Let's start off again with prayers. If you guys would join me in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Dear Jesus, today we pray for the gift of purity so that we can be free to love, and we entrust our time together to Our Lady as we pray, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen. Saint Joseph, pray for us in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Like I said at the end of the last talk, you guys ever feel like when you do hear talks on dating, all they ever talk to you about is everything you're not supposed to do. Have you ever kind of felt that way after dating talk?
All you get is what you're not supposed to do. So what I want to do today is only focus basically on what you are supposed to do to have a successful Catholic dating relationship, okay? So first thing I would say, enjoy the season of singleness in your life. Now some of you may be thinking, Jason, I've enjoyed that season quite long enough, thank you very much.
It's like telling someone who lives in Antarctica to enjoy the season of winter. It's kind of run its course. I'm ready for something new.
So why am I telling you to kind of savor what you just want to get over with? Well, I personally think that today dating relationships take off a bit too fast. They get too serious too quickly.
I mean, I'm having high school girls tell me like, Jason, I can't break up with my boyfriend. He told me if I ever broke up with him, he would die without me. And I'm like, honey, if he can't live without a girlfriend, he doesn't need a girlfriend, he needs a therapist, okay?
Like, this is not dating, this is a hostage situation, alright? This is just not healthy. But they, I don't know, it's like they just get too intense too fast. And like, girls I think are particularly guilty of this. Where you meet the cute guy, you start hanging out, you start texting, then it's kissing, and then like, three weeks of kissing the boy, you're like emotionally married to him.
Like stalking him on social media and picking out a wedding dress on... Pinterest and you only known the guy for like three weeks and then four weeks in it like hits you and you're like boo I didn't know he flirts with other girls. I didn't know he looks at porn.
I didn't know he drinks I didn't know he builds a methamphetamine lab in his closet with his friends on Wednesdays. I didn't know that it's like Sweetheart, that's the point to take your time and find yourself before finding love and one of the benefits that you're gonna receive by focusing on a grace filled pure, simple friendship as a foundation of love, you girls are going to get some really good answers to some really important questions. Questions like, who is this guy?
No, no, no, seriously. Who is this guy? I know he's cute and he smells nice, whatever. Who is he? What type of guys does he hang out with?
That'll tell you almost everything you need to know about a man. What do his ex-girlfriends think about him? Is he able to maintain a friendship with someone after a breakup?
Or does it always seem to end in an emotional divorce? How does he treat girls he's not attracted to? How does he treat the women he lives with, such as his mother and his sisters?
Because if he treats those women with contempt, then you have the same in your future if you choose to live with him one day. You get answers to these questions. Does this guy really share your morality? Or does he just kind of respect and tolerate and put up with your morality? Look at how this guy's dad treats his mom.
Because if his father does not treat his mother in a loving way, then that man will have to exert a lot of effort to learn to treat a woman in a different way. I'm not saying he's going to end up just like his dad, but hopefully he's got a man at home who models him real masculine love. Guys, you get some really good answers during this time of friendship too. Answers like, who is this girl? Like really, why am I so attracted to her?
Is it because of what she looks like? Okay, well what if every girl in the world looked exactly like her? What is it about her that would have drawn me to her? Does she bring out the best in me?
Is she virtuous? Does she make me a better man and make me wanna be closer to God? You get answers to these solid questions.
And so that's the first point. Enjoy that season of singleness and start with the foundation of friendship like concrete under the size skyscraper. Point number two, I would say, when it comes to dating and relationships is that you have to understand the purpose of dating.
The purpose of dating is to find a spouse. Not because you're bored, not because you're lonely, not because everyone else has one. The purpose of dating is to find a spouse. It is a job interview.
You have to be ready. to fire people and tell them you are not qualified for the job here. This is a serious thing.
And so what this means is when you date, it's like you're getting on a freeway. That is a road that only has two exits, breakup and marriage, and that's it. And if that's the reality of it, What is the point of committing to anybody unless you can see yourself with that person for good? Now, I do not mean that you have to marry the first person that you date, but that you have no business at all dating anybody unless you can see yourself truly marrying them one day, which means no missionary dating.
Dating someone, hoping you can fix them and change them and tweak them and all that stuff. And girls are particularly guilty of this because you can see the potential in guys that they might not even see in themselves. But you end up turning a person into a project. It's like those home makeover TV shows.
I mean, wasn't there one of those in Texas? Like, was it in Waco or whatever where they filmed this thing? Yeah. And so a lot of girls, like, you fall in love with this broken down property because you see all the potential if you just invest enough in it.
And a lot of girls are dating like that, that if the guy were a house, he'd be like some dilapidated haunted crack house in Waco. And you're thinking, well, I can put a swimming pool in there. We're going to buy new curtains and it's going to be brand new. Like, no.
Don't date your imagination. You don't want to date anybody hoping they're going to change. You want to date someone hoping they're going to stay the way they are for good.
Yeah, we all got our imperfections, but if there's some major red flags, don't jump in thinking you're going to change that person. And so girls will do this, and her girlfriends will tell her, can't you see he's bad for you? Can't you see he has problems?
She'll make excuses for that guy all day long. I know he comes from a bad family, and he's made some poor decisions, and he's a convicted felon and everything, and his friends call him El Chapo. But he has a beautiful heart inside. Dude, quit dating your imagination, all right?
So no missionary dating, which also means if dating is for finding a spouse, this is not a decision you want to take lightly. Don't go Lone Ranger, meaning, oh, it's just her and I against the whole world. That's immature. No, I got to tap into some wisdom of some other people.
Because when you get real close to someone, physically, emotionally, sexually, romantically, it's like holding a book two inches away from your eyes. You can't read the text, it's just too close. If you pull it at a distance, the words become crisp.
Likewise, when we become so involved romantically, we can't see the red flags, whereas other people, our friends, our family, that are standing at a greater distance can see things that we can't pick up. So we need the wisdom. To bring that person around our family, to around our priest, around our youth. Mom, Dad, what do you think about this person?
You want to tap into their wisdom and remember the whole purpose of dating is to find a spouse. Third thing, if you really want love, okay, the place to look is not out there. Is she the one? Is he the one?
Maybe that's the one. Oh, she's sitting next to me at mass. I can't wait for the sign of peace.
Here we go. Hey, it's fine. It's totally fine. We all do it all the time. It's fine.
But understand. Real love ultimately isn't about finding some perfect person that's going to complete us. Real love is about wanting to grow in perfection to become the person that they deserve for you to be, which means you need to take a very sober and mature assessment of your interior life.
Is there junk in my life right now that I know would be cancer to a marriage, that I know would be toxic to a sacramental marriage, and it's going on in my life right now? If it is, now's the time to root it out. And it could be anything. It could be stuff like pornography.
And people think, oh, well, porn, that's a guy problem. It's not true. I know a girl who struggled with porn for years.
She said, you know what? She said, when you're a guy who looks at porn, she said, they all know they're into it. It's like they're in this big prison together.
Oh, we're all stuck in porn. One day we'll get out of here. But she said, when you're the girl who looks at it, she said, it feels like you're in prison, but it feels like you're each in your own jail because you think you are the only woman there. But the fact is, lust is not a guy problem, it's a human problem. A lot of girls start looking at porn, girls look at it out of curiosity.
Like, what do I need to look like? What do I need to do? Who do I need to be?
But women, you were never created to be porn, you were created to be loved. And if we can just get rid of that junk, we can be free to love. Likewise as men. I grew up with that stuff all around.
Your buddies had it, your friends had it. My high school, one guy passed out porn from his locker to anyone who'd vote for him as senior class vice president. Dude, he's in the hallway. Vote for Travis, vote for Travis. I don't know where he is today.
He's probably in Congress by now. But, you know, we would just laugh it off. And at the time, we're just like, oh, no one's getting hurt.
Everybody's looking at us. I'm not actually doing it. But I didn't realize, man, it was just emasculating us by the boatload. We had no idea how to look at women except through this lens of lust that had been Put into our eyes by all the porn, we figure, oh my God, it's just the way we are, but we didn't realize what it was doing to us. In fact, I know a guy, a girl teaches at an all-girls high school that I was speaking at, and the teacher brought in like five college guys to her classroom to talk to 30 high school girls about how to practice your faith when you get to college.
During this little classroom discussion, it came up that one of the guys looks at porn. And the teacher said, in front of 30 girls, Well, don't you think that that could present a problem in your marriage? He said, what?
Porn? Did I look at porn? He said, why would that be a problem in marriage? He said, isn't that what a wife is for? It's like, oh, no, technically not.
No, marriage is not the fulfillment of porn. Porn is the distortion of human love. And so we've got to take a real, real look.
When I'm bored, when I'm lonely, when I'm angry, when I'm stressed, And when I'm tired, when I'm in that moment of desolation, how am I getting out of it? That is one of the greatest measures of your affective or emotional maturity level. If when I'm bored, lonely, angry, stressed, tired, I'm getting drunk, smoking some weed, hooking up, doing this, looking at porn, it's basically, I'm not healing my wound, I'm just infecting it.
When I'm in that time of loneliness, am I running to some porn or whatever to try to get me out of it for a second? And I only feel deeper afterwards? Or am I seeking out real communion with friends, with God, going and exercising, doing works of mercy, doing service?
We've got to take a real look. Like, is there stuff in my life that I really need to, for love of God and my future spouse and vocation, to start weeding that out right now? And so that's point number three.
Don't look out for love. First begin by looking in. Point number four, man, this is huge.
Make commitment clear. Define the relationship. What I'm finding is a third of the girls I meet are dating, a third are not dating, and the other third, they don't even know if they are dating or not dating.
I'll be like, well, are you guys dating? They're like, well, kind of dating. I'm like, ooh, kind of dating, what's that? And she says, oh, well, we went on a date, but we're not dating, but we are seeing each other, but we're not official, because technically, you know, he hasn't changed his status on Facebook, and so, but we're definitely a thing. Okay, dude, what is a thing?
Like a thing is like a bunion on your foot. Like that's the thing. You want to be a thing with a boy? Well, no, but I don't know what he's thinking.
And so what you end up with right now is our culture. And you know what our culture is right now? We have a culture of single people who pretend like they're dating.
We have a culture of dating people who behave like they're married. And now we're stuck with a culture of married people who seem to think they're single. Everything is out of order.
And so girls, if you're single, quit pretending like you're his girlfriend because you are not his girlfriend. If you are his girlfriend, do not behave like his bride because you are not his wife. And if you are his wife, then live as one. And would you imagine if men would just do the same thing, how much simpler dating and relationships would be?
To simply be where we are and to define these relationships. And I think ultimately, I think this is the responsibility of the guy, to be honest with his intentions towards a girl and speak to her to make it clear. I remember one priest, he said this, don't be an indecisive wimp.
Hoping for an apparition. Trust in God and pop the question. Specifically, we got to just initiate love. And please understand, you know, we got to be specific with men. Because men do not do well with abstract instructions, okay?
Like you wives know this very well. I mean, my wife will speak to me in like vague, abstract. I have no idea what she's talking about. She'll be like, honey, I could use a little more help around the house.
I don't know what that means. I'm like, hmm, house big, hmm. And she'll be like, take out the trash. I'm like, okay, now we're having a conversation. Now these are specifics.
I can work with this. And so the reason why dating's so confusing is partly because men are never taught how to date. You know what men get taught?
Be a gentleman. Oh, okay, thanks. Go ask a teenage guy what it means to be a gentleman. He doesn't have a clue.
Like, what does it mean to be a gentleman? He'll be like, oh, well, if there's a Girl, and there's a door, you open the door for the girl. Okay, good, good, good, good, good, good.
What else, what else? He'll be like, well, if there's another door, that door also is opened for the... Stretch a little bit. Okay, here, let's just get specific. Specific, one.
Don't flirt with girls. Men don't flirt. Look at the definition of a flirt in a dictionary.
It is to pay romantic and amorous attention towards another person without serious intentions. There's no problem with being, you know, playful and interested in someone, but to do so without serious intentions and caring for their heart, that's a flirty boy. May God save the world from flirty boys.
We need men who will actually... Amen? Amen to this!
And so, so... The solution to this is, don't just be a flirty boy, what a man does is he discerns first, is this the right girl and is this the right time? Because you can find the right girl, but she's going to Florida State University next year, and you're going to Washington State.
We're going to have a long distance, maybe it's not the perfect time, even though it seems like the perfect girl, so the answer to that might be to focus on the friendship instead of diving into the romance. So first comes discernment. You discern if you should be in a relationship, and then you pursue her with sincerity and commit to her with clarity.
Now, this is not a robotic formula. You don't go up to a girl, I've discerned, I should pursue you. It's like Catholic stalker from the workshop. But you've got to first discern, pursue, sincerity. And then let's say you ask her on a date.
Step number one, plan the date. Don't sit around, what do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do? We could play Minecraft.
It's like, no! Plan the date! Okay, put thought into this.
And so, you plan the date, and then let's say you get to a restaurant. Okay, you get to a restaurant, pick her seat for her. Not because I'm gonna tell you where to sit, but look, if it's a beautiful view, you have to give her the view. If there's no view, she's the view. You take the seat facing the wall, so she knows during dinner, your attention is on her, not on ESPN or the cute little hostess walking by, and it makes her feel honored.
You tell this to teenage guys, they're like, Oh, that's good. That's good. I'm right. That one.
If we could just have these specifics, we can go. In fact, there was a professor at Boston College and she noticed none of her students are going on dates. Really bugged her.
So she, you know what? She said, I'm going to offer extra credit to any of you who go on a date. And they were like, wow, what's a date? And she said, okay, you have to ask them out in broad daylight and you have to keep it short, 90 minutes or whatever. No alcohol.
no drinking, no sex. Come back, tell me how your date was, and I'll give you extra credit. Now, the students were intrigued by this revolutionary concept, but they were also troubled because they wanted this, but they didn't know how to ask anybody out in broad daylight without alcohol, without some, you know, alcohol-induced hookup. To actually know their name can be really scary, they said, but in the same respect, in this world of hiding behind our cell phones to ask each other out, swiping in and out of relationships.
We kind of prefer the risk of face-to-face. There's something alluring in a man who has the courage to face the fear of rejection. Because if you don't think she's worth the risk of rejection, then honestly, I don't think you clearly desire her enough.
And so we've got to drop the phones, drop the internet interaction, and let's start having more of these face-to-face authentic relationships that are simply rooted in reality. Now girls, understand in me saying this, I'm not saying that it's your job to be passive. Like some girls fall into that extreme where she's like, oh, he'll come to me, you know, he'll come to me one day, oh, he'll come to me one day.
Like Mildred, you're 97, oh, he'll come to me one day. It's like, yeah, maybe if he works for UPS, like you got to get out there, girl. And so, yeah, you got to get out there to be actively receptive to go out. And I think this is ultimately what we want, these types of relationships. Now, point number five, I would say, do not let fear dictate your dating decisions.
Some people do not date out of fear. Some guys don't date out of fear of losing my freedom. Well, if I date, someone better might come along. If I date, I'm going to lose myself. But no, a man only finds himself through the fullest giving of himself.
That's what the church teaches. And freedom exists for the sake of love, John Paul II said. It exists to be given away. While some people remain imprisoned in their fear of giving themselves away, some girls in particular are afraid of...
giving their heart away because they're afraid it's just going to get broken again. And so, well, if I love, that means vulnerability. If I'm vulnerable, I could get hurt again.
So I'm just going to lock up my heart and give up hope and love. But listen to what C.S. Lewis says about this.
C.S. Lewis was talking about those who kind of are afraid of getting hurt, and so they kind of lock up their hearts. Listen to what he says here.
C.S. Lewis wrote this. He said, let me open up.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything and your heart will be certainly be wrong and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it up carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries.
Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, and airless, it will change. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell. Mother Angelica added to this. She said, the worst harm you do yourself is if you cease to love. Because you might be hurt or you have been hurt.
You shrivel up like an old prune. Don't do it. Do that. Be willing to be hurt. The pain of trying to keep yourself from being vulnerable is much greater than the pain of loving and losing.
Remember that. And so do not allow the fear of brokenness to dictate your decisions, but be willing to discern first that, hey, maybe I got hurt in the past, but maybe I just didn't discern through enough. Maybe I could have done it better. But don't blame yourself, but don't let those fears dictate your decisions.
So whereas some people avoid dating out of fear, other people are dating because of fear. I don't want to be alone. And because I don't want to be alone, because I don't think I'm enough, maybe I just need to lower my morals a little bit.
And then we get disappointed because lust never satisfies love. And then we just resign ourselves. Well, yeah, I know I did this, but it's not like I did that.
And then we begin to justify, and it can lead to a place of numbness in our lives. Oh, yeah, look, I know I did this, but I'm not all brokenhearted about it. I know girls that will say, yeah, I can sleep with guys, and I'm not all devastated if he doesn't text me the next day. I'm sexually liberated. This is not liberation.
Liberation. This is numbness. This is a third degree burn of the heart.
First degree, it's painful. Second degree, blisters. Third degree, it's black dead. Put a pin in it, you wouldn't feel a thing. That's like the hearts of so many young people giving away so much, they don't feel anymore.
But the solution to all of this is not just to give up hope, but to realize, hey, God can undo a lot of this hurt. But we need to make sure. that you do not enter a relationship looking for the love that only God himself can give to you. Because if we do that, the relationship will become an idol, and every idol is meant to be broken, and every idol will even break the heart of its worshiper. God must be first.
Not only to trust him with our heart, but like this last point, to trust God with our bodies, which means in the relationship, guard the purity of the relationship. Because as we get older, we're not 12 years old, 11 years old, we start thinking, look, I'm 16, 17, whatever. I've been with my girlfriend for two years now. We can do this kind of stuff. We start justifying it.
Why? Because we think, well, I found the one. I've never felt this way about a girl before.
I know she's the one. But I'm telling you, I met a girl once and I knew she was the one. Never felt this way about a girl before. And unfortunately, she ended up going to a different third grade than I did. And then I never saw her again after that second grade summer.
And, you know, it took a while, but I moved on. And then I met a girl in high school. Dude, absolutely knew she was the one. Never felt this way about a girl.
Went to a couple dances together. It didn't work out, and she married a friend of mine. And that's okay. And then got to college, met a girl.
I absolutely knew she was one because I had never, ever felt this way. And we dated for six months. It didn't work out.
We broke up, stayed friends. She married a friend of mine. That's okay. And met another girl. We dated for two years.
We tried on wedding rings together. Our parents loved each other. Didn't work out.
I broke up with her. We stayed good friends, and she married a friend of mine. And then...
Got to my master's program, met another girl there, graduate studies, I knew she was the one. And we dated for two years, totally thought it was going to work out, didn't work out, she married a friend of mine, and that's okay. And then, when I was 24 years old, I met my wife, Kristalina.
And by then, all my friends had married my ex-girlfriend, so she had no choice but to stay with me, and we got married. But the moral of the story being is that you could never have convinced me, with any of those girls, that I was with anyone but the one. Because I thought you could judge the future, the destiny of a relationship, by the intensity of your present emotions. But I realized I was just playing God. Because one of the weddings I was invited to, and I remember going to the wedding and standing in the back of the church, and they announced for the first time, we all want you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Everybody's clapping, I start clapping, and here they come walking down the aisle, my friend with my ex-girlfriend.
And then it dawned on me like, woo, I've done this with that guy's wife. I've done that with that guy's wife. Yeah, I know we didn't have sex, but we did other stuff because I knew that we were meant to be.
And I realized that I had not waited to receive her from the hands of the father. I had grasped her out of the hands of the father because I knew. the future instead of trusting in his timing for the day that he would give her to me as my bride. And so I realized I need to change the way I date. I can't be dating people as if I'm their husband when I'm not.
And I started to bring purity more into the relationships. And that purity became like a super glue that drew us so much more closer together than those other relationships were. And granted, it's difficult.
And some guys say, what if you really love each other? I mean, if you really love this girl, how come you can't sleep with her if you really love her? What's love? To do what's best for her.
Is it best for her to wake up? My mom will find out. I spoke at a high school in Texas.
They had 87 girls pregnant on campus. It didn't include junior high. It brought the pregnancies over 100. But how many pregnancies do you think that school would have if it were the guys who would get pregnant?
I mean, girls, could you imagine, even if for one month of the year, if guys could get pregnant, what would happen? Let's say June is male fertility month. I mean, the guys would be like, it is National Abstinence Awareness Month.
This month I've got my pledge card purity ring set to go for... 30 days, and some guy will say to me, oh, but I'm telling you, I really love this girl I'm sleeping with. If a guy loves a girl he's sleeping with, how come if they're in bed together at her house and her dad comes home, the guy will jump out of like a five-story window rather than face the dad?
This happened to my friend John in high school. He's over at my friend Michelle's house, and they weren't even supposed to be seeing each other. They're up in her bedroom messing around, and her dad came home, and they heard dad's, and dad sees John's car out front.
He's like, whoa, boom, busted around. They hear him coming upstairs. My friend John.
John's freaking out because he's trapped. He's like, Michelle, where can I hide? In the closet, the desk, where can I, the microwave? Anyway, Michelle's bed is like six inches off the ground.
He's like, honey, I'm going under there. And he dives under the bed and wiggles under the mattress. He's like, and the bed's like moving up and down in his chest. Dad breaks through it and boom, where's John?
Michelle Smoot, she's like, John, who? It's like, sweetheart, bed's levitating behind you. There's the clues.
Dad rubs up the bed, looks underneath. My friend John is on the floor in the corner, shivering like a rat out of the bed. Like, what is he doing there? I mean, if he really loves this girl, why does he know, boy, you better hide from the man who loves her the most? Because he knows in the depths of his heart, this has nothing to do with love and sacrifice.
It's about lust and pleasure. And so authentic love does not mean giving in to the passions of the moment, no matter how emotionally close you feel. It's about desiring ultimately what's best for that person's future, their body, their heart, and their soul. And so how do we live this out on a daily basis? Well, you guys sent in a ton of questions that we want to be able to run through.
And I know we only got 20 minutes, so I'm going to plow through as many questions as we possibly can. You know, one of the questions was, you know, what if I've already done it? You know, what if I already had sex?
Like, what do we do then? Step number one, go to the sacrament of reconciliation. Some people are like, I want to go to confession.
What if I tell the priest what I did? Like, that's the point. What do you think you invented is sin?
He's going to call the Vatican. I've never heard of this before, Pope Francis. Dude, Pope Francis wouldn't care. He'd be like, no hablo ingles.
Click. So just. Go. Go. And don't, seriously, don't just like have a good confession, like have a great confession.
Leave nothing out. Some of you've been to confession a bunch of times, and there's still that sin you won't say. Do not go to confession one more time without saying that thing, so that you can leave this conference not just emotionally motivated, you can leave this conference as pure as the day that you were baptized.
That's the gift that's waiting for you in the second reconciliation. Take advantage of it. And so if you're in a relationship where this is going on, you've got to talk to that person and say, look, maybe they are not here this weekend.
And then you've got to go home and you've got to explain to them what you heard this weekend. And you can say, well, honey, I want you to watch the talk that I watched. And you can just get on YouTube and watch the Steubenville videos, videos of my chastity talks. Show them the videos because it's going to be a real test of love because they might say, oh, okay, if this is what you want to do, I'm okay with that. But three weeks from now, Is it back to the same old stuff?
One girl came up to me in Texas, dating this controlling, possessive, abusive older guy. I told her, sweetheart, you deserve a lot better than the guy, break up. She said, I can't break up. I've given him everything, my virginity, my reputation, my friends, my faith.
I can't let go of him, he's everything to me. I said, look, I know it's hard, but look, just tell him no more sex, watch what happens. She said, okay, I'll do that. She took off her necklace and gave it to me.
She said, he makes me wear this, he's so possessive. I said, okay, I'll throw it away for you. And she left.
Five minutes later, she came back. and I dumped him. That was quick.
She said, yep. I told him no more sex. He slammed his locker shut.
He threw a book at me. He said, where's your necklace? She said, I gave it to the chastity guy.
But you see what happens. She tested his love. Do you love me?
Do you want me? Or do you only want the pleasure that you're getting from me? Because ladies, what you win a man with is what you keep him with. If you win him with pleasure, well, now you can keep him with pleasure. But here's the problem.
Pleasure is repeatable. He can get it off the internet. He can get it from another girl. He can find that anywhere.
If you win him with your body, you can now keep him with your body. But here's the problem. Every woman has a body.
I can't remember the last woman I met who did not have a body. This is a repeatable asset. But if you win him with who you are as a human person, these relationships are far more likely to last. And so you can potentially start over with this guy. But he can't be the guy who's willing to wait for you.
You want a man who's willing to wait with you, that you don't have to play the chastity cop, that every time he's tempted, you've got to say no, and every time you're tempted, he's saying yes. That's not a healthy dynamic. You've got to be in this struggle together. So next question.
How do you talk to your significant other about God without risking a breakup? And another one was similar. How do I talk, how do I tell my boyfriend, girlfriend, I'm saving myself for marriage?
Here's the deal. If you're already dating this person, and they don't know... about how important God and chastity is in your life, you dated them much too quickly. These important things need to be discussed long, long before a dating relationship begins because we have no business entering a romantic relationship if we don't know where that person stands.
with God, sex, and morality. These discussions need to come sooner. But you say, well, how do I do it without risking a breakup?
You have to risk a breakup, because what's the other option? Remain silent for the rest of your life out of fear that if you tell them who you truly are, they won't accept you? That is not healthy love. Real love is when you can risk a breakup. Because you've got to test that love.
Does he love you for who you are or who he thinks that you are? And so have the courage to be authentic with this person. Next question. Is cheating, not bisexual acts, necessarily sinning? Yes, it is sinning.
Because we're not animals, okay? We have a soul. We have emotions.
If I look at porn, I'm cheating on my wife, okay? Porn is cheating. Cheating is not simply what you do with your body. It's what you do with your heart. your imagination, your eyes.
We all know this to be true. I mean, imagine if you're having breakfast with your boyfriend or girlfriend this morning, and you're like sitting in the hotel lobby having breakfast, and you know, you're kind of quiet. Your girlfriend's like, oh, what are you thinking about, honey?
He's like, oh, I'm just thinking about sleeping with that girl over there. And she's like, what? Like, don't worry. I'm not cheating.
I'm not actually doing it. You know what you're not actually doing is being faithful. That's what you're not actually doing. And so we need to redeem our idea of fidelity in both directions, okay?
And You know, and so, you know, one of the people asked, like, should I get back with someone that has cheated on me? Well, look, here's my rule of cheating. Someone cheats on you, you can get back with them, but you need to wait at least five years.
Because if they're sorry that they got caught cheating, it doesn't mean that they're faithful, okay? Regret does not... automatically create in them the virtue of fidelity. And some people come up with tons of excuses on why they cheated, right?
Believe me, I have heard them all. You know, I want girls to tell me, oh, well, he told me it was an accident. I'm like, really? Like, how does that work?
Like, was he rollerblading? And he like came around the corner and like, I'm sorry, we cheated together. I didn't even see you there.
It was an accident. Like, how do you cheat on accident? That is such a lie.
Because think about it. If I have an affair on my wife tonight, was that just a momentary indiscretion? No, because I probably made a hundred little decisions that led up to that one big decision, and I said yes to every single one.
And so it's not about just one momentary lapse of judgment. These actions are stemming from an unfaithful heart. But you hear these excuses.
One girl told me, but Jason, he told me... that when he was kissing the other girl, he was thinking about me. I'm like, oh, that's a good one.
I told her, well, how come he can't think of you while being faithful to you instead of thinking of you while cheating on you? If he's thinking about you, he's thinking how you're going to shoot him when you find out. Like, we shouldn't have to put up with this stuff, all right?
And so, you know, if they cheated, they could be truly repentant. That's great. Give them at least five years to grow in maturity so they can be truly faithful to you.
And so it's not about not being merciful. It's just about being, you know, having some common sense. Next question. How do I stop the temptations of premarital sex with a person that I truly love? Well, one thing, Jesus says in the Gospels, pray that you might not enter into temptation.
He says this in the Agony in the Garden. I've read that a thousand times and it finally hit me for the first time this last year. Wow, he's telling us, pray that you may not even enter into temptation. Do any of us honestly pray this, other than an Our Father here or there?
Do we really pray, God? Help me not even do be tempted because he knows how weak we are. We don't want to pray this because honestly we want to be tempted. We want to delight in the temptation itself for a little bit and then have the courage to overcome it and feel proud about ourselves.
Because we think, well look, if it's a, you know, if it's a venial. If it's a mortal sin, I don't want to do it. But if it's a venial sin, I don't want to miss it. You know, so I kind of want to say, but that's not healthy. And so we, God knows we're weak.
And so pray, but you know what? Temptations are still bound to come. They're going to happen inevitably.
And so some things. you can do in your dating relationship is one, spend a lot of time out in public. Because when you're out in public, there's, you know, the ways that you would express affection are typically acceptable. Whereas when we hide in private, that's when the behavior typically changes.
I know one guy, a buddy of mine was a youth minister in East LA, and a guy came to say, hey, Chris, got to talk, man. I messed up. I slept with my girlfriend.
Chris is like, what happened? He said, well, I went over to my girlfriend's house. Her parents weren't there. I don't know, like one thing just led to another.
Chris said, okay, next. Next, go to confession, but next time, don't go to her house when her parents aren't there. And the guy's like, oh, that's a good point.
Week later, kid comes back. He's like, oh, Chris, man, I messed up again. He said, what happened?
I had sex with my girlfriend. What happened? Well, she went into her house.
Her parents weren't there. We had sex. Chris said, remember, don't go to her house when her parents aren't there.
He said, that's a good point. Week later, knocks on the door. Oh, Chris, I messed up again.
This went on for weeks. And Chris is like, dude, when are you going to get it? You do not have the self-mastery at this point in your life to be alone with this woman without messing up.
Which means, A, you're probably not ready to date. period yet. And secondly, you've got to have the humility to avoid these private situations because the temptations are going to be a lot greater when there's no one around. So that's what I would say for that one.
Next one. What do you do when someone you like is giving you mixed feelings about how they feel about you? Well, one, at the beginning of a relationship, sometimes things are a little vague. Well, okay, does she like me? Does he like me?
Whatever. But there comes a point where this drags on for so long, it's ridiculous. And you need to talk to them. And some girls are like, but I don't want to be that girl who asks, well, will you define the relationship with me? But you got to do that at some point, unfortunately.
I know one girl. A friend of mine is at Kansas University. College girl comes and says, like, Sarah, here's the deal. There's this guy that's always flirting with me. We work together.
But then when his friends are around, he acts like I'm invisible. Then I go back to the dorm. He's texting me till 3 in the morning flirting. I just don't know what he's thinking. And Sarah said, well, why don't you ask him?
And she said, I don't want to be that girl that asks him if he likes me or not. And Sarah said, how long has this been going on? Girl said, for six months.
Sarah said, that's a long time to wait around with some indecisive, flip-floppy boy. you gotta ask him what his intentions are. And so the girl did, and it did not go well. The guy said to her, we're just friends.
If you can't handle that, then that's your own emotional problem. Hey, you know what? That stinks.
But you know what stinks worse is not getting that answer and wasting another six months of your life. So I'm telling you, when you ask for clarification, it is always a win-win situation because either you learn the answer is yes, and you can move forward with clarity, or you learn the answer is no. and you need to learn to not mess with that anymore. And so we want clarity, because then you can have a little bit of peace and direction.
So don't be afraid to ask for it, because frankly, I think you deserve it. Next one. I'm tired of looking at my girlfriend or girls in general as objects. How can I just love them for who they are?
God's daughters. Beautiful question. Here's a strategy that I have found to be really helpful. When you see a woman that maybe you're tempted to lust after, or even a pornographic flashback of some memory of some junk you've seen, What I want you to do is a couple things. One, take your little thumb, put a sign of the cross on your forehead.
It doesn't have to be big and pharisaical. Just, you know, just a little sign of the cross on your forehead. And remember the four points of the cross.
First point up, all right, for the cross, gratitude. Meaning when you see that beautiful woman, I want you to thank God for her beauty. You could just look at her and just say, thank you, God, for making her beautiful.
You could... pray Psalm 84. How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord mighty God. Now, don't pray all of Psalm 84 while looking at her. That could get a bit awkward, but just that first verse.
How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord mighty God. So first thing you're doing is you're fighting temptation with gratitude. Second point of the cross now goes down.
Contrition. Now look inside and just say, God, I'm sorry for the times I have failed to look rightly at your daughters. Create in me a clean heart.
So we're going from gratitude to contrition and the next intercession. Next part of the cross goes over here. Pray for her. Look at her finger. Does she have a ring?
If she has a ring, I want you to pray for her and her husband. She got no ring? I want you to pray for her vocation.
What you're doing now is transforming temptation into intercession. It's like a spiritual Tai Chi. You know, Tai Chi is that mixed martial arts where you use your enemy's aggression against him.
with that force. It's kind of like a Catholic matrix kind of thing, you know, where there's temptations are coming and you get out of the way, but then you respond with something. So you're responding to the beauty of her body, not with lust, but with love.
And then the final part of the cross is over here where you're leaving her beauty and you're going to its source, which is God. Where do you think she got her beauty from? Do you know Jesus Christ invented the woman as God invented the man? Every part of her body is the thought.
of the blessed Trinity. It's all good. And so we need to remember where her beauty came from, which is from God.
Think of like a diamond. If I had a diamond on my ring and I shine a bunch of light on it, it would sparkle all over this interior of the building. All those little sparkles are like all the unique beauty of the women in the world, but their source ultimately is the blessed Trinity.
And so let their beauty remind us of its source because today you men in here are not surrounded by, you know, 2000 temptations to hell. Okay. you are surrounded by 2,000 reminders of the eternal beauty of heaven, okay?
We need to redeem the way that we look. And so try that little habit. Gratitude, contrition, intercession, adoration. And if you open the catechism, you'll also notice those are the four marks of Christian prayer.
And so what we're doing at that moment is taking... the woman's body for what it was always eternally meant to be as a sign of heaven. And we're restoring it to that noble place.
Next question. How far is too far when dancing with someone of the opposite sex? Okay.
Dancing. Here's the deal. Okay.
When you dance with someone, dance with them, not on them. Okay. That is a very important distinction.
Okay. Honestly, do you know why people twerk and grump, jump and grind and bump and grind and juke, like all the different names? Do you know why they do that stuff? Because they don't know how to dance.
That is why they do that. Seriously. Because honestly, if a man really knew how to dance with a woman, why would he not want to show her that?
A woman would not want to be led in a beautiful dance, to be a man who actually knew, you know, whether it's swing dancing or waltz or whatever, like, they used to teach that to people back in like the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and then it all just went away. They used to have dances where you would learn how to dance with a member of the opposite sex. It was healthy. You would dance with several different people in the same dance, get to know them and all kinds, and that's all just gone now, which is sad, and we don't know how to dance.
And so, well, how far can you do this or that? Look. would you dance that way if his mom was watching, if her dad was watching?
Well, if you knew their parents were in the room watching, would you not express, you know, the dance in that way? Well, then don't do it when they're not looking because our character is who we are when nobody is watching. And so just be the same person in the dark as we are in the light. Next question, what do you do if your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to do something more? You tell them no.
If they don't respect that, tell them to go home. Because, frankly, you shouldn't be in the situation to begin with. Because what are they doing putting you in a situation where you have to say no?
I mean, I know I'm being a little rough on the guys today, but you should never put a girl in a situation where she needs to say no to you. Because if she's in a place where she has to say no, it's just not respectful to her to make her say no to you. And so, I mean, it's not that, oh, the church doesn't want you to go too far. Oh, you're going too far.
Can't go to third base, second base. Look, this is not how the church views human sexuality. The church isn't opposed to first base, second base, third base.
The church wants you to hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, to win the World Series, to not only go too far, go all the way, which means you don't just give her a little hookup on prom night. No, going all the way is giving her not only your body, but your children. giving her your last name, giving her your bank account, giving her every breath you take until the day you die. That is going all the way.
The problem is not going all the way. The problem is we're too timid to go all the way. And so we just want little bits and pieces, you know, a little bit of Monica on the side, a little bit of, you know, like, cause he's not man enough to handle an entire woman.
So he wants to reduce them to bits. Okay. But this is not what human love is supposed to look like.
And so understand the church is the one encouraging us to make a total gift of ourselves. We're the ones that kind of hold back a little bit. And so, next question.
Let's see, how do you know the difference between real love and love that only appears to be real? Real love is to do what is best for the other person. I was in the Philippines and a mom asked me, how do I tell my teenage daughter when it's real love in one sentence? I'm like, oh man, I only get one sentence. She's like, one sentence.
I just thought about it, I'm like, okay, the closer she gets to him, the more she becomes herself. It's real love. The opposite is also true. When it's not real love... The closer you get to him or the closer you get to her, you don't even know who you are anymore.
This didn't used to be who I was. I didn't used to be so anxious, so depressed, so emotional. It's a sign when we get far from God that his fingerprint is not on that relationship. Next question, when should we live together? That's an easy one.
When you get married. You do not shack up. Do not play house. Do not do any of that stuff.
Because think about it, girls, living with the guy who's not your husband is crazy. Because think, you go on one day with the guy who's a jerk to you. Breaking up is easy, one date. Date a guy for six months and break up.
Alright, it's harder, but now you sleep with them, now you move in with them, and then you realize he's not the one for you. Imagine how hard it is to let go when you've invested that much. Girls don't want to.
They want to stay put and fix the guy, but the relationship is done before it has a chance to begin. And so first, no shacking up and playing house. Because on your wedding day, I want you to walk down that aisle, radiant in your wedding dress, and I just want you to make sure that your dress matches your soul. that's what's going to make the day what it's supposed to be. You don't want to get married and go back to what you've already been doing for six months.
No, make it special. One or two last questions. Yeah. If someone has homosexual feelings, how can I help them without offending them? If a person experiences homosexual feelings, because we've got a number of questions on this, like some people say, well, I'm gay or I'm homosexual.
How do I integrate this stuff? We want to understand, like, gay is not who you are. Any more than straight is who I am. Like, you'll notice when they introduce the speakers, today our speaker is Jason, and he's straight. Like, they didn't say that, okay?
I wouldn't let them say that, because, like, that's not who I am. Yeah, yeah, I do experience those attractions, but if I'm a book, that's on page, like, 200. That's not the cover story of who I am. If anyone in the world defines their identity by their sexual attractions, life is just going to get confusing really fast.
Because what happens to me tomorrow when I fly home from the Dallas airport? I see some stunningly beautiful woman who's not my wife. and I'm attracted to a woman who's not my wife, is that attraction my identity?
No. If I see some pornographic billboard, I think she's pretty. Like, is that my identity?
No. Your identity, if you experience homosexual attractions, is not gay, lesbian, trans, bi, pan. No. Your identity is you are a beloved son or daughter of God the Most High. But you are living in a culture that doesn't tell you this.
And this... This doesn't mean that like, oh, then you, and me saying like gay isn't your identity, I'm not saying that these attractions have not been with you for a long time and may not be real or strong. No, you do have those attractions, but the world has told you, look, if you have If you have these attractions, you only have two options.
Live in the closet out of fear that if anyone knew you, they'd hate you and be bigoted against you. Or, come out of the closet, embrace your sexual attractions as your identity, forget about God, the church, and the Bible, and you do whatever you want with your body. Gay pride or gay shame, make your pick.
Now imagine you probably feel stuck in the middle. Well look, I don't want to throw away God, but seriously, gay shame? Why should I have to live ashamed of something I never chose to begin with? I mean, will people hate you for having these attractions? Yes, some people will.
You see them on TV. They have their protest signs like, God hates gays. I'm like, God hates your stupid sign, okay?
That's what he hates. But the problem is fanatics like that make the whole world believe that you believe in traditional marriage or nothing but a hateful, homophobic bigot like good old beloved Taylor Swift telling us, oh, you just need to calm down because if you do not adopt what I think about marriage, then you are a hateful, redneck hillbilly that just tells everybody to go into your hell. That's what all you little Christians are.
Thanks a lot. God bless you, Taylor Swift, but that is a lie from the pits of hell. Jesus Christ loves these individuals, okay?
God has a plan for them, and I wish we had a whole hour to talk about the subject, but what I invite you to do, we have a website called chastity.com. On chastity.com, we have videos, blogs of all these people. who experience homosexual attractions and have embraced this virtue of chastity in their lives. They've launched websites, apostolates, I mean it's beautiful stuff going on in the church because God, I know, is going to raise saints to the altar of the Catholic Church who've experienced homosexual attractions, who chose to glorify God in their bodies. Because in the end, it all comes down to will I abandon God for the preference of my own will or will I sometimes abandon my own will because of my love for God.
And he presents that cross to all of us in a different way. But go to our website, chastity.com, because we've got so many questions on dating and relationships, because I can only answer 5% of all the questions that we got in. We also have, up at the bookstore, a bunch of resources to answer your questions. Just a couple of ones we got up there.
My wife and I wrote a book for you girls called How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul, 21 Secrets for Women. The first chapter is the top 10 guys to avoid. I know a college girl, whenever a guy tries to hit on her, she goes backed up to her dorm.
She rereads the first chapter, and she's like, no, you're number three and number seven and number nine, so we're not going anywhere tonight. And so this one's for the girls. People are like, where's the book for guys?
Guys don't read, okay? No, that's not true. So we launched a new one for guys.
This one just came out this weekend called Purity 365. It's a different quote every day of the year to help us in this battle. Got a biography of my hero, St. John Paul II. We've got CDs and stuff. Then my wife wrote this little booklet on healing and hope for sexual abuse survivors.
And so if you're like her and you've been through sexual abuse, she wrote this booklet just to help you find hope and healing. In the church, we also made these really cool rings that look like a crown for girls to help you remember your dignity as daughters of the king. And then lastly, we made these cool T-shirts.
This one's for the guys. It's got the heart of St. Joseph on it. And there's a cool one for the girls that has the hearts of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And there's also some awesome stuff by Emily Wilson that's in the bookstore, Great Life Teen Resources. Head up there.
I'm going to be up there outside the bookstore for the next hour if anyone needs to hang out and talk. And then the rest of the team will be there at different times throughout the weekend. But stay put if you want to stay here for Father's talk on heaven, hell, and purgatory.
You're not going to miss it. It's going to be an awesome talk. But let's close our time together in prayer.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Father in heaven, I ask your special blessing upon all these, your sons and daughters, and the vocations that you have in mind for each of them. If you're calling any of them to the sacrament of marriage, I pray right now for their future husbands or future wives, that they might come from solid families, that they might avoid the lies of the evil one to prepare their hearts for the marriage that awaits them. If you're calling any of these, your sons and daughters, to priesthood, to the religious life, we ask you to give them a heart full of courage and generosity, that they might give themselves to you as fully as you have given yourself to them. And we entrust all of these things to Our Lady as we pray again.
Hail Mary. Full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. St. John Paul II, pray for us.
In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen.