Hi Father, I am a 17 year old girl and I am wondering will I go to hell because Ive had sex before marriage? Thank you Father
When we choose something we know God doesn't want (what we call "sin"), it damages our relationship with him. Any friendship is like that! In fact, when we do it in something really important, that relationship can be shattered.
He gave you your sexuality as a gift to you, for you to give away freely, but only in marriage. That's what it's for. So sure, your relationship with him has suffered the consequences of your choice.
But... God is a God of mercy! There will be things that you won't forgive yourself for, and others will never forgive you for... but God will always forgive. Always. And no human friendship is like that!
So it's a matter of reaching out to him. We "choose" hell through our actions when we shatter our relationship with God and choose not to look back towards him with humility for his mercy, but he chooses Heaven for us every time we come back to him the way he has asked.
If you're Catholic, the best way to get the healing you want and the peace of soul you deeply need is to bring it up with a priest in Confession and get it washed away... and your relationship with God will be just as intact as before! Like they say, "Our God is a God of second chances." (Don't worry: The priest won't want to know about the details of what you've done, or who you are, or who the other person was... he'll just be desiring to grant you God's forgiveness and peace.)
Here is something that I am concern about: Will all sins be forgiven no matter how big or small? If so, is there going 2 b consequences after our sins r forgiven? For ex, I committed adultery to 2 diff. person n know very well that I shouldn't have done it but I did it anyways. The 1st person is my ex from 2 years ago, which i felt really bad and confessed. But a few months ago, I did it again to a friend that I barely know. I couldn't help myself. Will this cause me a happy life in near future?
Yes, that's the miracle of God's forgiveness! His death on the Cross is for everything. There's no sin that he doesn't want to forgive, even sins that go directly against his commandment (the 6th, by the Catholic enumeration) not to commit adultery. (Though our refusal to repent can mean that there are sins that he can't forgive... simply because we reject his forgiveness.)
You're not alone in this: "All have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God" (Romans 3:23). We're all suffering with ourselves and our past sins and our present weakness. But God's grace is far more powerful than all that. Even if we sin over and over, he treats us even better than he enjoins us to treat each other:
Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22)
But sure, sin has consequences. Death, in the first place: It arose from the sin of our first parents. Unexpected babies, sometimes, in the case of adultery. (Babies aren't bad! Quite the contrary. But sometimes the timing can destroy your plans, and if parental commitment to each other isn't part of the equation, their lives can be seriously affected.) Harm to the community of believers: Every sin, no matter how hidden, has its effects. Vice can arise from repeated sins, too.
Another important consequence is that it makes it easier to commit the same sin in the future, so you have to work extra hard to avoid it. That's why it was easier for you to slip and fall a second time, wasn't it?
But God is on your side, so here's your to-do list:
Make a good confession if you're Catholic and haven't done so already.
Do whatever it takes to help yourself avoid this sin in the future. In particular, being more spiritual and surrounding yourself with the right friends and the right media is very important.
Consider doing some sort of "voluntary penance": something that shows God that you're sorry for your past actions and that you don't want to live like that in the future. Any of the usual Lenten sacrifice ideas or prayer commitments can be great starting points for that. This point is up to you, but the more fervently you want to change your life, the quicker things will turn around for you and you'll get that inner peace back.
My family have always told me that if I commit adultery before marriage, God will not give me his full blessing for my future. Meaning, I won't find a good husband. Even if I did, when he finds out about my past he will have little respect for me and our marriage will not be prefect. Is there such consequences? & To be honest, I've committed and felt ashamed at first but after I've decided to do it again, it's hard to turn back. But I am trying to come back to God and ask for help.
The danger is getting superstitious or thinking God will curse us... it's impossible to read Luke 15 and come away with that sort of idea about God!
However, our sins do affect us. Repeated sins create habits and even addictions, and they scrape away at virtue. If someone chooses a very promiscuous lifestyle, for example, it's going to be very hard -- though of course it can happen, with a lot of self-denial and a lot of prayer -- to leave it all behind and choose a new life of fidelity to a single person, or a life of celibacy. The temptations will be far greater than for someone who managed to maintain their virginity until marriage.
And the gift in marriage will be greater too. A husband who respects you for who you are will also be able to forgive you for your past failings that you yourself regret.
So keep coming back to God! The door of the confessional is always open, and forgiveness is just minutes away, always! Keep turning back to him, no matter how many times you have to return to him on your knees weeping.
Even Magdalene was forgiven, and look at the love with which she followed Christ in purity afterwards! Pray a lot to her for her intercession...
In response to your post, "Nuns Are Smart":Father Shane, I follow your blog because I find it really inspiring but I find this post a little disconcerting. I also agree that it is important to wait for true love in marriage and I am proud of those teens who stand by their faith rather than succumb to our sex-saturated American culture. This post hurts me, though, because it suggests to girls (and girls alone, mind you) that their worth is dependent on their sexuality. It bothers me first of all that responsibility is removed from young men, that they are not held to the same standards nor challenged to remain chaste. It bothers me also that this nun suggests that women who compromise their sexuality are less valuable than the pure ones. A young woman should be judged by God alone, first of all, but if other people look at her with judgmental eyes shouldn't they look first at her actions towards others? I know that one's sexual conduct is often representative of one's self respect but there are cases where good people are sexually active, and I do not feel comfortable dismissing them as mere "wilted roses" on the basis of their choices.
Thanks for sending that along, and sorry to take so long to get back to you! I hadn’t read it the way you did, but I can see how it could be taken that way.
For those who hadn’t seen the original post, I simply passed along a comment I had seen on a different blog:
The nun who taught my sex education class in high school passed a rose around the class and encouraged all the students to smell it and feel how soft the petals were. By the time the rose made it back to the teacher the flower was wilted, some of the petals were falling off. The nun (for some reason I’m blanking on her name) holds up the damaged rose and says, “Girls, this is you”. Funny but so true and has stuck with me all these years.
A few guiding principles:
All of this applies EQUALLY to young men and to young women. Had the nun said, “Boys, this is you,” she would have been just as right. You’re right that we tend to overlook how much promiscuity damages us, whether we’re male or female.
The 6th Commandment is a non-negotiable. Acts of fornication or adultery definitely offend God and wound us in what we are.
Our decisions change us. What we do changes us, for better or worse. Repeated acts crystallize into virtues or vices. I am a different person based on what I do… it’s not just a matter of history.
But God’s forgiveness is always there for us if we seek it. We Catholics have an incredible treasure in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, so that when we go seeking forbidden fruit and it stings us like it stung Adam and Eve, we have somewhere to get healed that they didn’t, thanks to the grace of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection!
Our worth isn’t dependent on what we do, but on who we are. We are God’s adopted children if we’re baptized Christians. Our worth flows from that. Can we act in a way unworthy of being children, like the Prodigal Son did? Sure, but we always have the door open if we choose to return, thanks be to God!
Judgment is God’s to make, not ours. One of the easiest Gospel passages to forget is Matthew 7:1-2… “Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.”
So, once all that is said, I don’t think the nun was so much judging young women as she was telling them the truth about what really goes on inside.
You bring up one interesting point: “There are cases where good [unmarried] people are sexually active.” But it’s always a sin, right? Sure, someone can be nice and courteous, but if their inner life is a mess thanks to habits of sin, they need God’s mercy and forgiveness no matter how nice they are!
It may sound really rough and uncharitable, but sometimes beauty is only skin-deep. Sometimes we’re beautiful, attractive and nice on the outside while we’re squandering our inner beauty. Then it’s the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) all over again: The older brother was envious of the younger one for the good time he was having, but the younger son was secretly miserable, not even finding satisfaction in eating the husks the swine ate. And sometimes it takes us a long time to even detect that.
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