Chastity

By Annie Vining MTH, President TOBET

Chastity was the second of two reflection given to around 200 life teen participants St. Anne's Catholic Church in Coppell TX in early 2002.

Recap talk one
- We are made in the image of God: in our body and soul unity
- This means we can learn about God by looking at the body: TOB
- What do we learn? The meaning of life: That God is self gift (love) and that we must be self gift in order to be who we are. The meaning of life: love.
You are a gift
- You are meant to be given to your spouse fully
- You are meant to be preparing for that in your daily actions now (c.f. last talk)
You are gift that is very valuable: like a rare diamond
- more valuable than all material things combined (quote)
- Jesus would have died just for you, and Jesus is “every spiritual blessing in the heavens.”(quote) So, you are not only more valuable than all material things, you are also worth the price of all spiritual gifts in heaven.
- We realize this when we think about how much we want our lives to count for something, to make a difference. We usually do value ourselves in this way.
- But sometimes we are deceived, though, especially in our society about our valuableness: our dignity. Satan can get us to fork ourselves over easier in this realm if we believe that it is no big loss. We hear things like: “When you get to college, you will be a number.” or “Who do you think you are” when we dream big.
- This is why the Pope, in the TOB says: “The Truth owed to man is the Truth about Himself.” about his great dignity. The TOB teaches us who we are, and in this way shows us who we were meant by God to be. (the idea: be who you are and you will be happy.)
The Pope teaches that at the heart of who we are is our sexuality.
- Through it we image God (most of all) as a Trinity of self-giving love.
- So, sexual desire is the desire to love as God loves.
- It motivates us to give of ourselves fully: it is a very good thing. (not just in marriage, but even outside of marriage as we will see…)
The Battleground: a behind the scenes look at what is happening in the spiritual realm
- Since our sexuality is that through which we image God most powerfully, it is the thing satan goes after most. It is our “heart” – i.e.: “You broke my heart.”
- He wants to distort our idea of our dignity so that he can not only distort God’s image (like he did in Eden with the questioning of the gift), but also so that he can get us to use this great power inside us for evil. (diamond example)
- satan is a deceiver, but he is not deceived about our dignity. He knows that we are very valuable, and that is why he doesn’t go for material/spiritual goods. He wants us.
But God wants us more, and he wants us to be happy.
- So he gave us instructions for how to avoid satan and how to combat him, using the great power of sexual desire.
- What does he say? Sex is a great power for good only when it is used to love the way God loves. When it respects the dignity of both people by being a gift of themselves that is:
  - Full: it involves their entire selves (i.e. the rest of their lives, their fertility, their money, time, everything) The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit hold nothing back from each other or from us.
  - Free: it is entered into, not because of addiction but because of love; there are no strings attached. They give freely of themselves unconditionally
  - Faithful: Ephesians says that marriage shows us how Christ loves the Church. So, we must love as Christ loves us, never being unfaithful to the one we are meant to love with our entire gift of self.
  - Fruitful: Open to the possibility of new life just as from the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit springs.
  - This is the owners manual on sex, it is the truth that makes us free. Sin makes us slaves but following God’s plan for sex makes us free and happy.
- As the Pope says when he talks about sex in marriage, sex done right, “Sex is the most powerful weapon (after the Mass) for fighting satan.” (quote)
- So, if satan can distort what we think about our dignity, he can get us to use this power for him: ask them to respond here which F’s apply
  - contraception: not a full gift, it holds back fertility; makes sex selfish by distorting its fruitfulness
  - oral sex: causes sexual addiction making the person not free, it is an unfruitful use of our sexuality
  - premarital sex: causes us not to be free to marry, we become addicted to the person because of the emotional side of sex and we usually can’t see it until we break up
  - masturbation: the gift is kept selfishly, not fruitful; causes addiction which cancels our freedom to use our sexuality the way God intended; drains that energy away that we could be using for God in a selfish way.
  - making out/foreplay (all those things that are preludes to actually having sex): cause addiction, making people not free, uses our sexuality in a way that denies its fruitfulness. No one ever told me this, and I wish they had. I am still dealing with the after effects of getting addicted to this in a relationship I was in. I have been forgiven, but I am still dealing with this now that I am married. Please avoid this sin! Satan steals our freedom through it. I wish someone had told me, and so I am telling you so that hopefully you don’t make the same mistake!
  - lustful thoughts: denies the dignity of the woman/man because it is a giving of the self that is not full, faithful, or fruitful.
  - pornography, both soft core (some teen magazines/some supermodel posters/PG 13 or R movies) and hard core (what we usually think of when we think of porn): it causes addiction, making us not free; it is against the dignity of the woman/man who gives their body with no commitment of their full person; it is viewing someone in a sexual manner with no fruit, not faithful because you have a sexual encounter without a commitment of faithfulness at all (imagine it is your sister, or your mom and you will see what I mean, and remember, she is God’s daughter or he is God’s son.)
- On top of all this, it leads people to commit many of the other sins against their sexual dignity, to act like they are worth less than they are.
- Our dignity is so important to God, that these are called mortal sins by the Church because they go against human dignity and the valuableness of sex.
What can we do?
- PRAY! Go to the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist because GOD’S GRACE IS POWERFUL! No sin is too big for God, with Him all things are possible to forgive if we would only ask and be sorry. He can forgive anything (another of satan’s ploys is to tell us not to seek forgiveness because what has been done has been done and there is no way it can be forgiven…A LIE! because it says that a sin is bigger than God!)
- Believe in your dignity. This is where use comes in. Whenever we violate one of the four F’s we can know that we are using another person, and treating them as though they (and we) have less dignity than we and they do. No sin can take away the dignity God gives us.
- Avoid becoming the instrument of satan by avoiding temptation. Don’t tempt others to do bad things by immodesty (girls), by putting them into situations where they aren’t really free to say no (girls/guys). One way to avoid many bad situations is to date in groups and to go directly home afterward!!! =).
- Think about your freedom and how it is doing. Are you really free to be yourself, not fake; free to hang around other people besides the person you are with. Are you able to say no? Sometimes you have to try it to find out. This takes a lot of soul searching and courage.
- Don’t use others in general, like Tristan and Angela. When we use others in ways other than sexually, we come to see them as objects, as less than the dignity a person deserves. This can easily cross over into our use of our sexual desire.
- Find ways to make a gift of yourself that are not sexual. Use your sexuality to make good gifts of yourself (remember last week; bake cookies, write songs, really get to know the other by listening, even serve God with it like sisters and priests do!) We are deceived into thinking that we have no choice but to give ourselves in a sexual manner. Outside of marriage, using the sexual desire in this way is a misuse of it! Be creative in the ways you give of yourself, it will be fruitful and make you free! And HAPPY!
- Be bold, set an example! Be brave. satan uses fear (of what others will think, of how hard it might be, of change) to make us cower down and do it his way, but God wants us to be free so that we can be happy! Be different! Be unique because God has made you a very precious and unique gift to be carefully given.

Annie Vining can be contacted at avining@tobet.org

The Theology of the Body Evangelization Team can be reached at info@tobet.org