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Question
Dear Father Angelo,
For years and every evening, I find myself consulting your column reading the answers to the questions of others, and finally I took courage and decided to write one myself. I have been engaged to my girlfriend for a little more than a year.
Before getting together, we both had quite complicated stories and paths but, now, I can say that I have rediscovered, thanks to her, the relationship with Christ that I had completely lost in the previous years.
My girlfriend has a strong devotion and thanks to her I now go to Mass and Confession, I pray every day and I am willingly accepting premarital chastity (which was certainly not fundamental for me in the past years), even if with great effort and some obstacles.
I feel really lucky to have her next to me.
That is for me a great grace which I pray every day for… but it is not enough .
The path is long and in this last period anything scares me, as if everything were a threat that can take her away from me.
I don’t want to influence her experiences, her life, but everything has become a cause of anxiety for me and often, precisely because of the great desire to be united, we find ourselves sinning.
This makes me feel like an impediment in her path towards holiness, in her relationship with the Lord.
I would like to marry her, but age, work and everything else are against it, and I find myself living with the desire for a life together but with the impatience to do everything immediately.
I am sure of my feelings and of the presence of Christ in our relationship, but I have many difficulties in entrusting this to the Lord because I think it depends on me even if, deep down, I know that it is not so.
Is my faith perhaps too weak to notice what is given to me and to entrust myself totally to Christ?
How can I best enjoy the relationship with my girlfriend, without sinning, and without being afraid of losing her? And above all, could the wounds, which we inflicted on each other because of the relationships we had, put our future relationship at risk?
Thank you.
Answer
Dear friend,
I apologize first of all for the long delay in my reply, but I have not forgotten you as you see.
1. I am happy that through your girlfriend you have regained the relationship with Christ.
That is the greatest grace you have received. And not only because Jesus Christ is our Lord (the One whom we constantly receive everything from) and is our Savior (the One who loves us infinitely and always wants us to be freed from every evil), but He is also the One who keeps your girlfriend for you, as in a precious casket.
2. If you are united to Christ by grace and if you do everything so that your girlfriend is also always united to Christ by grace, you can rest at ease: she will always remain yours.
3. Instead, you can begin to doubt and be uncertain if you separate yourself from Christ, as you would walk away from the One who keeps her, and you would surrender to your adversary through sin.
Our adversary – when he comes – comes only to steal, to destroy and to kill.
Equally, the same thing can happen if you surrender to your opponent.
Therefore, your greatest concern must be to avoid your separation from Christ, not to lose His grace, because to lose it is like you place yourself in the hands of your enemy
4. It is your opponent’s illusion to make you believe that, only by transgressing the Lord’s command, you will bring your girlfriend closer to you and keep her forever.
Wasn’t that the illusion which Eve fell into when she let herself be seduced by the devil?
He said to her: “the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods” (Gen 3:5), that is, you will be able to keep everything with your strength.
But after giving in, “they realized that they were naked” (Gen 3:7) and at the mercy of their opponent.
Everything became insecure for her, “Yet your urge shall be for your husband, and he shall be your master” (Gen 3:16).
Before sin, Adam was at the service of Eve, as authentic love requires.
After sin, he dominated her and thus ruined, between the two, the truly beautiful communion which was mirroring the perfect communion of the three divine Persons in their life.
5. Turning to practical advice, I recommend two things to keep your engagement safe and more peaceful: ascetic commitment and the help of grace.
The ascetic commitment is expressed through the will to promptly remove impure thoughts and dangerous situations.
Saint John Cassiano (great teacher of spiritual life) rightly said that if we allow the demon of impurity to appear in our mind, he then infiltrates it with all of himself and his detection becomes difficult.
This first commitment must last for a lifetime.
By facts, we trust God and can surely keep His gifts (including the girlfriend) forever.
6. Then we need the help of grace.
St. Thomas says that the slightest degree of love for God is sufficient to resist any carnal lust.
Try to commit yourself to this precise goal: “I want to be chaste for the love of God, for the love of Jesus Christ”.
Our love for God is expressed in facts.
Without them, it’s just an empty word.
7. The help of grace is also received in praying together, especially the Holy Rosary.
How nice it would be if the Rosary became, recited daily and together, a constant in your life.
By praying the Rosary, you bring into your life the presence of Jesus, of His Spirit and of Our Lady. Everything is then well held and protected.
8. The help and strength, coming from grace, come in particular from the Sacraments: Mass and frequent Confession.
At Mass – when you are in the state of grace (and I always hope so!) – you can take Holy Communion.
Communion is effective only if we are in grace.
I remember that, in the past, the priest gave Holy Communion saying to each single believer: “May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your body and soul to eternal life”.
By “your soul”, everything was meant, your life and goods, including your dearest loved ones.
If you are not in grace and receive Communion all the same, you do not keep anything because you further surrender yourself to the common adversary to steal, destroy and make everything die.
9. I also recommend frequent Confession even if there are no serious sins.
Because Confession always increases strength and grace. It communicates blessing, protection, and help.
Now I go to celebrate the Mass.
I will ask the Lord to keep you united in love, grace and in a shared commitment to sanctification. And in the meantime, I bless you.
Father Angelo