Furthermore…

One time I was watching a TV show, and an older person asked a girl, about some male in her life, “Are you giving yourself to him??!!” I guess anyone would quickly grasp the exact  focus of the question, and yes, I believe she was, to the great consternation of the older parent, or teacher, questioner.

But I was struck with the choice of words, and had a sense that there were layers and shades of meaning wrapped up them, beyond the obvious “Are you having sex?”

One layer, I guess, derives from the aspect that the girl was hitherto a virgin, and so was involved in  something beyond “doing it” and was surrendering her promising future, her purity, her youth and innocence, and if I remember correctly, her common sense (because the ‘him’ was not right for her).  Another shade of meaning was “have we failed to prepare adequately you for life?”  Or could it have been meant to convey “Are you placing so little value on your finer qualities that you have handed them over to ‘him’ unreflectingly?”

The answer in the girl’s mind might have been some version of “It’s my gift and I’ll give it away if I want to!” Or: “Grow up, why don’t you! I just did!” Her corresonding sisters today, as coached by the media, seem to say, “So?”

I want to relate the general idea of giving oneself to another to the way Christ gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. It is first necessary to jetison the sexual layer. The parts that carry over is the understanding that giving oneself is a deep, meaningful act of ultimate generosity, and that the recipient may be disappointingly unworthy. And, of course, that Jesus’ gift to us is unimaginitively more to be desired than any other person’s gift of themselves.