Engaged: Line to impurity?

[LetLoveLead]

Hello,
I am engaged and my fiance and I know that we have grown much since the time we started dating over 2 years ago. We both have mutual wishes to be as faithful to God as possible when it comes to impurity. I still have some questions as to where there might be sin when it comes to the way we show affection towards one another. I am very sensitive to being aroused or at least have an erection by sometimes looking to much into her eyes. They seem to be more like passionate feelings that can come out. We have agreed to not kiss on the lips until our wedding day, and we only mostly hug, hold hands, and look each other in the eyes with deep affections. So given a little inside information my first question would be is if arousal, and not even that sexual kind, but more of that sensual(intimate but not sexually) kind would be sin? My intentions are to show her physical affection or to express my great love for her, but nothing that would hurt Our Lord or be offensive to Him. Sometimes just hugging her I can get an erection. I lived a life of sexual sin in the past for over 13 years and I believe that this sensitivity is still trained in my body(gave my life to Christ when I was 24 and am 26 now). Also, what would be examples of impurity if we were to hug, or caress the others cheek(face), or give the other a back massage? If these things start to arouse is it a sin to continue with it, even if you are trusting in the Lord and have no intention towards being inmpure?

 

[Dorothy]

Hello,
I am engaged and my fiance and I know that we have grown much since the time we started dating over 2 years ago. We both have mutual wishes to be as faithful to God as possible when it comes to impurity. I still have some questions as to where there might be sin when it comes to the way we show affection towards one another. I am very sensitive to being aroused or at least have an erection by sometimes looking to much into her eyes. They seem to be more like passionate feelings that can come out. We have agreed to not kiss on the lips until our wedding day, and we only mostly hug, hold hands, and look each other in the eyes with deep affections. So given a little inside information my first question would be is if arousal, and not even that sexual kind, but more of that sensual(intimate but not sexually) kind would be sin? My intentions are to show her physical affection or to express my great love for her, but nothing that would hurt Our Lord or be offensive to Him. Sometimes just hugging her I can get an erection. I lived a life of sexual sin in the past for over 13 years and I believe that this sensitivity is still trained in my body(gave my life to Christ when I was 24 and am 26 now). Also, what would be examples of impurity if we were to hug, or caress the others cheek(face), or give the other a back massage? If these things start to arouse is it a sin to continue with it, even if you are trusting in the Lord and have no intention towards being inmpure?

I commend you for both wanting to do the right thing. Look at your last sentence. Yes, if those actions start to arouse you it is a sin to continue with it. It is correct to avoid actions that arouse you altogether.

Your discipline and love for the Lord in this way will help towards a great marriage!

 

[CallMeDad]

Maybe you are getting a little too freaked out. Your courtship, and your engagement, should be a time of joy. It should also be a time of great affection, maybe even passionate affection, and affection is definitely communicated through loving touches.

Touch is not sinful. Jesus touched almost everyone that he healed. I believe that women are wired to a high responsiveness to touch. In my situation, my wife really needs to be touched in order to feel loved. I think you should maintain boundaries, but I do not think you should let fear of sin turn your courtship cold. Just control yourself and maintain boundaries.

 

[R_C]

You wake up so many memories with your words.

I recommend right away that you start finding out about the Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II. Christopher West has done a great job diffusing it, and there is a sample from one of his many events here.

You love her, which means you also like how she looks, and that triggers natural responses in your body and mind. That is very good. You are not desiring parts of her as means for fulfilling a concupiscence…that would be lustful, as this section of the Catechism (which is worth reviewing) states:

Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.

The Catechism also says:

Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in chastity.

Your words depict a very chaste relationship in which you are helping one another into discovering true love. The expressions of affection that you describe, holding hands, looking into each others eyes, do not seem to me (but that’s my opinion only) as belonging exclusively to married love. However, I am more concerned about the intention, which you say are “to show her physical affection or to express my great love for her”. Wonderful in my opinion, because they are not geared towards you, but towards her; you are not being egoist but altruist. Yet, be careful not to lead her into temptation…

If you have repented of previous sins - especially sins of lust, which are tough ones - then don’t worry about the amount of years, for the Lord says through His prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah:

I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.

For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

A useful aid in the fight against the sins of the flesh is chapter 19 of “The Spiritual Combat” by Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli, one of the most important works on devout life. Somewhere in the book, lust is compared to bringing a piece of paper next to fire: it will catch fire. So make sure to keep your love as pristine as possible, putting down fires as soon as you notice them…

Remember the words of St. Paul to Titus (Titus 1:15)…insofar as your intentions are pure, everything is pure. The moment that lust enters your intentions, nothing is pure.

That’s a lot of writing. Maybe because you remind me of me. I pray for the happiness of you both: for her, guardian of purity, and for you, who may one day receive the authority of the husband.

Pax Christi tecum

 

[LetLoveLead]

In response to the concern you had of what I described as “to show her physical affection or to express my great love for her.” I mean that in ways like kissing her cheek, holding hands, neck massage. In the past we realized we went to far in ways that were to arousing or passionate. In the first year of dating we kissed much. But through the second year we have backed up from to much physical contact, and yet it seems like we have “charged” our relationship to a certain way that may tend more towards how a married couple might look at each other. Her love language is quality time and physical touch and so are mine. Thus when we cut out physical contact like hugging or dancing(slow dancing), ect, its like we are distant, and we both feel it. But its like just being physical even in the slightest can make my body “excited” or slightly aroused. I have no desire to be this way and it is like a cross. My past life of sin I believe has damaged me to be this sensitive I think. I did go to confession years ago for this past life and go regularly.
-Thank you for yours prayers

 

[animalis]

Also, what would be examples of impurity if we were to hug, or caress the others cheek(face), or give the other a back massage? If these things start to arouse is it a sin to continue with it, even if you are trusting in the Lord and have no intention towards being inmpure?

This is a quote from the Douay-Rheims (an older translation), “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, Idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, Envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like. Of the which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.” St. Thomas Aquinas said, “On the part of the body, mention is made of “uncleanness,” which may refer either to the inordinate emission of any kind of superfluities, or especially to the emission of the semen.” (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 148, a. 6) So you know that you cannot prolong your passions by behaviors that do not check them. Not to check them would be the sin of omission that pertains to the actual act of which pertains to the offence of uncleanness.

(The RSV translation [newer translation] joins uncleanness and immodesty as one word - impurity. The lists that are a part of St. Paul’s style are shorten in the RSV.)