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Shannon Donnelly

December 11, 2019 By Shannon Donnelly

For the Love of God, Do Not Settle

I don’t normally listen to the radio. Podcasts, yes. My own playlist with the windows down, yes. Never those annoying talk shows. God’s providence was at work when the radio came on and I left it on. The hosts were discussing a study done on overall psychological happiness and life stability. They asked viewers to call in and say what they think is the most important decision you’ll ever make in your life. Career?  How much you travel?  Degrees you obtain? Friends you have?  Number of zeros on your paycheck?

The answer: who you choose to marry.

It was not ETWN Catholic radio, Christian radio, it was not any “inspirational” podcast it was secular radio. I opened my heart right up and leaned in to what they began discussing. Since I work and take hundreds of high schoolers on retreats, who talk ENDLESSLY about their romantic lives, it hit home. Since I meet and befriend so many people (young and old) who want true, lasting love, it hit home.

To my friends reading this blog, here’s the only message I will stress to you forever; I know, I know how lonely life can get. I know how hard it is to find companionship and real, authentic relationships. I feel it every day.  You can meet likeminded people, people who laugh at your jokes, people who will treat you to dinner or ice cream, people who will share their hearts with trust and vulnerability, people who are just insanely attractive to you, people who you can “get by” with, but your heart is worth fighting for, so DON’T SETTLE.

Attraction can lack depth and emotional connection. Charm can lack values and morals. Funny jokes can lack support and encouragement. A dinner and date every Friday night can distract you from pursuing your dreams. Keeping someone along because you’re afraid to be lonely will always stagnate your personality, identity, and potential.

I pray, I deeply pray, that everyone (reading this or not) does not settle. Our Lord needs, craves, desires, and intercedes for all our love lives. If love is the greatest thing on Earth, we can be patient and wait for the greatest kind of love, don’t settle because of time. Love can endure all the hardships of loneliness and heartache. Love hopes, it is kind, it does not insist on its own ways, but on God’s abundant ways and so we must be like love and imitate it (1 Cor 13:4).

Settling in your relationships is like driving home so impatient and hungry that you stop at Chipotle to grab a massive burrito bowl to satiate your hunger to only get home to find your mother has been preparing you a surprise dinner of your favorite full course meal, dessert and all. Unfortunately, you’re full with a fast food fix and can’t enjoy the gift prepared for you. Mom, who prepped it for you, will understand and accept the situation but probably wishes she could have doused you with her love and gift. God is the same way with our romantic lives. He wants to gift us with the best love story for our lives.

If what you are seeking is attention, to be seen, to be noticed, to be taken out on a Friday night, to be asked how your day was, to get that good morning text then the good news is that you can get those things from many other people AND in a more genuine way than someone unintentional about pursuing your heart and upholding your dignity. Take a moment and think: to say that you want a relationship is really just to say that you want relationship. It takes a deep maturity and consistent prayer to know which person you will ultimately choose to spend the rest of your life. In the words of Sarah Swafford, “become the man or woman of YOUR dreams, and you’ll attract the man or woman of your dreams.”

I knew, many times, I was settling. I quieted my heart, put myself in the presence of God, and asked for the grace to be brave and just end things. Did I go back and try to make the relationship work? Of course. Did it get better ? Nope.

The question I always get and have asked myself id: “how will I know?”

This is my response: When the peace and love of God surpasses all understanding. When you are alone with yourself, God, and your heart you will experience something so real and genuine of Love that you will thank yourself, and God that you waited.

__________________

Shannon Donnelly is a campus minister at an all-girls high school in Philadelphia, PA. She graduated from Cabrini University with a degree in Religious Studies. She is a speaker, writer, and hopeless romantic. Shannon spends her free time loving Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration, reading, dancing, and teaching fitness classes….on trampolines!

 

Filed Under: Dating, Finding Love, Singleness

February 22, 2019 By Shannon Donnelly

Waiting for the Big Day

If you’re a Parks and Recreations fan, you may recall the episode of Donna and Joe’s wedding when Ron Swanson says, “I love weddings. Good food, the celebration of romantic love, and most of all Churches. Say what you will about organized religion those bastards knew how to construct an edifice.”

Swanson’s statement has veracity. In our culture, people love weddings, people love food (no question there) and we do genuinely wantto have weddings held in a Church, but secular culture has opinions about organized religion and the totality of Catholicism’s teachings for things like Natural Family Planning. Churches look great in our photos and rein as a marvelous venue choice, yet, there is a deeper truth as to why Catholics get married in the Church.

As a young adult in her twenties, I have been watching my older cousins and friends make different  choices to celebrate their day of romantic love. Some had babies before the big day, some had babies without the big day.  Some didn’t even want God involved and had their siblings become the minister of the ceremony at a public park. Some of my elder relatives even argued the “goodness” of cohabitation, saying, “The couples living together without the sacrament are doing it right. You can get up and leave at any point! Good for them and their freedom.”

If there is more freedom and stability in not having a sacramental marriage, why have I noticed that the bride and groom couldn’t keep their hands off each other while they were dating, but once they were married they couldn’t even touch, look, or admire each other with affection?

The root of the problem is a desire for pleasure without sacrifice.

Actively persisting in chastity is the fruit of free, respectful, healthy, and authentic affection in relationships. It creates respect that honors balance, teaches maturity and self-donation. Therefore; I don’t need my wedding day to be perfect in the sense that I will “finally be free of the burden that comes from waiting,” but rather, it’ll be perfect because I am celebrating God and His plan for love that I unceasingly strived for.

Engaged couples should marry in the Church for one reason: Here lies the place from which God’s grace flows. Grace that serves as strength for the journey ahead. Here is the foundation that assists us in making each other real through our waiting and obedience to God.

Romantic love should show that each person didn’t sit around and wait for love to hit, but they deliberately pursued it and never settled.

What I hope I can show others on my own wedding day is that romantic love is a celebration that speaks,

 “Thank-you God for not giving up on us. This day is a result of your hard work in us. I believe in this imperfect person next to me and I want to fight with them, and for them, for the rest of my time here on Earth. I believe, only through Your grace, can two people fall in love and stay in love. I believe love intensifies by entering into the hardships, not avoiding them. I will be able to see how a person can be the biggest jerk, but they rely on God, and their decision to do what can make them the holiest person I’ve ever met.”

This is the reason I will get married in the Church. Not because it looks nice, makes sense, or because “grand mom would be sad if I didn’t.”

My own story teaches me that the journey to my future husband, to my ‘big day,’ and the path to my celebration of human love is a direct personal one spent with a God who loves me, knows my name, and calls me His own. And this adventure outweighs it all.

—–

ENGAGED? Check out Emily Wilson’s video course for brides-to-be!

__________________

Shannon Donnelly is a campus minister at an all girls high school in Philadelphia, PA. She graduated from Cabrini University with a degree in Religious Studies. She is a speaker, writer, and hopeless romantic. Shannon spends her free time loving Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration, reading, dancing, and teaching fitness classes….on trampolines!

 

Filed Under: Dating, Engagement

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