Damon Owens
MOSAIC, Summer 2008

Damon and Melanie Owens

It's funny how different a question can be asked (or heard) with just a slight change of inflection. I intended to start an interesting conversation. Chastity had not been an issue of debate or even conversation between us, so I offered the question not as a proposal to stop but as a hypothetical-California graduate student-latte sipping-cosmic-what if. Neither of us had any idea what Our Lord had in store for us.

Though being from opposite coasts, we both grew up in similar Catholic families. We attended Mass regularly, went on retreats and participated in youth groups. At thirteen, I had a profound experience of God on an Antioch retreat that played a significant part in helping me remain chaste and drug-free through high school. Melanie's childhood memories are filled with songs from Catholic family summer camp and piling in the station wagon with seven brothers and sisters.

When we met as new graduate students at the University of California, though, we were both recovering from spiritually dark college years distant from God. During my undergraduate years at Brown, I partied, rarely attended Mass and, drawn by gospel choirs and organs, dabbled in other faiths. Melanie suffered in relationships during her college days at UC Santa Barbara, but continued to attend Mass regularly, though more out of habit than desire.

So, when we began dating, there was not much virtue, or even desire, left for us to draw on to be chaste.

The Decision is Made

Melanie "wowed" me the first moment I met her. What a smile! What a sweet soul! We could talk effortlessly for hours—and we did. I wanted to share everything with her. I wanted to know everything about her. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to love her, and I thought I did. Then, I asked . . . The Question.

Melanie, my new beloved, cried. I didn't know what was going on. Is she hurt? Is she pregnant? Or, is she just emotionally unstable? (I had not known her for that long!)

After ten inconsolable minutes, she simply said, "Yes."

Yes? Yes, what? Did she think that I was proposing we stop? Well, while my dulled conscience had been thinking our sexual "intimacy" was deepening our love, Melanie had been tortured with the reality that something was very wrong. When she tried to explain, it was as hard for me to hear as it was for her to speak. She knew I loved her, or at
least was trying to love her, but sex made her feel used.

Was I with her for her, or for sex? She had been afraid of bringing up the issue because she feared I would leave her for someone else. Now, after months of burying these fears, I brought up the subject and it was too much for her to bear.

So much for the cosmic "what if." After hours of tears, words and hugs, we made our decision to stop.

For months, we struggled to stop on our own, and we continued to fail. We experienced the power of sex even in its misuse. Fed up, Melanie suggested we speak to a priest for help. Tough times, tough measures. We found a priest whose counsel would in time lead us to a redemptive understanding of sex, love, God and eventually marriage. Through counsel, confession, prayer and much struggle, Melanie and I began a new, chaste relationship.

Blossoming Dignity, and Love

Chastity? Isn't that a fancy Catholic term for repressed sexual abstinence? That is what we both thought until we studied, prayed and began this struggle.

We discovered that true chastity flows from a sacrificial, and passionate, love. Without any theological or philosophical training, we worked on a redirection, reordering and reintegration of our sexual desire that would no longer hijack our love but serve it. We weren't looking to satisfy some abstract rule or article of faith, but simply to be happy. This just felt right.

I cannot overstate the difficulty of this struggle for both of us. But, far from hurting our relationship as we feared, chastity actually drew us closer than we ever thought possible. Our intimacy deepened, as well as our intimacy with God. The passion to be physical remained—and actually intensified—but we now had new vision and strength—and grace—to love, instead of simply seek self-satisfaction. We prayed together. We went to Confession. We went to Mass. We received the Eucharist. We had to relearn how to love honestly.

And, most affirming for us, Melanie no longer felt used. She felt loved. She knew I was with her for her, and her dignity blossomed. We experienced the power of Love, real and true, and It began to heal us.

I remember once we were walking along the shores of Lake Merritt in Oakland and I reached out to hold her hand. As she pulled me close, I noticed she was crying and smiling. As Melanie describes that moment to young couples today, she says, "I knew he was holding my hand because he wanted to be close to me—not for sex or anything I could give, but for me!"

Chastity . . . and Six Children Later

After two-and-one-half years of chaste love, we married with such divine confidence (literally con and fide: "with faith") only possible in a state of grace. Our struggle for virtue was neither in vain nor expired on our wedding day.

Though delivered, forgiven and redeemed as prodigals, we still work to overcome the damage of our pre-conversion sin. The chastity we lived as abstinence before our marriage is the chastity we live now as faithfulness within our marriage.

We look forward, by God's grace, to pouring all of his wisdom into the six beautiful little girls he has (so far) given us to train. As for them, may they be preserved from the brokenness that their parents experienced and be future witnesses of souls kept in purity.

What is Natural Family Planning?

Melanie and I have shared our story to over twelve thousand couples preparing for marriage. As NFP coordinators for the Archdiocese of Newark, we live, teach and promote natural family planning and
Theology of the Body as a most excellent training to learn and grow marital love.

Natural family planning, or NFP, is an umbrella term to describe natural methods of achieving, postponing or avoiding pregnancy that monitor naturally occurring signs of fertility and infertility in a woman. Many credible methods exist to train couples to practice NFP successfully in marriage, and all share high effectiveness and a marriage-building challenge to love "as God loves."

NFP is Fertility Intelligence (FI), that is, the ability to "read from within" a woman's fertility, and Responsible Parenting (RP), the right moral use of this knowledge. We cannot fully understand one without the other: the biological signs witness to a deeper meaning and vocation of the body-person, and our theology of personhood is made visible in the reading of the language of the body. NFP for the married couple must include Responsible Parenthood, which, building credibility from FI, addresses the most difficult question of "how" we are to use justly the knowledge of our fertility in the vicissitudes of marriage to fulfill our call to marital holiness.

NFP is a tool to keep our shared gift of fertility "front and center." It elevates the horizon of our sexual desire from an experience in time to include the possibility and the mystery of an act of love that could live forever as a new soul.

Please visit www.njnfp.org for specific information on natural family planning methods.

Damon and Melanie Owens are the NFP coordinators for the Archdiocese of Newark and co-founders of New Jersey Natural Family Planning Association www.njnfp.org. Damon is also founder of Joy-Filled Marriage NJ www.joyfilledmarriagenj.org and speaks nationally on marriage, NFP, Theology of the Body and Theology of the Family. Contact him at damon@damonowens.com.