CHAPTER 13

Your sexuality is an awesome gift from God! Pope John Paul II even goes so far as to call human sexuality "a treasure"

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Brett couldn't wait to ask Alicia to marry him.

He was head-over-heels in love with her. He had waited several weeks for the diamond ring to be set. At last, the ring was finally sitting on his desk in his dorm.

As soon as he picked up the ring from the jewelry store, he wanted to run to Alicia's room and give her the ring. But he didn't. He resisted. He was waiting for the right moment. He had it all planned out: Brett wanted to ask Alicia for her hand in marriage in the perfect way.

Over the next several weeks, he resisted several good opportunities to give Alicia the ring -- a romantic dinner, a spring party. But these opportunities weren't the way he had planned to give her the engagement ring. No, he must be patient. He wanted it to be just right.

Finally, that opportunity arrived. Brett asked Alicia to take a walk on the college campus. As they walked hand-in-hand through the campus, Brett led Alicia to the most romantic spot on campus, Rainbow Bridge. This bridge spans a creek in the woods on the campus of Grove City College. It was here that he had been planning for months to ask Alicia to marry him. Brett had been patiently waiting for these circumstances --just Brett and Alicia leaning on the rail of the moonlit bridge on a warm spring night in the middle of the woods. Yes, the time was finally right. This was the perfect opportunity.

Brett inconspicuously pulled the ring box from his pocket. Hands trembling nervously, Brett opened the ring box and started to ask Alicia to be his wife. But as he pulled the ring from the box, it suddenly slipped from his hand and fell twenty-five feet below into the creek!

You can imagine the expression on Alicia’s face as she watched the ring splash into the water. She panicked. So did Brett. He buried his face in his hands and slumped over as if in pain. When Alicia realized how bad Brett felt, she put her arms around him and whispered in his ear, "Yes, Brett. I'll marry you." Just then, Brett removed his hands from his face and there in his right palm was a gorgeous diamond ring -- even bigger than the first! Brett had tricked Alicia. He had dropped a fake ring into the creek!

When Alicia realized what had happened, she gave Brett a wallop on the shoulder and then a huge hug and a great big kiss. For the next twenty minutes, the two newlyweds-to-be stood on the bridge arm-in-arm weeping for joy at the new life they would share together.

Brett pulled it off -- the perfect proposal. In the preceding month, Brett resisted several other opportunities to ask Alicia to marry him. But in the end, his patience paid off with a very memorable start to an engagement.

Patience Pays Off

Throughout this book, we've tried to show you that you have been given a very good gift from God. Your sexuality is an awesome gift from God! Pope John Paul II even goes so far as to call human sexuality "a treasure" in his 1994 "Letter to Families." It promises to bring you a tremendous amount of happiness if you are called to the vocation of marriage.

If you are called by God to marriage, your gift is meant to be shared with only your future spouse. Sex is really only part of the total gift that you will give to your future wife or husband. In marriage, you are giving your entire self to your future spouse. Sex is the physical expression of that total gift of love.

Between now and when you marry, you may encounter, like Brett did with his proposal, what appeared to be "good" opportunities to give your gift before you intended. Please don't give in. Your patience will pay off in the long run. Marital sex is well worth the wait.

Sex outside of marriage is not fulfilling. It's ultimately selfish. It doesn't give a total gift. It takes what doesn't belong to the unmarried partner. As a result, it will leave you emotionally bankrupt. It robs you of self-esteem and zaps the true joy out of being a teenager.

Sex outside of marriage is a lie. It engages two people, who are not totally committed to one another, in an act that says, "I give myself to you totally and freely forever." People who aren't married cannot give themselves totally to the one with whom they are sleeping. Their unmarried status won't allow for it.

It's important to understand that sex is not something that involves just your body. The whole person is involved in sexual intercourse. Some people have the idea that what they do with their bodies doesn't affect who they are as a person. They are wrong.

Sexual intercourse is designed to make you one flesh. But not only one flesh, it's intended to make spouses one heart and one soul. And through this loving union, God may bring a new life into the world. Sex is powerful!

Ask God to prepare your future spouse for you. Ask God to prepare you for your future spouse. He will listen to you. Trust him. Pray to God for help to practice the virtue of chastity -- to keep the gift of yourself wholly intact, untainted, and unused, for your spouse. Pray to God to forgive your past sins against chastity. Go to Christ in the sacrament of reconciliation. He will forgive you. He can make you and your gift new again.

He Lives, So Live Life to the Full!

At the center of our Catholic faith is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Belief in the resurrection should have a radical effect on the way we live our lives. Jesus is not dead like old historical figures. He's alive! Right now. And he is present with his Church.

We are writing this on the feast of the ascension of our Lord into heaven. Before he ascended bodily into heaven, Christ made sure that his disciples knew that even though his body was going into heaven, he would be with them always -- to the end of the world. As we said, Jesus is present within the Church. And he is present within you, a baptized Christian. He is present within you because he wants to give you life -- real life, life to the full, eternal life. He wants you to be totally happy and totally human.

Jesus wants you to use your sexuality in a way that will contribute to your happiness. He wants you to practice chastity. Jesus knows that chastity gives you life. Sexual sins take life away.

Sure, we live in a hypersexual, or oversexed, world. Sure, chastity is difficult under these circumstances. But it is not impossible. Chastity is not for super-holy people only. Chastity is meant for all people, for all teenagers, for you!

Chastity is possible for you because Jesus Christ is alive. If you try to practice chastity by relying only on your own strength, chances are quite good that you are not going to do so well. But "I can do all things in him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). These words of the apostle Paul apply even to chastity. Jesus lives in you. If you ask him humbly, he will empower you to practice the virtue of chastity.

Our Hope for You, Our Prayer for You,
Our Guarantee to You

Our hope for you is that you would value and protect your gift, your treasure of sexuality. We hope that you won't give in to peer and media pressure, which tends to reduce sex to a plaything or a conquest on Friday night. We hope that when temptation overwhelms you and you sin against chastity, you will pick yourself up and begin again through reconciliation.

We pray that God will reveal to you your life's calling. If it's to the priesthood, religious life, or single life, we hope and pray that you come to understand how to embrace the special challenges that this unmarried state in life places upon chastity. If it is to the married life, we pray that God will help you and your future spouse to practice chastity both now and in your future marriage (by being faithful to each other and open to life).

We guarantee that if you strive to practice the virtue of chastity, in five to ten years when you marry, you will be very glad that you said no to the hypersexual world in favor of chastity. Marriage is great. Marital love is awesome. Marital sex is definitely worth the wait! Save your gift until it is the absolute best moment to give it -- your wedding night.