it came to politics, I always followed one rule: Vote for whomever my parents vote for. It was easy. It was lazy. It was foolish. That’s not to say I didn’t agree with my parents’ choices, but I was taking the easy way out. Voting is an important freedom that we have in this country, and we should all take it very seriously. Just blindly showing up in the voting booth doesn’t cut it. You need to do your research. Find out about the candidates (and not just the ones running for President). Learn about the propositions. Your vote matters, especially as a Catholic man of God, and even though you may not be able to vote yet, now is a good time to start learning how.
6. Write down your goals. Most of us are told repeatedly to set goals. The problem is that setting goals isn’t enough. You want to achieve them. And do you want to know the number 1 way to go about doing that? Write them down. It’s one thing when you say you want to do something, but it goes to a whole other level when you’ve written it down and it’s staring you in the face. You’re less likely to “forget” about it. You’re less likely to “put it off until tomorrow.” And, you’re more likely to feel motivated to wake up everyday and do something about it.
7. Live a chaste life. Did you know that there is one thing you can do right now that will instantly improve your future vocation? Live chastity. If you’re called to be a priest, this will make you a better servant for your parish. If you’re called to marriage, this will make you a better servant to your wife and family. I know it’s not easy, but the discipline and sacrifice will pay off. There are many families that would’ve been a lot better off had the husbands and fathers started living chastity earlier. So whether you’re in a relationship with a girl or by yourself, start living chastity today.
8. Treat women with dignity and respect. Speaking of chastity, it’s not enough just to abstain from sex. How we treat the opposite sex in public or private says a lot about who we are. The dignity of women is under attack, and it’s on us, as men, to do everything we can to protect them. We need to honor them. We need to respect them. We need to pray for them. And it all starts with you. Being a real man is not about how many girls you can “get”, but how they get Christ from you.

I love being a man, but with this gift comes a great amount of responsibility. I may still have a lot to learn, but I do know that working on these things now can save you a lot of agony and pain in the future. But more importantly, they can put you down a greater path to holiness and allow you to lead others closer to Christ.

“Excuse me, you’ve got some dirt on your head.”

Every year someone says that to me on Ash Wednesday. Maybe it has happened to you too. In the past it used to frustrate me, but in recent years I have come to see it as a great opportunity to evangelize, to share with someone about the most important person in my life: Jesus Christ.

So, what do you say when folks ask you about that smudge on your forehead?

Here are a few responses that I would not recommend:

The Ignorant Response

“My mom made me go to church and get them. I have no idea what they mean.”

The Sarcastic Response

“I’m protesting showers. Today, ashes; tomorrow I’m going to swim in raw sewage.”

The Ridiculous Response

“I have a big zit that I’m trying to cover up. Is it working?”

The Practical (but Misguided) Response

“Better dirty on the outside of my head than on the inside.”

And here are a few responses that I would recommend:

The Biblical Response

Over forty passages in the Bible associate ashes with mourning and grief. In Old Testament times people used ashes as a sign of repentance. They would sit in ashes, roll around in them, sprinkle them upon their heads, or even mingle them with their food and drink. They did this as an outward sign of their inward posture of repentance. Check out Daniel 9:3-6, for an example.

Ash Wednesday begins Lent, a time when we stop and assess how we’re doing in our walk with God. Lent helps us identify spiritual areas in which we can grow and sinful areas that we need to avoid. To repent, put simply, means to turn away from sin and turn toward God. We use ashes as an outward expression of our need to begin again.

A Traditional Response

Ashes are a sign of physical death, as in “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We began as dust (a joyless and lifeless existence), and our bodies will return to dust until we are raised up by Christ. By receiving ashes and keeping them on, we publicly proclaim our intent to die to our worldly desires and live even more in Christ’s image, which we focus on during the season of “rebirth” that is Lent (a Latin term for “Spring”).

The Historical Response

For over twelve hundred years on the dies cinerum (day of ashes) faithful followers have approached the altar and received ashes upon their foreheads. These ashes are made from the burnt palm fronds that were blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year. The ashes are sprinkled with holy water, usually fragranced with incense and blessed using four prayers that are thousands of years old.

The use of ashes for repentance and penance can be traced even further back and is practiced throughout the world. On Ash Wednesday ashes are applied to believers’ foreheads in the shape of the cross.

The Symbolic Response

God formed Adam out of the “dust” of the earth, which we read about in Genesis 2:7. In addition, Jesus healed the blind man with clay (earth and spit) in John 9:6. We mark ourselves with ashes as a “new beginning” at the onset of Lent, allowing the life of Jesus Christ to make us whole and new again.

The Most Basic Response

I’m a sinner. I don’t always love God as strongly as I could or as directly as I should. Ash Wednesday reminds me that it is only through God that I have life; He gave it to me.

Ash Wednesday also begins my preparation for Holy Week and the Passion and Resurrection of my Lord, Jesus, without Whom I have no life here and no chance at eternal life in Heaven. This is just a great opportunity for me to get better. Thanks for asking.

God forgives. He loves. And He gives this sinner a second chance. Put simply: my God kicks ash.

Taken, in part, from Ask the Bible Geek 2: More Answers to Questions From Catholic Teens

“By Lust I mean that affection of the mind that aims at the enjoyment of one’s self and one’s neighbor without reference to God. Lust indulged became habit, and habit unresisted became necessity.

There is no remedy so powerful against the heat of concupiscence as the remembrance of our Savior’s Passion. In all my difficulties I never found anything so efficacious as the wounds of Christ: In them I sleep secure; from them I derive new life.”

- Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church

Are you looking for something unconventional to offer up for Lent? We asked Life Teen missionaries and our friends on Facebook for cool stuff they’ve done in the past. This is what they shared:

1. “This year I’m giving up shoes as often as possible. I’ll still wear shoes if I’m doing a work project or if I have to fly on a plane. But I’m going to avoid going to places that require shoes.” – Paul, a Life Teen Missionary
2. “I’m addicted to caffeine so I gave up all drinks but water for Lent two years ago.” – Amanda
3. “Last year I didn’t give up anything for Lent, just added more prayer life. This year I am going to add more prayer life and give up Facebook.” – Josephina
4. “I gave up spoons and forks. I learned to use chopsticks. It was funny for my friends and made it easy to talk about Lent in a way that people were cool with. We laughed a lot.” – Matt
5. “I’ve heard of people giving up their beds for Lent. They slept on the floor or the couch.” – Anna
6. “I fasted for all of Lent one year. 1 meal a day really brings souls to Jesus, especially your own!” – Erika
7. “I’m going to treat my body as a temple of God during lent… everything I read, watch, listen to, eat, drink, do, say, etc…..focusing on being a temple of God.” – Paul
8. “One year for Lent I wrote a letter each day. I made a list of 40 people who have touched my life in one way or another. Each day of Lent, I wrote a person on the list a letter of thanks for how they touched my life and I prayed for that person on that day….it was a WONDERFUL experience!!!” – Patty
9. “I tried improving on my spirit of giving.” – Peter
10. “This year, I’m giving up the radio in my car in order to focus more on the things that are around me that God created! I can’t wait so I’ve already started doing it!” – Joshua
11. “One year I gave up my bed. I slept outside in a tent. And I live in Canada! So it was well below freezing! I even kept a blog on Myspace (that’s all there was at the time!) Another year I made a few shirts out of burlap, and wore one under my regular clothes for all of Lent. Both were hard, but really helped me those years.” – Brandon
12. “This year, I’m giving up all sweets, (I work at a frozen yogurt shop) and am going to use the constant reminder to pray for one person in particular every day, I made a list/calendar via Facebook of friends that need/want prayer.” – Aimee
13. “I have an issue with vanity, especially when I get ready in the morning. So I decided a couple years ago to just wear the first outfit I put on every morning. What I learned from that was how to get a source of self esteem beyond my outfits.” – Carrie, a Life Teen Missionary
14. “I didn’t do this, but last year two of my friends gave up warm water for their showers.” – Maria
15. “This year I’m giving up having my phone with me during the day because I’m always checking my email throughout the day. My hope is that having moderation I can be more present to the people around me. I want them to see my deeper connection with God.” – Kaitlin, a Life Teen Missionary
16. “I want to listen more.” – Carmelina
17. “I have given up makeup in the past, and this year I am giving up meat!” – Kimberly
18. “Usually during Lent, on top of giving up something we love but don’t need, we say that any money that is found in the laundry, couches, and anywhere else was God’s money and we gave it to the poor. I remember one of the first years we did this, I found a $20 bill in a parking lot.” – Alyssa
19. “Two years ago I went to adoration every day during Lent. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t make it every day but I made it most of the time and it changed my life to get and be with Jesus that much, it was an awesome experience.” – Jacob
20. “I know a girl who said she only listened to Christian music during last year’s Lent. She said it was hard at first, but soon loved the depth and meaning behind many Christian songs.” – Molly
21. “Getting more involved in the church….time & talent. More prayer as in…the rosary & Novenas really get into some SERIOUS PRAYER!! Getting help for my depression. Alongside giving up meat on Fridays. Focusing on being a better Christian in general, being more concerned & in tuned to God’s plan for me & my family as opposed to ‘our plans’ for our lives.” – Erika
22. “Getting to the 3rd floor using stairs not escalator/elevator.” – Francisca
23. “I’ve adopted a priest in Chile…… I offer daily prayers and sacrifices for Father Juan Nunes!!!” – Tony
24. “I’ve never done it, but I’ve heard of people giving up the snooze button on their alarm clock. They said that it was harder than they thought, but it taught them a lot about discipline.” – Jessica, a Life Teen Missionary
25. “I didn’t do it for all of Lent, but for Holy Week last year I gave up my pillow. Honestly, at first it was fun, but it proved to be hard. But it made me realize how blessed I am to even have a bed.” – Sara, a Life Teen Missionary

Need some more inspiration? Check out our 20 weird things to give up for a Lent that will make you holier.

• Don’t eat the last bite of your food
• Park at the very back of the parking lot
• Put a popcorn kernel in your shoe every day
• Don’t use your apps
• Get to know your neighbors
• Pray the “Hail Mary” and do an ab crunch for every single word
• Stop complaining and/or being negative
• Give up texting and call whoever you need to talk to
• Don’t use utensils
• Give away 10 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, and a pair of shoes
• When you wake up, jump out of bed, kiss the floor, and learn humility
• Wear the same 4 outfits for all of lent
• Everyday do 20 (or 100) pushups and offer it up for someone who’s sick
• Leave a post-it with a positive message on it wherever you go
• Cut out all screen-time (phone, TV, computer) after dinner
• Use your weekends to babysit for free
• Send a different person from the Life Teen Staff an affirmation email every day of Lent
• Don’t straighten or curl your hair
• Sit and stand up straight – don’t slouch!
• Every day take a picture of something or someone you’re grateful for and hang the pictures in your room

Of course you could combine any of those ideas, or put your own spin on them! Don’t forget that Lent is about stretching ourselves. It’s about doing something that’s uncomfortable in order to deny our “flesh” and make more room for God. We’re praying for you. Have a holy Lent.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen. Photography by Carlos Weaver.

Download: 2560 x 1440; 1600 x 900; iPhone Wallpaper

XLT is back! XLT is a night worship that includes great music, inspiring and challenging talks, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We’re starting off with a bang, too! Mark Hart dives into the heart of past sin and about giving God permission to heal everything in your life. The power of sin can confuse our sense of worth, driving us to believe that God doesn’t love us in our past. But God’s love covers everything we are, everything we will be, and everything we have done. Worship is led by the amazing Ike Ndolo and Erin Gauvin

Song List

• Let God Arise – Chris Tomlin
• At the Sound – Ike Ndolo
• Song of Hope (Heaven Come Down) – Robbie Seay Band
• Our God – Chris Tomlin
• Beautiful Things – Gungor
• All the Poor and Powerless – All Sons and Daughters
• I Will Exalt You – Hillsong
• Shine Your Light on Us – Robbie Seay Band
• The Divine Praises – Matt Maher
• One Thing Remains – Jesus Culture
• Your Grace is Enough – Matt Maher