Mission on Campus

Take a look at this simulaneously cheering and discouraging post by Katie Crane from Luceat!, the blog of FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students about their esperience of a "Sex Out Loud" sexual health fair at the University of Illinois.

It reveals alot about current student culture and the impact that smart, faithful, daring lay Catholics in their midst, who are willing to talk about the faith, can have.

"Last week, Student Health Services along with a feminist student organization at the University of Illinois sponsored an event called “Sex Out Loud,” a so-called “sexual health fair” held in the Illini Student Union. Upon entering the room, one was aware of the driving-animalistic beat of the latest dance club favorite emanating throughout the hall, a variety of t-shirts with pithy sayings so fraught with sexual innuendo I am unable to repeat them, free condoms everywhere, and a nurse practitioner filling out prescriptions for the “morning after pill” before our very eyes. And there I was, wearing a pink baby tee with the words “Virtue is Sexy” scrawled across the front, standing with a group of young Catholic students by a table sponsored by St. John’s Newman Center dedicated to the proclamation of the Theology of the Body. And I loved every minute of it!

In nearly two years as a missionary with FOCUS, never have I ever had such a dramatic experience of sharing the Gospel. Picture this: with half a dozen condoms and/or morning after pill prescriptions in hand, students would meander passed our table, read the words “Theology of the Body,” and just sort of stare, dumbfounded at how these two words might have anything in common with one another. At this moment, one of the Catholic students and I would approach the aforementioned dumbfounded co-ed and ask if they had ever heard of Theology of the Body - to which they would invariably reply “No.” Next, we asked if they would like to hear a little bit about the Theology of the Body to which they would invariably reply “Yes!” We then shared the following five points:

1) The Theology of the Body is a rearticulation of the Christian Gospel rooted in terms of human sexuality, who we are as men and who we are as women.

2) In Genesis, we read that men and women are made in the image and likeness of God. Sounds nice, but who is God?

3) God is a communion of Love. God the Father pours himself out in love to God the Son, and God the Son receives that love and gives a total gift of Himself back to the Father in return by dying on the cross. And the love between them is so tangible that it becomes a third person, the Holy Spirit.

4) In the same way, in the sexual act a man pours himself out in love for a woman. The woman receives this love and gives a total gift of herself back to the man. And the love between them is so tangible that nine months later, you have to give it a name - it becomes a third person!

5) Therefore, the sexual act is meant to be nothing less than the number one sign and symbol that God has written into our very nature as men and women to be an image - a symbol - an icon - of who He is in His inner self - a communion of Love. That’s why Catholics save sex for marriage - because it is so good and so holy and so sacred. We say “no” to sex before marriage so we can say “yes” to sex in a much deeper way - in a way that most perfectly images the God himself.

People’s jaws dropped down to their knees. “That’s so beautiful,” said a Kim, a freshmen business major. “It’s refreshing to hear chastity and abstinence spoken about in the positive rather than in the negative,” said John, an agnostic religious studies major. “Why hasn’t anyone told me this before?” asked a beautiful young woman named Jill with a quivering lower lip and a tear in her eye.

I don’t know, Jill. But I am honored to be the first."