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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

I accidentally came across this column and, reading a few letters here and there, I was very impressed by the depth of what you write, by the delicacy and patience with which you answer the questions of us young people. I have always been of the idea that nothing happens by chance, so I would like to take this opportunity to submit some of my doubts.

I am a 20 year old girl and for about two years I have been engaged to a boy, my age, whom I love immensely. The bond that unites us is really strong and special, as there are few. He has so many wonderful qualities that I’ve always looked for in a guy and never hoped to find. We share the same values ​​and we really want, as soon as we get the chance, to get married and have a nice family. We really like talking about our future and imagining it together, the two of us are always united. We are both believers and practitioners and we attend the same parish. I have to admit that my boyfriend’s faith is much stronger and more solid than mine. He grew up in a very “traditionalist” family, which gave him noble values, which I too, at least for the most part, share. I too belong to a Christian family, which has always put Jesus Christ and its Word first, but unfortunately very often I falter and am assailed by doubts. Sometimes I find it hard to be fully convinced of the existence of a “post-mortem” life, I fear it is a dream, an illusion … However, thanks to the support of my boyfriend, my faith is strengthening , even between ups and downs.

Let’s get to the point. My boyfriend and I decided not to have full sex until marriage, more by his choice than mine.

Although I am a Christian, I have never been able to fully understand and agree with the teachings of the Catholic Church on the subject of sexual morality. I have always believed that every person, being born free, was the owner of his own body and had the right to manage it at will. Christian sexual morality transmitted to me the idea of ​​a series of oppressive precepts introduced to mortify man and suffocate his natural vital energy. This is why at the beginning of my relationship I saw my boyfriend’s choice to remain a virgin until marriage as a selfish decision, I could not understand its meaning and I envied the freedom of many of my peers who already behaved like husband and wife, for example living in the same house to study, taking holidays together (which my boyfriend and I would also like to do but our parents don’t allow, as they believe it is immoral for two young unmarried people to sleep together in a hotel).

Over time my boyfriend and I talked for a long time (he has a beautiful gift, he knows how to listen and he can understand me deeply) and I have completely changed my mind about many things: I realized that his love was towards me a very high and noble form of love, as well as a show of respect for me and my body.

I said that we have refrained from having full intercourse, but this does not mean that we have given up on experiencing sexuality in other forms. (…).

Forgive the digression, now I return to the subject. I look at how other couples behave and it makes me suffer from the fact that, while others can live their passion peacefully and carefree without setting limits, we instead must always deal with the sense of guilt and the fear of sin when we live in our own intimacy.

The fact of not being able to receive the body of Christ makes me sad and makes me feel inconsistent with myself and with my principles, as if I were living with a double personality. Yet I feel I can’t change things, since I don’t think I could do without the passion in my relationship. I do not find it right that you arrive at marriage with the fear of nudity, without knowing anything about the body of the other and without knowing how to please the person you love … My boyfriend and I have acquired a good level of self-control, which allows us not to go beyond a certain limit to prevent the situation from becoming irreparable: we are like two people who lean over the edge of a ravine and then pull back an inch before falling into the abyss.

Having said that, I still realize that I have to work a lot on my beliefs and I have to try to get so many ideas out of my head, both because I want to maintain the consistency I mentioned earlier, and because otherwise I risk putting myself on the wrong path.

I know you have addressed this topic many times, but I would be happy if you had a few words for me too.

Basically, I would like to ask you how I can learn to love in a more consistent way with the teachings of Jesus Christ, how I can set up my relationship differently, managing to be fully gratified even without that passionate part I was telling you about …

Thank you in advance for the time you will devote to me.

With estimates

________________________________________________________________________

Response from the priest

Dearest,

1. You have probably not read the various answers I have given regarding premarital sexual intercourse and also the various impurities.

You can click on the search engine of our site the item “premarital relations” and you will find many answers.

I’m not going to argue with the various statements you’ve made.

I should repeat to boredom what I have said a thousand other times.

Instead, I will limit myself to underlining some basic errors.

2. The biggest is to think of the body and sexuality as if they were your own thing, of which you can do whatever you want.

This is largely the common mentality. But it is wrong.

The body we live in is not ours. We did not make it, nor was it given to us to do what we want with it.

Of course, you too agree that you haven’t given your body to yourself and that you have to obey many of its laws, even if you don’t want to.

For example, you have to eat if you want to live. Above all you have to breathe if you don’t want to die. And so for many other things.

Psalm 99.3 in the Latin version strongly reminds us of this truth: “Scitote quoniam Dominus ipse est Deus; ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos ”(Know that the Lord is God; he made us and not we made us).

The Italian one is very bland: “he made us and we are his”.

Saint Paul: “Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you? You have received it from God and you do not belong to yourselves ”(1 Cor 6:19).

From your email it seems to me that at the center there is you and only you. God is on the periphery. As if we did not receive from him moment by moment “existence, energy and life”.

3. The second thing you forget, and it is a serious forgetfulness, is that of the orientation of life and the reason for the divine law: sanctification.

This seems to be completely foreign to your prospects. While sexuality and the relative capacity to love was given to us precisely in order to this.

“All things were created through him and for him” (Col 1:16).

Outside of this perspective, the law of God is distorted and is read with eyes completely different from those with which God asks us to read it.

His law is essentially a law of freedom. But of an interior freedom, which allows us to elevate ourselves and to be united with God.

It is not a question of pure will, of purely external freedom which would consist in making our body what we want.

4. The third mistake that emanates from your email is the confusion between true love and passion.

Passion has been placed by God in our person. And we have to thank him because through passion we find thrust in so many things. Otherwise we would be cold as robots.

However, the satisfaction of passions in whatever way they emerge cannot be the ultimate reason for our being together.

Otherwise one only loves oneself, one’s own satisfaction.

But it is not in this way that one learns to love oneself, to listen to oneself, to serve oneself, to dedicate oneself to others in good times and bad times.

I think of Mother Teresa of Calcutta who said: “I learned to love only from God”

In your case, as unfortunately in that of many others, we do not think at all that we must learn from God.

For many, loving is the same as chasing their instincts.

While the engagement is done on purpose to learn to dominate their instincts because otherwise our marriages and our families would not have a long life.

5. The last mistake is to chase what others do, who seem freer to you.

Yes, they are perhaps freer externally because they do what they want.

But are they free inside?

Jesus thinks differently.

Indeed, in a very strong way he wanted to draw attention to a deception that comes to us from our opponent. He said: “in truth,in truth I tell you: whoever commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8:34).

That expression “in truth I tell you” stands for “I swear to you”.

Repeated twice it stands for “I solemnly swear to you”.

Our adversary says, “No, your eyes will be opened and you will become like God”, as he did with our forefathers.

We saw how their eyes opened: they found themselves empty, poor, miserable and unable to communicate with each other.

6. I think I’ve made myself clear.

At the bottom of everything and at the center of everything do not put yourself and your thoughts: put God in it, put Jesus Christ in it.

The basic problem is not whether this is lawful or not lawful (although this also has its importance, because when you go out on the street you need the signs and you feel the need) but to be persuaded that the Christian engagement reveals another reality and refers to another love.

Above all, it reveals another Person, whose one we fell in love with is only a sign and a reminder, and pushes us to live in deep communion and intimacy with her.

7. This is why Christian engaged couples who have understood these things and live them feel the need to protect their love and to keep it pure and immune from any counterfeiting.

They are happy with the law of the Lord because it helps them to overcome themselves. And at the same time it helps them to love each other in a true and holy way.

And, precisely for this, in a lasting way, as every boyfriend wishes.

Thank you for the email that gave me the opportunity to bring the reflection further upstream and in its ultimate perspective.

I wish you well, I remind you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo