Print Issue: November 14, 2002

'Pure Love' Apostolate Poised For Future

ATLANTA - In February 2002 a small group of people began gathering every Saturday evening at Atlanta's Cathedral of Christ the King to pray and to talk about their struggles and successes with the virtue of purity. From that beginning, the group has inexorably grown, doubling in size about every seven weeks, and is now poised to branch out to other churches and cities in 2003. The group will have a special program Saturday, Nov. 23 dubbed "Pure Love Festival," at Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta. The speakers will be Father Tim Hepburn and Father Jack Durkin. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. with a vigil Mass, and follows with the talks and music by the Bill Sheffield Band and Blues for Jesus. All donations will go toward Jeremiah's Call.

The group's discussions are based primarily on scripture and on Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and Love and Responsibility, and involve basic questions about the meaning of life, particularly in this culture which has blown apart so much of the family structure that used to be the foundation of life, said David Sloan, who is coordinating the program.

"The Holy Father teaches that sexuality is even more important than our culture thinks it is. He teaches that 'attraction is of the essence of love,' and that even 'desire is of the essence of love.'" We simply need to learn how to bring the whole truth of the value and dignity of the human into our relationships at every level. We call this 'pure love,'" said Sloan.

Michael Patrick has been attending the meetings since they began in February. He is the leader of the group that provides live music at the weekly gatherings. "I can't tell you how much it's meant to me. I've been looking for something like this all of my life, but I wasn't sure it could ever exist. I have so much hope now for healing in every area of my life because I know that I can be healed and restored in the area of purity. I have a group of brothers and sisters in Christ now who share the gospel with me. I call them when I'm struggling. I don't have to wait 'til later." Said Father Durkin, spiritual advisor to the apostolate, "This is really radical. To have 90 people getting together on a Saturday evening to celebrate the good news about purity is the most counter cultural thing I can think of. And it's a blast."

Sloan said the "challenge we face is to make sense of some fundamental, traditional understandings of male and female roles, in the context of our modern lives in this culture. As single people we look to our dating and courtship activities as the place where we must discover, or recover, the majesty of God's plan in creating us as man and woman in his image, and commanding us to be fruitful. Though most, if not all, of us had made decisions to live chaste lives, we discovered early on that we had very little to go on when discerning issues of dating and courtship. Our enormous amounts of prayer and discussion of the matter began to bear fruit, ultimately giving birth to what we call 'A Christian Course in Dating and Courtship.'"

"We don't have a set of rules designed to eradicate emotion, or passion. We are not rigorists," said Sloan. "What we have found are simple principles that set us free from so much needless anxiety, allowing us to really relish the joy of getting to know the people toward whom God himself has made us attracted."

From our extensive prayer and discussion, and study of the Holy Father's writings, we came to believe that God has a better plan. We learn from the book "Love and Responsibility" that love must not only include emotion and attraction, but it must be based on the whole truth of who the person is. That means we must be able to get to know each other in a way that doesn't drive us bonkers," Sloan said.

"Our model is to make it very easy to get into a low level, low intensity dating relationship. By no means do we attempt to get rid of the emotion and the passion. But they must grow slowly enough that they can be integrated with the truth of who the person really is. Everything we do in our Christian Course in Dating and Courtship is designed to make the growth possible," he said.

Jackie Oddo has been an integral part of the group since shortly after it began. "To me, this is a healing ministry. People have been hurt in their relationships. And too many people are scared. The Lord doesn't want us to be scared about his plan for us. I feel called to be a prayer intercessor for this group. Prayer has been a big part of this from the start. All of our meetings start out with a half-hour of prayer. We end by praying Night Prayer together. And people are being healed. There is no doubt about it. The Holy Spirit is moving in this group," Oddo said.

"I like the discussions best," said Christine Smolynsky, one of the core members, and the coordinator of the prayer sessions. Smolynsky, who has a masters degree in theology from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, explained, "where else can you go and find people sitting around reading excerpts from the Holy Father's writings about the meaning of our sexuality and having heated discussions about how this stuff effects our lives? I just can't get enough of it."

Said Sloan, "I know there is a great hunger for something like this. There are no other Catholic resources I am aware of to help single adults with purity, and with dating and courtship related issues. There is lots of stuff for teens, and for married people, but very, very little for single adults."

For more information, please go to www.purelove.net.