Why not live together before marriage?

One of the resources people ask me for are articles or pamphlets about cohabitation. Why not live together before marriage? It's virtually assumed today that two people planning on marriage will share the same address before exchanging rings.

There are quite a few articles and summaries of the problems with cohabitation, but today's IBelieveinLove.com article, "Why I Don't Live With My Fiance" was one of the best, simple explanations I have seen.

I don’t want to live with my fiancé because his title says it all. He’s still my fiancé. He’s not my spouse. He’s not the man I married—he’s the man I will marry. And when we’re married, we will move in together. Why then?

Because then I will know it won’t be a decision based on finances or split rent. It won’t be a decision based on the desire to sleep with each other. It won’t be a decision based on a trial run to see how things go and with an easy out when the going gets tough.

Rather, our decision to move in together will be based on a public profession to love each other in good times and bad, in sickness and health, until death do us part. It will be a decision based on mutual self-respect in a way that says, “You are worth more to me than a split rent check. You are worth more to me than any self-gratification. I don’t need a trial run of living together because I already know I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” that’s what dating is for!

Read the rest of the article here. It's worth bookmarking and sharing when you need a handy answer to a common question.

Victims of the Lonely Revolution

With all of these depressing stories lately, it's time for some beauty. Anthony Esolen always writes with beauty, even if his subject matter is ugliness.

This time, he's penning about the Lonely Revolution (what we generally term the "sexual revolution) and its victims who are usually unmentioned. Victims like:

... children of divorce, who see their homes torn in two, because of a mother or a father who has shrugged away the vow of permanence. I see them straining to put a fine face on it, to protect the very parents who should have protected them, to squelch back their own tears so as not to hurt those who have hurt them. Who speaks for them, harried from pillar to post? Who pleads their case, whose parents conveniently assume that their children’s happiness must depend upon their own contentment, and not the other way around? Where is my Church’s apostolate for the children sawn in half, while the Solomons of our time looked the other way?

Or:

... the young people who do in fact follow the moral law and the teachings of the Church. Many of these are suffering intense loneliness. Have you bothered to notice? Have you considered all those young people who want to be married, who should be married, but who, because they will not play evil’s game, can find no one to marry? The girls who at age twenty-five and older have never even been asked on a date? The “men” languishing in a drawn-out adolescence? These people are among us; they are everywhere. Who gives them a passing thought? They are suffering for their faith, and no one cares. Do you care, leaders of my Church? Or do you not rather tacitly agree with their fellows who do the marital thing without being married? Do you not rather share that bemused contempt for the “old fashioned” purity they are trying to preserve?

It's a call to leaders of the Church, but really it's a call to all of us.  Read it all here, and say a prayer for those suffering from the Lonely Revolution.

Questions from Credo ... Why doesn't society like chastity?

This past weekend I presented the workshop, "Homosexuality: Always God's Children" at the Credo retreat.  We did not have time for the Q&A portion of the workshop, so the questions will be answered here during the next week or two.

Q. Why does society say that chastity is a bad thing to do?

A. There are plenty of ways we could answer this question.

• We don't understand who we are -- unique and unrepeatable persons created in the image and likeness of God.
• We don't understand what love is -- willing the true good of the other, not a feeling I happen to have.
• We don't understand how chastity and love are linked -- chastity frees me to give of myself to another in a truly loving way.

But the answer that I would like to focus on is our society's seeming inability to say no to immediate gratification.  We are used to getting everything we want immediately -- the score to the football game, a Big Mac, cash from the ATM, a movie we want to rent -- the list could go on!  We don't like being told.  We don't like experiencing inconvenience or pain.  We pop a Tylenol at the first sign of a headache, and blast the air conditioning in our car on a hot day.

So, in a society like this, who would want to say "no" to sexual desires?  We can't say "no" without a greater "yes," and in our society today, we have lost the sense of the greater "yes."  Because we can't necessarily see the goodness of the "yes" to love right in front of our faces, like we can see the apparent good of a "yes" to experiencing the pleasure we want right now, as a society, we seem to choose the "no" to chastity instead of the "yes" to love.

But in reality we can't say "yes" to anything if we can't say "no" to other things.  We make our wedding vows by saying "yes" to one person, but that yes involves a "no" to the other 3 billion people of the opposite sex on earth.  We can't say "yes" to playing for our high school football team without saying "no" to playing for our school's rival.  

What we need to recapture in our society, I think, is the goodness of a "yes" to love, even when that "yes" involves sacrifice.  We need to see that it is worth the difficulties.  We don't have the cross without the resurrection ... but we also don't have the resurrection without the cross.  Sometimes we get so afraid of the cross, that we also say no to the resurrection.  We need to see the goodness of both and embrace them both together.  

Questions from Credo ... Clarifying chastity

This past weekend I presented the workshop, "Homosexuality: Always God's Children" at the Credo retreat.  We did not have time for the Q&A portion of the workshop, so the questions will be answered here during the next week or two.

Q. So, you were talking about homosexuals staying chaste.  But chaste doesn't mean staying a virgin, it just means waiting for the right time.  So is gay sex okay?

A. Before answering, it's important to clarify something in your question.  You're right that chastity isn't necessarily the same thing as virginity, but chastity is more than "waiting for the right time."  The only "right time" is marriage.  That's not to be legalistic or to choose an arbitrary life event.  Rather, marriage is the only proper place to engage in the sexual act because it's the only place where we have fully given and committed ourselves for life to another person.  And what does love want to say?  I give myself totally and forever.  The sexual act expresses this type of love through the body -- total and forever.   

Let's review for a moment the purpose of marriage.  It's not to have fun, get help with the chores, have a guaranteed nightly sleepover, enjoy a Pinterest-y wedding or even to celebrate the right to be with the one you love.  Rather, marriage is a vocation.  It's a call from God and an opportunity to grow in holiness, to learn to love and to be loved, so that we can love and be loved eternally by God.

Marriage is also prophetic.  From the beginning, when God instituted marriage by creating Adam and Eve for each other, marriage has been a sign of God's love for His people, of Christ's love for the Church.  Marriage, then is a great blessing, but also a task and a responsibility.  It is marked by two things.

1) Faithfulness: God's love for us is never-ending.  A married couple in imaging this love is called to unite "until death do us part."  They are called to give a total gift of self to each other.  Total, of course, means everything and always.

2) Fruitfulness: God's love is fruitful.  It is always life-giving, pouring out an over-abundance of love.  Married love is called to be fruitful too.  Concretely, we see this in the birth of a child, but married love is fruitful by its very nature because it shares in the love of God. 

Returning to the subject of chastity, all people are called to live chastely.  As I said on Saturday, this is good news because Bl. John Paul II once said that chastity is the sure way to happiness!

Chastity is not allowing sex to control or to dominate us, but rather frees sexual desires from selfishness, and instead, through self-mastery allows our sexuality to communicate authentic love.  This is done in different ways, depending on one's state in life.

1) For married people, this involves allowing sex to communicate the total and life-giving love that the couple vowed at their wedding.  It involves not using one's spouse as an object for pleasure, but instead frees sex to communicate authentic, life-giving love.

2) For single people and those who have made a vow of celibacy, this involves saying "no" to sexual relations as a greater "yes" to love.  It recognizes that authentic sexual love involves the body speaking the language of total and forever -- something that can only be truthfully said in marriage.  This is the type of chastity a person with same-sex attraction is called to live.

Since the only place to authentically communicate the language of the body expressed in the sexual act is in marriage, and because marriage requires the sexual difference of man and woman, two people of the same sex cannot truly marry.  Sexual activity between two people of the same sex can never be affirmed by the Church because these actions do not represent the fullness of the meaning of our sexuality.  As I've said before, same-sex attraction is certainly a heavy cross to carry, but we can be certain that God and the Church desire our true happiness.

As the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith summarized for those with same-sex attraction who desire to follow God's plan: "Fundamentally, they are called to enact the will of God in their life by joining whatever sufferings and difficulties they experience in virtue of their condition to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross.  That Cross, for the believer, is a fruitful sacrifice since from that death come life and redemption.  While any call to carry the cross or to understand a Christian's suffering in this way will predictably be met with bitter ridicule by some, it should be remembered that this is the way to eternal life for all who follow Christ" ("Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" #12). 

Questions from Credo ... What's the difference between an attraction and an action?

This past weekend I presented the workshop, "Homosexuality: Always God's Children" at the Credo retreat.  We did not have time for the Q&A portion of the workshop, so the questions will be answered here during the next week or two.

Q. So, it's okay for a person with homosexual tendencies to like people of the same sex, but not for them to act on it?

A. This is a great question that involves making some important distinctions.  We talked on Saturday about the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says that homosexual actions are "intrinsically disordered."  In discussing that paragraph of the Catechism (2357), we defined disordered.  According to dictionary.com, it means, "lack of order or regular arrangement; confusion."

Let's just review what we said about this on Saturday: Our sexual difference is about our "otherness" which allows us to see the fruitfulness of unity and difference.  Our sexuality is a reminder of our call to give of ourselves to one who is different than us, and yet shares the same gift of humanity, and to receive them.  It points to our call to be united with God, who created us in His image and likeness and yet is vastly different and "other" than us."  So, same-sex actions lack this order or purpose.  They confuse the sexual act, which is meant to be a uniting of two who have unity and difference, loving each other by willing what is good for the other, and which includes the goodness of becoming a mother or a father.  

But what about an attraction to someone of the same-sex?  Because of all that we have said about the nature of sexuality and the purpose of our masculinity and femininity, the Church says that a same-sex inclination or attraction is also "objectively disordered."  

What does that mean?  For one thing, it's very important to note that the Church is not saying that a same-sex attraction is a sin.  A same-sex action is a sin, but the attraction is not.  However, the attraction is still considered disordered because it confuses the authentic meaning of sexual attraction (as summarized above). 

Bl. John Paul II once wrote that we are not responsible for what happens to us in the realm of sexuality (having a particular desire, for example), but we are responsible for what we do in the realm of sexuality.  

A lot of your question depends on what you mean by "like" and what you mean by "okay."  There is a difference between experiencing an attraction to someone and "feeding a crush" or actively engaging in an attraction to someone.  Since same-sex attractions do not affirm the fullness of the meaning of our sexuality, it's best to strive for keeping the "liking" on the level of something that happens to me, rather than something I choose to engage, pursue or seek.

Once again, though, it's important to recognize that the Church affirms the dignity of all human persons, regardless of their sexual attraction.  Experiencing an attraction that is disordered does not demean the dignity of the person. 

Remembering the person in the marriage debates

I found this article quite engaging. Brandon Ambrosino recounts his experience as a college student at Liberty University, eventually "coming out" to several professors. Liberty University, if you're not familiar, was begun by Jerry Falwell, who is known as extraordinarily denigrating to those with same-sex attraction.
Mr. Ambrosino writes that most people who learn that he has same-sex attraction and attended a fundamentalist college think his life must have been one of misery and persecution.
Instead, he shares stories like this:

After I made an ambiguous and slightly off-color remark about Oscar Wilde during her British Literature class, Dr. Prior (who writes for The Atlantic from time to time) asked me to come talk with her during her office hours the next day. I agreed to stop by because, well, she was fabulous, and I couldn't imagine having an awkward conversation with someone that fashionable. After all, her daily mantra—which she borrowed from her beloved Wilde—is, "One should either be a work of art or wear a work of art."

"So what did you want to talk about?" I asked her.

"We can talk about anything you'd like, Brandon." This answer made me loathe her. Come on, lady! We both know why I'm here. You just want me to admit I'm gay so you can perform an exorcism on me!

"Well," I huffed, "You asked me to come in..." to come out, I thought to myself. My wit shines in tense situations.

[...]

So we sat. And sat. And stared at each other. And every now and then mentioned something trivial (for instance, my turkey sandwich) that, for some inexplicable reason, made us laugh uncontrollably. Finally, she told me she had to get going because her next class started soon.

"Ok, ok, wait," I told her, and she cocked her head.

"Yes?" she asked me, and the tone of her voice calmed me down. It was as if she was saying, Brandon, I already know what you want to tell me. Please, just say it.

And I did: "Alright... for the last few months... well, really, for years, I've felt... ok, who knows how long? I mean, anyway, it doesn't matter." She just nodded and made mm-hmm sounds.

"I've been... struggling"—I made sure to use this word, since it implied that I was not fully a homo, but only dealing with the evil temptation—"with... with the idea... with thoughts of..." and the word got trapped in my throat. I couldn't bring myself to say the word. That word was so powerful and scary.

I looked at her as my eyes welled up with tears. And when I saw that her eyes were welling up, too, I realized I was safe and that she could handle my secret.

"Homosexuality!" I blurted. "I've been struggling with homosex..." and I broke down. Here I was in the English chair's office at the world's most homophobic university, and I'd just admitted to her I was gay.

She got up from her chair, and rushed over to me. I braced myself for the lecture I was going to receive, for the insults she would hurl, for the ridicule I would endure. I knew how Christians were, and how they clung to their beliefs about homosexuals and Sodom and Gomorrah, and how disgusted they were by gay people. The tears fell more freely now because I really liked this teacher, and now I ruined our relationship.

"I love you," she said. I stopped crying for a second and looked up at her. Here was this conservative, pro-life, pro-marriage woman who taught lectures like "The Biblical Basis for Studying Literature," and here she was kneeling down on the floor next me, rubbing my back, and going against every stereotype I'd held about Bible-believing, right-leaning, gun-slinging Christians.

When I heard her sniffle, I looked up at her. "It's going to be ok," she said. "You're ok." She nodded her head, squeezed my shoulder, and repeated, "I love you."

The article is quite long, but I found it worth the time.  While Mr. Ambrosino self-identifies as "gay" today, it is clear that his encounters with loving professors at Liberty University impacted him.  Did they tell him they approved of same-sex activity?  No.  But they told him something else -- You are a person.  You deserve love.  You are loved.  You have dignity.  You are a child of God.

When issues like the redefinition of marriage become nationwide debates, we tend to forget that people are involved.  On the one hand, the redefinition proponents tend to only talk about the fact that people are involved.  On the other hand, marriage defenders like to talk about ideas, philosophies and teachings, without regarding the person.

We need both.  

We need to affirm the truth and beauty of the Church's teachings on marriage.  But we also need to love the person as a person, not as a charity case.  We need to share authentic love.  Because it's authentic, it includes truth about what is a morally good relationship, what love and marriage are, etc., but that truth can be communicated in different ways depending upon the situation.

For the young man at Liberty University, he knew where his professors stood on the topic.  What he didn't know -- what he needed to know -- was that his person, his identity was not his sexual attraction.  It wasn't hypocritical for the professors to love him and yet disapprove of same-sex activity.  They were doing both, even in not specifically addressing the topic from a moral viewpoint.  

As the debate becomes more heated, we all need to consider -- are we doing both .... well?

Quote book

"'Purity of heart' is gained by the one who knows how to be consistently demanding from his 'heart'" from his 'heart' and from his 'body.'" -- Blessed John Paul II

Prayers please

Courtney Brown and I will be speaking to students from all of the Catholic high schools in northern Kentucky today. Please pray for us and for the openness of the students. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to share the message that we are "made for more" with so many young people.

A groom 30 minutes before his wedding ...

Should women pursue?

We were recently speaking at a local high school where time ran short to answer all of the students' questions. I promised to answer as many as possible on the blog in the coming weeks.

So, to begin: "Is it wrong for a woman to take matters into her own hands (in her relationship with a man)?"

I find that many people today don’t understand the concept of receptivity/being pursued, partially because they don’t want to understand it. They aren’t open to even hearing the message because they’ve already decided that receiving is bad and pursuing is all about power and control. So, it’s hard to even begin the conversation!

Hopefully we can all agree that love involves both giving and receiving. And both people have to give and receive. But there is also an “order” to love. If two people are dancing and both are trying to lead, then it’s not going to go so well. It will be a bit messy. So, there is a kind of “priority” to one person giving/leading/pursuing and one person receiving/being pursued. Now for ages and ages, philosophers (and random people) assumed that receiving made someone “less” or inferior. And that’s why for years people thought that women were the “second sex” and were inferior, because they received, so they didn’t have the same “power” and were therefore not as good as men.

Well, then Thomas Aquinas got involved and he noticed something about God. God is a Communion of Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and God is love. If love is giving and receiving, then that means there is both giving and receiving in God. God is perfect. Other theologians since concluded that if there is “receiving” in God, then it can’t be bad or inferior for human persons.

If we look at Christ, and specifically if we look at Philippians 2 (the verses on which Kenosis is based), we see that He “received” Himself from the Father, but He is not “less” than the Father. He is “equally” God. And over time, philosophers and theologians were able to see that if Jesus Christ, who is fully God, could receive Himself from the Father and not be any less than the Father, then receptivity does not make someone less.

So, if we get back to the man/woman thing, we see that a woman receiving/being pursued doesn’t make her inferior. But there has to be an “order” to love, and both giving and receiving. Now, women also give; they don’t just receive. But the way that they receive is also a form of giving. For example, if a man opens a door for a woman, and the woman receives his gift, then she is also giving to the man, by allowing him to give, affirming his masculinity, etc. I think this is a lost art. We tend to want to outgive and never receive, because we are so afraid that if we receive something we are “less,” or it makes us vulnerable or we feel like we “owe” something.

And here’s the really amazing thing … when we ladies allow men to pursue us, instead of pursuing men, the guys respect us more, they cherish us, they really love us, they are willing to sacrifice for us. It invites them to see our value and dignity and to fight for it. It invites them to decide that we are worth the sacrifice and the risk. It enables the man to see that he is really interested in the woman – he is interested in her for who she is, and he is interested himself, instead of feeling pressured into it by her. And a woman allowing herself to be pursued invites the man to grow in masculinity, to take a risk, to initiate a relationship with her. So, it’s a win-win situation because both the woman and the man are invited, challenged and inspired to grow in the gift of their masculinity and femininity.

Now, at the same time, waiting to be pursued is not easy, and I think that’s the other reason why a lot of women give up on the idea. They decide the wait is too long or too difficult, and they decide to start pursuing (grasping) for a guy. But this is lose-lose, because the woman and man switch their “order” or their roles, and they don’t stay too happy where they are. Men may feel discontent or consider that they didn’t initiate the relationship and therefore lose interest. Women are forced to keep grasping in order for the “relationship” to continue.

It brings up another very important point – the purpose of initiating/pursuing is not power but service. If it’s just a power trip or an opportunity to boast about how strong one is, then people are right to be disgusted by the idea. But when men properly understand the idea of pursuing as a matter of love and service, then both the man and the woman are able to thrive.

So, practically speaking the whole pursue/being pursued thing involves giving and receiving from both the man and the woman. The woman has to open a space for the man to be able to pursue (instead of her pursuing/initiating/grasping), and then man has to open a space for the woman to consent to his gift of self by giving herself.

More on this topic soon ...

Quote book

"If you really want to know if your attire is fitting for a Christian woman, ask yourself: If Jesus Christ returned to earth, would I want to meet Him while wearing this outfit? Although it may sound a bit apocalyptic, dress like you're ready for the Second Coming. It's not just about preparing to meet your judge. It's about preparing to meet your groom. Dress accordingly." -- Jason and Crystalina Evert in "How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul"

Ruah Woods' event on Feb. 1

Jason Evert on Twilight

Instead of snacks on a plane, you can get ...

...pornography. Yes, Ryanair, the wonderfully cheap airline in Europe has announced that they are considering offering "in flight pornography" to their patrons. Apparently, chief executive Michael O'Leary said, "Hotels around the world have it, so why wouldn't we?"

Well, the New York Times is reporting the story, and it appears their worst fear is that a child might be sitting behind or next to someone looking at pornography. And then there's an account of one man who felt awkward when an elderly woman next to him on a plane caught a few seconds of graphic content on a film he was watching.

But, that's all. It might be bad for the children. Old ladies may feel uncomfortable. But, carry on!

Really? As someone who flies rather frequently, I cannot even imagine the discomfort and distrust that could loom through the tightly-cramped quarters of a plane, not knowing if other patrons are taking advantage of the "in flight pornography." It is already uncomfortable to be near someone looking at inappropriate magazines or watching particular films offered on the in-flight entertainment system. Certainly, there is a paramount concern of the danger this poses to children, but we also need to examine how the choice cannot be authentically beneficial to anyone.

What can we do? Well, I think a good place to start is to contact Ryanair. When I visited their website to find the proper contact information, I was startled by women in their underwear advertising a Ryanair calendar "for charity." So it appears that the problem is much bigger than the question of whether or not to offer pornography on flights. Perhaps we should start with the dignity of women, the dignity of men, the dignity of children and the responsibility to live that dignity in all of our interactions, policies and ideas.

A Message from Leah Darrow - Fashion + Modesty

Letter to my future spouse

A young man who studied Theology of the Body for Teens (as far as I know, not in Cincinnati) created this video after completing the program:

Evangelization on the highway

A car-full of girls in Kenosis were recently on a roadtrip, when they were engaged in an innocent encounter of waving to another car. The other car -- full of several teen boys -- was not content with a simple waving match on the highway. One of the boys held up a sign in the window with an inappropriate message.

The girls, all schooled in Theology of the Body, decided this was a moment for evangelization. They scrambled for paper and pen in the car, and then wrote: "Respect. We are precious gifts."

The boys didn't get it. So the girls countered again: "Why would you want to use us?"

Still, the boys were confused, so the ladies responded: "Be men. Not boys."

The boys drove away. The girls continued their roadtrip. But one has to wonder how these simple messages impacted the boys. Maybe they tucked the messages in their minds for a later reflection. Maybe they were intrigued. Maybe they didn't believe there were girls in the world wiling to wait for respect.

Maybe something as simple as driving down the highway became an invitation to these young men to live the fact that they were made for more.

"Longing for Lilies"

Br. Philip Neri Reese, OP, writes about the desire for purity in his recent post, "Longing for Lilies" --

There is nothing on this earth so powerful as holy desire. The true solution to a sexualized society will not be a social remedy. The world is falling because our hearts have fallen first. The more tainted the things we desire are, the more tainted we who desire will be. The world cannot be purified without the purification of hearts. That means turning our eyes to things that are true and truly wanting what we see.

The Rule says “the eye is the herald of the heart,” and that means that the movies we watch, the places we go, the things we read, and even the conversations we have all call for an honest examining. For most of us, this examination will be painful, but it need not be scrupulous or guilt-ridden. If we don’t desire the things that we ought, we can at least desire to desire them, and the holy desires that we do have can serve as a focal point for our prayer and meditation. If we let Him, the Lord will kindle desires in our hearts and stoke them into a furnace that consumes the chaff of our old compromises.

Read it all here.

Why bishops and priests need witnesses too

I was really struck when reading an account of an engaged couple in New York who recently met with Archbishop Dolan to discuss their upcoming marriage. In their reflection, the couple wrote:

He mentioned that our testimony (and the testimony of all other young people living and spreading the freedom of chastity) is what encourages him when he finds himself attacked from all sides, that only by the witness of faithful and fruitful marriage will the Church stand strong in our time.

Wow! Archbishop Dolan is a man I look up to greatly for his joy, enthusiasm and dedication to witnessing to the truth of the Gospel. What a responsibility and honor to know that he looks to

young people dedicated to living the beauty of chastity to encourage him.

It made me think: Why would the witness of young people encourage him? And then I realized what it might be. Archbishop Dolan, and others like him, see in these young people the joy and peace that reminds them that this is the experience they wish for all people. It makes it "worth"

defending then, because it is seen as good. Not just as "good" in the sense that one knows it is right, moral, correct. But "good" in the sense that it is truly the way that will lead to authentic joy. When confronted with living witnesses of this truth, how could it fail to inspire the leaders of the Church in relentlessly defending the truth of marriage, family, love and chastity?

In our own lives, do we consider that the way we live has an effect on others? Do we realize that Archbishop Dolan needs us and that we need him?

Quote book

"After all, young people are always searching for the beauty in love. They want their love to be beautiful. If they give in to weakness, following models of behavior that can rightly be considered a 'scandal in the contemporary world' (and these are, unfortunately, widely diffused models), in the depths of their hearts they still desire a beautiful and pure love. This is as true of boys as it is of girls. Ultimately, they know that only God can give them this love. As a result, they are willing to follow Christ, without caring about the sacrifices this may entail." -- John Paul II