Virginity, Grief, and Healing

In my last post on Virginity, Rape, and Loss, I discussed the case of kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart, who lost her virginity through rape. The forcible taking of her virginity and of her body clearly harmed her. But what about people who choose to give up their virginity through engaging in premarital sex? Is anyone harmed then? Does anyone suffer a loss?

Let's return again to the idea of virginity as a sign of what God wants for us. In the last post, I talked about virginity as a sign that the person belongs only to himself (or herself) and God. A person who possesses himself is free to give himself. And, much more than a bodily act, sexual or conjugal union is meant to be a complete gift of self. John Paul II in his Letter to Families explained:

Every man and every woman fully realizes himself or herself through the sincere gift of self. For spouses, the moment of conjugal union constitutes a very particular expression of this. It is then that a man and woman, in the ‘truth’ of their masculinity and femininity, become a mutual gift to each other. All married life is a gift; but this becomes most evident when the spouses, in giving themselves to each other in love, bring about that encounter which makes them ‘one flesh’ (Gen 2:24).

This gift of self is a gift of body and soul, since we can't separate the two. Because human beings have more than a physical value, sex has more than a physical value. And because sex has more than a physical value, virginity has more than a physical value. As stated in John Paul II's Love and Responsibility, physical virginity or intactness "possesses a deeper meaning, not only physiological."

When [a man] gives himself to another person, when a woman gives herself to a man in conjugal intercourse, then this giving should have the full value of spousal love. A woman then ceases to be "virginal" in the bodily sense. And because the self-giving is reciprocal, then a man also ceases to be virginal.

The mutual loss of virginity when a man and a woman enter into sexual union for the first time is meant to occur within the context of reciprocal spousal love. More simply, when you lose your virginity to someone or when someone loses their virginity to you, this is a love that's meant to last forever, in sickness and in health, til death do you part.

Even if a woman (or man) purposefully gives their body to someone who does not reciprocate the gift through the life-long bond of marriage, at the very least there has been an unequal exchange. As Christopher West frequently states in his talks on the Theology of the Body, there is a reason why most of us feel uncomfortable around people with whom we've had premarital sexual experiences. These experiences should never have happened.

These experiences, even if they were voluntary at the time, can cause real grief. Some women struggle to forgive themselves for having chosen to have premarital sex; other women struggle to forgive their husbands for not having saved themselves for marriage.  I have read several blogs of engaged or recently married women, like this one here, and I can tell you that virginity still matters. Virginity has value.

Recognizing that virginity is valuable and good allows us to acknowledge its loss as a real loss. Only then can the real road to healing and forgiveness begin. As Catholic psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons has written, the first step of forgiveness is when people rationally determine that they have been unfairly treated. Before you can forgive, you have to admit that you have been hurt, you have been wronged. Only then can people willfully abandon the resentment to which they have a right. Only then can they let go of the grief and anger and begin to heal. "Forgiveness is a specialist in quelling that kind of anger that debilitates the injured or wounded individual," wrote Dr. Fitzgibbons and his colleague in their book Helping Clients Forgive.

In his talks on the Theology of the Body, Chris West offers an apology to the women in the audience: "On behalf of all the men who hurt you, I'm sorry." By standing in the shoes of the perpetrators, West offers what many people never receive -- an apology. And apologies aid us in the work of forgiveness.

But if two people willingly enter into premarital sex, don't they both hurt each other, even if they don't intend to at the time? Yes. But just because we hurt someone else (however unwillingly or unknowingly), that fact doesn't erase the hurt that has been done to us. We need to forgive the other person. And perhaps just as much, we need to allow ourselves to receive forgiveness as well.

This is where the Sacrament of Penance comes in. We are so blessed to have a Church that offers forgiveness of sins from Jesus himself through the words of a priest. There are few more consoling words to someone who approaches with true sorrow than "I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And let us not forget the words of the Lord's Prayer in which we plead, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us."

To anyone who is grieving over these issues, on behalf of those who hurt you, I am sorry. May God's grace bring you healing and peace.

Virginity, Rape, and Loss

Elizabeth Smart, a kidnapping victim who was abducted at age 14 and then raped and held for nine months, stated recently that her religious upbringing had caused her to lose hope after being sexually violated. Based on a schoolteacher's talk about abstinence, Elizabeth concluded that after being forced to have sex, she no longer had any worth as a human being. "Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value," she said.

This led to an intense flurry of Internet posts and commentary on the value of abstinence-only sex education.  Critics such as Calah Alexander focused on the fear-mongering aspects of abstinence-only programs, which sometimes compared a girl who had lost her virginity to a dirty glass of water or a chewed-up piece of gum. But perhaps a more helpful line of inquiry would have centered on the value of virginity itself and its relationship to the value of a human person.

Suggesting that virginity, or the loss of virginity, is an arbitrary line (as one post did) does not contribute meaningfully to the conversation. Instinctively, most women would sense it's more than that, even if such an attitude is not particularly hip or progressive. So what is virginity according to Catholic thought? In his book Love and Responsibility ("L&R"), Pope John Paul II defined physical virginity of either a man or a woman as a state of being "untouched by another, sexually intact." Then he made the obvious point that sexual intactness "finds its expression even in the physiological constitution of a woman." Virginity is a physical reality, and the loss of it causes a permanent change to a woman's body.

John Paul II's Theology of the Body teaches us that the body is a sign, a sacramental sign. The body means something. The way that God made our bodies means something. Clearly, virginity means something. But what?

John Paul II in L&R stated that physical virginity (or bodily intactness) "is an exterior expression of the fact that the person belongs only to himself and to the Creator." When you belong to yourself, you are free to give yourself. Persons who retain their physical virginity have the freedom to give all of themselves -- their persons, their lives, and their intact bodies -- to someone else, either to a spouse through a vow of marriage or to God through a vow of chastity. If someone forcibly takes that freedom from a woman, like they took it from Elizabeth Smart, she has lost something.

But she has not lost everything. She still retains her value as a human person and as a woman. In a sense, she has even retained her purity. John Paul II in the Theology of the Body stated that Christ radically opposed a tendency to view moral or sexual purity in an exclusively external and material way. In the context of sexual abuse, the former pope's words take on particular poignancy:

Nothing makes a man unclean "from the outside"; no "material" dirtiness makes a man impure in the moral sense.  ... Moral purity has its wellspring exclusively in man's interior: it comes from the heart.

Rape or abuse cannot make a person unclean or impure; it cannot destroy their intrinsic value.

Similarly, whether a person is still physically virgin does not determine whether their life has value, according to Catholic thought. Pope John Paul in L&R stressed that "we should not think that the essence of virginity lies merely in bodily intactness." Virginity reflects an interior disposition of wanting to belong to God. Through the desire of the heart, "what was the state of nature [bodily intactness] becomes an object of the will, an object of a conscious choice and decision." Victims like Elizabeth Smart did not consciously choose what happened to them. The idea that unwanted sexual abuse can turn a person into a valueless object, like a chewed-up piece of gum or dirty glass of water, is not a Catholic idea at all.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2356) condemns rape in the strongest terms. It blames the perpetrator and not the victim:

Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act.

It is the rapist, not the victim, who commits the evil. But the victim must live with the wounds inflicted by that evil.

This problem extends far beyond Elizabeth Smart. Catholic therapist Dr. Phil Mango has encountered staggering numbers of devout Catholic adults who experienced sexual abuse in their youth. Many times the victims will refuse to talk about their past experiences, even with their spouse. They suppress unacknowledged feelings of rage against their perpetrators, and their marriages suffer as a result of these unhealed wounds. But healing is possible.

In the next post on this topic, I'll talk about healing through forgiveness, and how those who lost their virginity voluntarily (and their spouses) need healing as well.

Preaching, Teaching, and Washing Dishes

"Wash more dishes," my spiritual director inevitably advises me. This kicks off a prolonged spate of whining on my part. My children are brilliant whiners, and they have taught me well. "But ... I'm not good at it!" I insist plaintively, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud. "And I don't like it. And I didn't do enough of it as a kid. Or as a young adult. I'm not meant to wash dishes. I'm better than that! And who cares about dishes anyway?" Oh, wait, the Holy Father recently told us no whining? But...

I have always idealized the day that all this housewifery will end and I can "go back to work." In my fantasies, someone else will clean the house and help the children do homework, while I wear fancy suits (yes, I know no one does this any more -- humor me) and stand in the spotlight. After all, didn't Our Blessed Mother take on a completely new role after the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven? She guided, supported, and advised the new church in Jesus' absence. The New Testament didn't exist yet, so who was there to tell the stories of Jesus' early life? Mary. She could teach the disciples about the message from the Angel Gabriel, who told her that the child to be born to would be called the Son of the Most High, and his kingdom would last forever. Mary could tell of how she lost the child Jesus in Jerusalem and found him again in the temple after three days, the holy temple that Jesus called "my Father's house." All the things she had been pondering in her heart, she could tell to the apostles and the disciples as they waited in the upper room for the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. In a way, she was preaching the Good News to them, teaching them about her son.

"But who do you think was doing the dishes? Who was cooking and cleaning for the apostles in the upper room?" a priest asked recently. Dishes?! Again!?! Is the work of a woman really never done? But it isn't too much of a stretch to think that Mary was taking care of the apostles the same way she always took care of her son Jesus as he grew up in her home. At the wedding of Cana, Mary noticed when the wine ran out, even when it wasn't her party. She asked Jesus to take care of what was essentially a domestic task, and he did. Mary paid attention to these things.

Certainly, Mary could preach, teach, and wash dishes. If anybody could do it all, she could. But there are other women to show us the way as well. St. Gianna Berretta Molla worked as a doctor and a mother while developing an intense interior holiness. Popular Catholic blogger Jennifer Fulwiler took care of five young children while writing posts for the National Catholic Register while being eight or nine months pregnant in the hospital with pulmonary embolisms. My favorite recent post of hers? Because why even have a blog if you can't write chatty posts while stuck in the hospital? As well-known as Jennifer is, she still says she devotes only 10% of her day to writing and the rest to her home and kids.

So no matter what else we do in life, most moms are going to wind up having to wash at least a few dishes. And the sooner we (okay, I) accept that reality, the sooner the whining will stop. Like, maybe, tomorrow. Or next week...

Photo Credit: miss pupik via Compfight cc

The Way We Met

When we taught pre-Cana classes together, my husband and I never got much of a response to questions like "So what made you fall in love?" But almost everyone had a great story about the way they met. My friend Trista, who's getting married super-soon, just wrote a blogpost about how she met her fiance Brian online. So, I figured Manny and I could share our story, as wedding season kicks off. Please tell us about your story in the comments!

Manny and I actually met twice. The first time, we ran into each other by chance. I was crossing the street in one direction, trying to get to work on time. He was crossing the street in the other direction, together with my friend Ayman from college. I waved to Ayman, exchanged a few pleasantries, and zoomed off to the office. The way Manny tells it, he then turned to Ayman and said something like "Who was that?" Ayman told Manny that I was not Manny's type. And that was that. At least for the next two years.

Fast forward to Ayman's big party in Brooklyn to introduce his American friends to his Spanish girlfriend. The girlfriend's name was Eva. Ayman and Eva met in Spain during the Fería de Abril, held every year just after Easter. Ayman caught Eva's attention when he strode up to the stage in the front of one of the immense festival tents and began playing flamenco guitar. Ayman didn't speak Spanish and Eva didn't speak English, so they communicated in French. In the summer that Ayman threw the big party in Brooklyn, Eva had traveled to stay with her relatives in New York to see if there was any future for her and Ayman. (Now they are happily married with two great kids!) Eva's very nice American cousin, also attending the party, was named -- Manny.

Manny approached me at the party and asserted that we had met before. Unfortunately, I had no recollection of that event. "We did meet two years ago," he insisted, "while we were crossing the street." Neon <<STALKER!>> bulbs started flashing in front of my eyes. "Maybe not," he temporized. Ah, and then he quoted Tolstoy. Something about how the course of a man's life could be irrevocably changed because on a certain day he met a certain woman wearing a dress that curved in just a certain way. All was forgiven.

After the party, a few of us went out to a bar to play pool. Manny was a fearsome pool shark. A doctor, who spoke Spanish, and read Tolstoy, and played a mean game of pool. I couldn't resist. As it got later in the evening, he still hadn't asked for my phone number. Oh, well, I thought, dejected. I began to walk out the door. Hearing him call out my name, I turned to look behind me. Casually lounging back on his chair, Manny crooked his finger at me as cigarette smoke swirled around the noisy bar. Roll cameras, please. Then he asked for my email address. {{Sigh.}} I walked out of the bar smiling, and he's kept making me happy ever since.


Crossing Street Photo Credit: Avard Woolaver via Compfight cc

Kids, Birds, and Bees (A Review of Growing Up in God's Image)

"What have I taught you about, God, love, marriage and, uh, sex?" I recently asked my twelve-year-old daughter. "Well, in school, they told us about how boys grow whiskers about the time they start to date. And they showed us gross drawings of bodies," she grimaced. "Anything about God or love?" I asked. "No," said my sweet parochial school student. "Did I teach you -- anything?" I asked. Awkward grins on both faces. Again came my daughter's answer, "No." And I realized that I had somehow managed to leave out something really important.

Part of why my husband and I hadn't gotten around to the birds and the bees talk was because we were afraid of doing it wrong. We would occasionally search for a book to help us explain the beauty of God's plan for our bodies to our children in an age-appropriate way. We never really found one until now. Growing Up in God's Image, by Carolyn J. Smith, is that book.

Growing Up in God's Image seeks to provide its readers with a new approach to the facts of life talk, both in what to say and how to say it, as the book's subtitle explains. This "new" approach, which fortunately is no longer so new, relies heavily on Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. The book's three main sections explore the meaning of spousal love -- that is, the love between man and wife -- through explaining (1) the Trinitarian love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, (2) the love of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and (3) love as a sacramental sign of total self-giving. Scattered throughout are unexpected Scriptural insights, some of which actually gave me chills.

The beginning of Growing Up in God's Image contains themes that can be discussed with kindergarteners, including what the story of Adam and Eve teaches us about God's plan for marriage and families, and how parents cooperate with God in creating new life.  Later parts of the book include detailed descriptions of the changes that come with puberty as well as matter-of-fact explanations of intercourse and pregnancy. The author, an experienced mother of ten, recommends presenting biological information in the context of growth of the entire person, including physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual growth. She prompts parents to remind their children to pray for their vocation, for wisdom to see if God is calling them to married life, or perhaps to the priesthood or religious life.

The end of the book is more of a study guide, posing questions without providing answers other than cites to paragraphs of the Catechism. I could see this guide being especially useful in the high school years, after confirmation, particularly if your child is not attending a Catholic high school and is therefore no longer receiving religious instruction. Home schoolers and youth groups might also benefit from it.

My favorite features of the book are the practical instructions to parents. The author includes a lot of  how-to advice, such as at what age to raise certain issues, which parent should present the information, and which parts of the book can be read by a parent and child together. It contains scripts you can repeat verbatim in case you as the mature parent actually freeze or choke when confronted with the reality and the enormity of the task in front of you. There are even diagrams in case of confusion.

Although packed with information, Growing Up in God's Image is shorter than you might expect, at only 74 pages long. The passages about dating could easily be expanded to address today's hook-up culture more directly. Also, in advocating a steady progression from group dates or parties to double dates to steady dating and courtship, the book seems to underestimate the dangers of peer pressure to engage in inappropriate behavior, starting at Spin the Bottle and escalating from there. Nonetheless, the book succeeds in its main purpose of helping parents explain sexuality to their children in a context of discovering God's plans for their lives, and I'm so glad we found it. Now, you'll have to excuse me, because I need to go talk to my daughter about the birds and the bees.

To purchase this book from Amazon, click here.