Guarding Love Before Marriage ~ Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, Clean Love in Courtship

From Clean Love in Courtship by Father Lovasik

Marriage is Sacred

Marriage is a serious life-long career, ordained by God for the highest possible natural functions. God considers this contract of marriage to be so important that He made it a sacrament. Through this sacrament grace is conferred upon the contracting parties for the proper exercise of their duties towards each other and towards their children, and for the furtherance of their happiness in the family.

The primary purpose of marriage is the bringing of children into the world. Its secondary purposes are mutual help of husband and wife in the care of the family and the allaying of concupiscence or the desires of nature.

Marriage makes it possible for one to cooperate with God in the creation of life. It is the privilege of a father and a mother to be instruments that God uses to bring into the world children made in His own image and likeness, children with immortal souls, children whose destiny it is to be God’s children in this world and in the next.

Though marriage has its difficulties and responsibilities, it also has its tremendous God-given rewards: love and all that love means to human life; the beauty and joy of marital relationship; children, who bless and cement the union of the parents’ hearts.

Since marriage is beautifully sacred, so should be the courtship that precedes it. Your courtship must be pure if it is to be happy; and pure and happy, it will provide the test of character that is necessary for a blessed and a happy marriage.

Only too frequently an improper courtship results in an unhappy marriage. You will trace your broken heart and wretched life to your failure to realize the difference between love and lust in courtship.

The Danger in Personal Sex Attraction

Sex attraction in God’s plan begins normally with adolescence. During the formative years immediately afterward it serves the purpose of uniting boys and girls together in wholesome social activities. It enables them to get a proper appreciation of one another, showing their mutual dependence on, and mutual power over each other.

This is general sex attraction. Once sufficient maturity is reached, personal sex attraction follows. It differs from ordinary friendship and has a God-given purpose, namely, to attract and lock the hearts of two persons together so that each craves a complete oneness with the other.

This desire to blend and share their entire lives is a perfect inducement to marriage. But this type of sex attraction can easily prove a serious danger to your chastity because of the natural urge you have of expressing your love by kissing and embracing.

In the beginning there might appear to be no danger at all because you would not think of any immodest show of affection. Nevertheless, you are emotionally thrilled just to be with this particular person who attracts you in a very special way.

This emotional state is heightened by caresses, and physical passion is very easily aroused. Physical passion cannot be the aim of unmarried people in expressing their love. Never forget the weakness of human nature!

Ever since Adam fell, the appetites of the senses are no longer under the perfect command of reason. In order to subject these appetites, you must exert relentless effort and call upon the grace of God.

Young women should remember that they are generally not so strongly tempted through concupiscence as are men. The young man reacts quickly to stimulation, and such reactions bring with them an urge to just a little more intimacy, which very quickly means an urge to immodesty. If these urges are not controlled, the result is sin.

A young woman, however, will very likely react less quickly in a physical way, though there is always a danger that emotion will cross the line into physical passion even in her case.

But an even graver danger for her is that when her love is strongly stirred by marks of affection, she will yield to her friend’s urges rather than offend him or lose him. When the fires of passion are once enkindled, a natural craving for self-surrender often overpowers her.

This is the danger to chastity that is inherent in personal sex attraction. Therefore, the impulses of personal and physical attraction, namely, the attraction of body to body, should be held in check.

After marriage physical attraction has its place and is the full blossoming of the human sexual instinct. Sex is only then an aid to human perfection and a means of sanctifying and saving your soul if it conforms with the holy law of God.

St. Francis de Sales on the company we keep: “Be very careful, therefore, dear reader, not to have any evil love, because you will in turn quickly become evil yourself.
Friendship is the most dangerous of all love. Why? Because other loves can exist without communication, exchange, closeness. But friendship is completely founded upon communication and exchange and cannot exist in practice without sharing in the qualities and defects of the friend loved.”

What are the dangers of dating? What is the purpose of marriage? What does the Church teach is OK  & not OK to do with members of the opposite sex?

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Few women in the 20th century wielded more power and influence than did Josefine Lehnert (1894-1983). No woman, in twenty centuries, ever wielded more power and influence in the Vatican.When Josefine Lehnert entered Holy Cross Convent [Menzinger, Switzerland] she was given the name “Pascalina.”

In 1917, the beautiful young nun from Bavaria and two other Sisters were sent to Munich to organize and maintain the nunciature. The Holy See’s newly appointed Nuncio to Bavaria was 41-year-old Eugenio Pacelli. For the rest his diplomatic career, Schwester Pascalina would remain his personal secretary, housekeeper and ne plus ultra confidante. When Pacelli was recalled to Rome in 1929 and subsequently made a cardinal and appointed Secretary of State, he requested that Sister Pascalina be permitted to continue working with him. She was the first woman ever to reside in the Apostolic Palace.

In 1939, on the first ballot and by a unanimous [minus one] vote, Eugenio Pacelli became the world’s 260th Pope; the twelfth to take the name “Pius.”Romanità —an unofficial yet rigorous ecclesiastical/Italianate protocol that permeates diplomacy to this day— saw fit to “promote” the new pontiff’s secretary. Henceforth, “Sister” Pascalina was “Mother” Pascalina.

Strong woman that she was, “La Madre” was keenly and constantly aware of the tightrope she was walking —and more so of the snake pit just below it. As the pope’s closest confidante, she strove for anonymity; kept any opinion she might have had on any matter, private or public, strictly to herself; avoided photographers and journalists like the plague and —perhaps most challengingly of all— ignored every cruel rumor and innuendo, never dignifying one of them with a response.

Undoubtedly, Pope Pius XII was a giant among men; an outstanding intellectual; a savior to countless victims of World War II; a courageous advocate for the voiceless; a born leader who understood a complicated world and its leaders, good and evil; a Pope worthy to be called “Great”.It is said that “Behind ever great man is a great woman.” The history of Pope Pius XII and Mother Pascalina requires one very important word change to that maxim: “Beside every great man stands a great woman.”

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No matter what you’re going through now (or may have gone through), you’ll see why you should love and trust in God’s will and long for its fulfillment. Best of all, you’ll learn a sure method for discovering God’s will in any situation today!

As you begin to discern God’s loving hand even in seemingly chaotic events, St. Francis de Sales will lead your mind and your heart to the still waters of God’s gentle consolation.

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The St. Francis de Sales Signature Set are representative of why St. Francis was so well-received during the Counter-Reformation, and indeed, throughout history. One can easily see why St. Francis de Sales received the title “Doctor of Charity” from the works selected (Introduction to the Devout Life; Consoling Thoughts; Sermons; Catholic Controversies), as his outpouring of it is evident in each of the four works. Introduction to the Devout Life is his efforts to help other souls love God like he did; Consoling Thoughts expresses his love for suffering souls in giving them solace and exhortation to continue; Sermons relay his daily love for his flock, preaching to them about the different aspects God’s love; and finally, Catholic Controversies is his apologetical love, exerting effort to win souls back to the Church.
Perhaps more than any other saint, St. Francis preached truth with love. His teachings, his works, and his very presence were consoling to those 72,000 lost souls of Switzerland and to millions of more over the centuries. Now, then, it is our hope that they will offer hope, consolation to a new generation of Catholics and spur on greater love of God and neighbor.

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