Young people help me out

[chemcatholic]

**And the not living with someone until married. I had a boyfriend when I was 18. We dated for 3 years. Had I not lived with him I would never have known that he was such and abusive, physically, mentally, and emotionally, person. He showed no signs of that until about 3 months after we moved in together. I would have ended up marrying him and been one the wiser until it was too late. i thank God all the time that I got out of that relationship. **

---

Shell,

I am 23 and converted to Catholicism from the Baptist denomination. Basically, you lived with your boyfriend both when he was abusive and when he wasn’t. You can’t assume that you wouldn’t have learned of his abusive nature had you not lived with him. If you had observed his abusive nature immediately after moving in with him, then I could see linking the move-in and the abusiveness. But the fact is that you lived with him for three months before you observed signs of abusive behavior, indicating that it was an issue of time and not of living together.

Peace

 

[riabia]

HI! I am 23, have been married for 3 years, and am pregnant with my second child. I agree with the other posters, that you really nead to learn **why **the Church teaches what they do. It is truly beautiful!

You already have a great start- you believe in the Real Presence, and you have parents who have given you a foundation in the faith.

Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.

 

[1ke]

I also did not understand what the Church taught regarding contraception and morality, thinking that the what the world was teaching me (in Cosmo magazine, in school, etc) was so much more with it and logical.

Well, as others have said, please investigate why the church teaches as she does. Truth is eternal, and God loves us. God created us and gives us our purpose and nature. Authentic freedom comes when we operate within our nature. For example, is a fish more free in the water, or out? Is a train more free on the tracks or off? A train of the tracks is not a train exercising its “freedom” to be modern and disregard the “old fashioned” rules about staying on the tracks… a train off the track is a train wreck.

We make human train wrecks out of ourselves when we disregard what God has given us through church teachings-- the Truth about our nature and how to operate that nature with authentic freedom. There is much depth, wisdom, and beauty in what the Church teaches regarding sexuality-- nothing “restrictive” and in fact it is TRULY liberating in a way that the feminist nonsense can never be.

I’d suggest you visit a few websites and obtain a few books that I found helpful as I investigated what the Church taught on this subject. As a convert, I had to get over years of indoctrination by the culture and the protestant mentality that contraception was a moral good.

www.omsoul.com - excellent resources on contraception, natural family planning, and church teaching. They have books, tapes, brochures, pamphlets, etc. I especially recommend obtaining the tape “contraception, why not” by Janet Smith. They’ll send you one for free.

www.ccli.org - for information on natural family planning and God’s plan for our sexuality and fertility. Books by John Kippley, founder of CCLI, and his wife can be found here.

www.catholic.com - Jason Evert’s Pure Love booklet and information.

Also I recommend a small book by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk called “Twelve Tough Issues”… what the catholic church teaches and why. You can get it on Amazon.Com or at a Catholic bookstore. There are church documents that are awesome including Humanae Vitae and Casti Connubii. These are called encyclicals and can be obtained at a Catholic bookstore. The Good News About Sex and Marriage, by Christopher West is a great book you might look into. And, for information about courting versus dating, I recommend you check out I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris.

 

[1ke]

Continued…

I’d also like to offer you some insight, possibly, into your boyfriend situation. If, from the beginning, you had stated your belief in no premarital sex, had focused on building a friendship, had focused on God, prayed together, insisted on a man who would be the spiritual head of the relationship, demanded respect and high standards of conduct… how long would he have been able to make it? Not 3 years, that’s for sure. Men who are in-tune with Catholic teaching on these subjects… who are pro-life, pro-family, and pro-chastity are the kind of men that you will never have to “live with” before marriage to know their true character-- you can see is shining brightly as the lamp set on the hill. These men are godly men and their sights are set on what is good for YOU, your family, and your future together. And, you won’t have to live with the ones who are not such men because they will self-select OUT of a relationship with you when you demand high standards of conduct.

Accept nothing less… I did for way too many years and now that I am in a relationship with such a man I can see how much time I wasted on men like your ex-boyfriend and how foolish I was.

Once you understand the beauty and truth of Catholic teaching I believe you will no longer find it “old fashioned” and you will embrace them with open arms. The problem is tuning out everything that the world is telling you-- it’s compelling but totally false. Get the Janet Smith tape… it’s awesome and free!