Chastity Begins at Home

Changes and Challenges: Where parents and children learn – together – about sex, love and God’s plan

By Rich Reece / Pictures by Denmark Photo & Video

The McVeigh family of Wilson: Deborah, Abby, Tim and Hayden

On a mild spring evening in a classroom at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Apex, 26 mothers and fathers are discussing one of their most important parental responsibilities: teaching their nearly adolescent children about God’s plan for sex and love.

The parents are attending the first of two sessions in “Changes and Challenges,” a program originated by Family Honor (www.familyhonor.org), a Catholic organization founded in South Carolina in 1987 to help parents and children connect on important life values, with a special emphasis on chastity and the goodness of God's gift of sexuality. St. Mary Magdalene is the second parish in the Diocese of Raleigh to invite Changes and Challenges. The first was St. Luke the Evangelist in Raleigh, and in late April the team presented at St. Patrick in Fayetteville.

Lisa Roess, a parishioner at St. Michael the Archangel in Cary, leads the Raleigh team. “Changes and Challenges is different from other chastity/abstinence programs,” she explains. “To start, Family Honor brings parents and children together to learn about chastity, recognizing as the Church does that the family is the domestic church and the parents are the chief teachers in that church.”

“Unlike abstinence,” the program’s introduction states, “chastity is a virtue (a positive habit learned over time). It’s the spiritual power that frees love from selfishness and aggression.” One of the presenters at the parents’ evening explains, “Charity is the source and goal of all virtues. Chastity is charity applied to sexuality. Even married couples are called to express sexual desire with respect and reverence.”

In the first session, parents are encouraged about the importance of their involvement in presenting sexuality to their children in a Catholic context, and in counteracting the false messages about love abounding in our society. Moms and dads may feel at times like kids tune them out, but studies show that parents who are warm, approachable and who clearly state their values have more influence than media or peers in protecting adolescents from engaging in risk-taking behaviors.

On the first night, participants learn about the developmental tasks of children, emphasizing their middle years. They discuss their own children’s progress and assess their parenting styles. The team then explains what will take place in the second session, usually one week later to give parents time to consider whether to continue with their children and if so to prepare them.

On the second evening, parents will attend with their 6^th-grade children, fathers with sons and mothers with daughters. In separate areas, the two groups will see presentations and join in discussions about sexuality and chastity. They will be presented with the biological aspects of puberty, fertility and reproduction, but at the same time become familiar with the acronym SPICE and the crucial importance of seeing themselves (and recognizing others) as God does -- as whole persons: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Creative and Emotional. And they will learn practical tips for practicing chastity, such as choosing friends who share your values, advertising the whole you (SPICE) – not just your body, and saying a prayer for chastity each day.

Yolanda Craven and her daughter, Rebekah, and Deborah Adams and her daughter, Elizabeth, drove to Raleigh from their homes in Wilson to attend Changes and Challenges.

Although Changes and Challenges is relatively new to the Diocese of Raleigh, those families who have participated are eager to share their appreciation.

Yolanda Craven and her daughter, Rebekah, came from Wilson to attend Changes and Challenges at St. Luke’s. “I really want to see this spread throughout the diocese,” Yolanda says. “It’s a wonderful program. The anatomy was presented in a very specific but age appropriate way. And everything was shown as God’s plan, God’s design. Something with a greater purpose. My daughter loved it. We made it a special mother-daughter day, went out to lunch. I think it brought us together. It was something we could share, as we share the same anatomy.”

Another Wilson family, Tim and Deborah McVeigh, attended with their daughter, Abby. “I knew I needed to discuss sexuality with my daughter,” Deborah says, “but I didn’t know how. This opened a door. Some things went over her head, but this brought us closer, so when she does have questions I think we’ll have a basis for discussion. Abby will be going to public school, and I liked that Changes and Challenges presented sex in the context of marriage.”

Don and Olga Monroe are parishioners at St. Luke’s with a daughter and a son. “I was thankful for the program,” Olga says. “When I was learning about these things growing up, they weren’t presented in the context of God’s plan, and I regret that. The biology was over the level for my daughter, but children… I’m fascinated by what a creation of God they are! They take what they need. I love that the Church today is really trying to help people understand not just ‘You must’ but ‘Why?’ After the parent night, I wondered if the information might be too much, but I prayed to Mary and we went. And learning about chastity was wonderful for me and my husband as well as for the kids.”

Family Honor has programs that continue age-appropriate chastity education for 7^th and 8^th graders, and for high school students, covering topics like homosexuality, dating and marriage. Lisa Roess says the team hopes to have the program for grades 7-8 available in this diocese in a year.

Participants say the Challenges and Changes is a great starting point for communication with their youngsters about “those issues.” But the program emphasizes that modeling the virtue of chastity is an ongoing endeavor.

Suzie Farrell, a parishioner at Our Lady of Lourdes who attended the St. Luke sessions with her husband, Todd, and their son, Michael, found the program “very positive. It’s important to bring Michael along in an understanding of chastity before the hormones kick in. But you’ve got to keep talking and explaining about dating, respect and so on. It’s not a one-time shot.”

Chastity in Marriage?

Jeanne and Tim Thelen

In 20 years of practicing Natural Family Planning (NFP) and ten years of teaching it, Tim and Jeanne Thelen have learned that it’s much more than a way to be aware of a woman’s fertility cycles. As members of The Couple to Couple League International (www.ccli.org), they instruct couples in the Sympto-Thermal Method of NFP, which relies on the observation of three useful fertility signs in a woman. Couples learn to observe, record, and interpret these signs with a high degree of accuracy. In fact, studies have shown this method to be 99% effective in indicating the times when conception is possible.

When you talk with Jeanne about NFP, though, the emphasis is less on biology than on marriage, and the virtue of marital chastity. “Tim and I were engaged in college,” Jeanne says, “and we had a very clear idea of the chastity our faith called us to as single people. But I realized I’d never been taught about the way the Church viewed chastity for married couples. Did it mean that suddenly anything goes? No, the Church says that even after marriage you are called to a certain level of… temperance. And NFP enhances that mutual awareness and respect, because there need to be times of abstinence, other ways of showing affection. And you realize together the really amazing power of sexuality.”

Together is an important word. “One special thing about NFP is that it’s a method that involves the couple,” Jeanne explains. “Artificial contraception usually involves just one person or the other. And we talk to many couples who are in deep trouble with their sexuality because they aren’t connected as a couple to what they’re doing. You can get to a place where one spouse is just a vehicle for the physical satisfaction of the other. My husband likes to say when he’s instructing men that marital chastity means transforming the purely physical drive into one of generosity and an awareness of the gift of sexuality.”

There are several misconceptions about NFP. For example, it’s not the same as the rhythm method, which did not account for cycle irregularity. Another misconception Jeanne sees is “about the Church’s motive in its teachings about birth control. People sometimes see them as negative or oppressive, when in fact they are about understanding who we are as human beings and as God’s creations. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body was such a gift to couples and to our ministry in showing how we narrow and limit sexuality to an act, when in fact it’s integral to all we are.”

Couple to Couple NFP instruction is done in a classroom format. There are four sessions spaced a month apart, with help as needed in between, and class sizes have ranged, Jeanne says, from five couples to twenty. “I hope that couples who are just thinking about NFP, for whatever reason, won’t be put off by thinking it’s too big a commitment of time or money (usually $75),” Jeanne says. “Come to class and see what it’s all about. There’s no obligation.” Classes are advertised in parish bulletins, or information on upcoming classes is available from Linda Bedo, Diocesan Director of Marriage preparation and Enrichment, at 919-821-9753.