During my junior year of college, a few of my girlfriends and I decided to make the trip to Padre Island for Spring Break. We were so excited to go and it was a topic of conversation weeks before we left. Around Spring Break that year, I also had entered into a pretty serious relationship with my would-be husband. Since we both had made separate Spring Break plans before we got together, we were apart during that week. Dustin went off to the East Coast to be with his best friend while I headed south for Padre.
In my mind, our time in Padre was going to be filled with snorkeling, parasailing, jet-skiing, tanning on the beach, and dancing at night. This was not the case. The weather was too cold to do anything in the water, the sun didn’t shine much, and the only thing anyone wanted to do was party around the clock.
The first few days were sort of fun. The condo that my girlfriends and I were staying in was extremely nice and we felt super cool staying there. We went out dancing the first night and it was okay, but very quickly I started feeling uncomfortable in my surroundings. Back home at college, every Thursday, my friends and I would go out dancing and it was always a blast. Padre felt different. I felt very unsafe and “hunted,” if I can use that term. To top it off, I was missing Dustin.
As the week progressed, things started to unravel. One of my girlfriends found out there was going to be a wet t-shirt contest at a club and she wanted to enter. I was completely against it but she insisted. When we showed up at the club, I instantly sensed the danger there for the girls “competing” in the contest. There was a mob of drunk guys waiting ravenously for the show and there was zero security around to protect the girls. I went into protective mode. I tried to talk my friend out of it but to no avail. So, if I couldn’t talk her out of it, I decided I would stand guard and protect her. The club staff ushered all the participating girls back into this little room and started offering them shots right and left. They wanted to get them good and tipsy to relax their inhibitions. After the girls quickly downed several shots, the staff told them to take off their shirts and put on the little white t-shirts they handed them.
At one point, as I was standing guard, a guy who worked at the club came over to me and offered me a shot. I refused. He tried to coax me into joining the competition but I crossed my arms defiantly and said, “The only reason I’m standing here is to watch over my friend and make sure she doesn’t get hurt. I want no part of this.” He sneered at me and told me I was nothing but a stick-in-the-mud, however, he used more colorful language.
Soon the girls were paraded out on stage and were encouraged to seductively dance for the guys. I was a nervous wreck the whole time anticipating my friend getting dragged into the mob. Finally, it ended and I breathed a sigh of relief. Except something happened between me and my friend–it put us on edge with each other.
The next night, we ended up going to a restaurant for dinner and as we were entering the building there was a guy there passing out t-shirts. The price of the t-shirt was a kiss. You had to kiss the guy to get a t-shirt. Even though my friend had a boyfriend waiting back home, without hesitation, she walked right up to him and kissed him. Then she laughed, turned to me, and told me to do it. I didn’t want to.
Immediately, she got upset with me.
“It’s just a stupid kiss, Amy. Why not?”
“I don’t want to. Out of respect for Dustin and I just don’t feel like freely giving away kisses to a complete stranger for a t-shirt.”
Those words caused an eruption. A huge fight ensued between us that carried on from the parking lot all the way back to our condo. Part of her main contention with me was that I wasn’t going along with all the “fun” of the trip. To be clear, I was no saint on that trip but there was so much of it that made me wildly uncomfortable. So, yes, I was not jumping head-long into every activity she had planned because some things were just too much for me. Sadly, that fight basically ended our friendship. The ride home from Padre was awkward and stilted. She and I were never able to recover the closeness that we had before we left.
I have tossed that trip over in my head a thousand times wondering if there was anything I could have done differently. In my naivetรฉ, I was unprepared for the things that go on at Spring Break. She and I had dramatically different views on how that week would play out and it caused us to clash. Once I became uncomfortable with it all, I know I wasn’t enjoyable to be around. I became like Mama Bear and my staunch opposition to all the immorality going on made her feel guilty. I was friction and she didn’t want any.
However, my new found attitude was all terribly unfair to her. Before the trip, I had given no indication that I was going to turn into the morality judge while on vacation. I had gone along with her numerous times before Spring Break in questionable behavior. The fact that at Spring Break I decided to ride in on my high horse was, I’m sure, confusing at best and downright hypocritical at the worst. What I failed to do was tell her why I was concerned about her behavior. Down there on the sandy shores, I did a complete 180 on her and she didn’t feel I had the right to call her out given my past behavior. Instead of lovingly explaining my concerns for her and for the rest of us, I smugly fought with her and it accomplished nothing.
So, why do I bring all this up? Well, this past week I was on a social media page that I follow and a lady was on there asking a question. I won’t go into specifics but she was wanting advice on whether to attend a friend’s marriage that is currently being planned in an invalid way. Both the bride and groom are Catholic and according to her, “know better.” She is torn because she is the maid of honor and doesn’t know if she should go or not.
Surprisingly, on this Catholic page, I read numerous commenters telling her to go because:
“You need to be there for your friend. I’d go. Hopefully, they’ll get married validly later on.”
“You need to meet her where she’s at. To not go could cause her to completely leave the Church.”
“You have to go. You can’t ruin your friendship over this.”
There were also several women telling her their stories of how they got married in invalid ways and their parents threatened not to attend. They preceded to explain how how their parents’ stand made them mad at the Church and God.
I was sitting there shaking my head. What bothered me so much was that numerous people were basically telling this woman that if she doesn’t enter into this sinful situation with her friend then she is the reason that her friend could possibly leave the Church. That’s just plain wrong.
To truly love someone means that you want what is best for their soul. That means sometimes you have to point out that the path they are going down is not good for them. As Catholics, we are called to admonish the sinner. Yes, yes, yes, that means that we need to let others admonish us, too. Absolutely. I can name plenty of times I wanted people to join me in my sin and even condone it. When they refused, I became extremely defensive and usually ended up dropping them from my inner crowd. It’s human nature to not want to be confronted with our sins.
However, true love is not defined by condoning every sinful situation one decides to engage in. Real friendship is not defined by joining a friend in sin. It is also not defined by requiring a friend to join you in sinful behavior or condone it. Real friendship is looking out for each other when bad choices are being made. Of course, we may have to meet people where they are, just like Jesus did, but it sure doesn’t mean we join them in the sin to keep them from feeling bad or uncomfortable with themselves.
If you lovingly but firmly point out to someone that they shouldn’t be doing something and it causes them to leave the Church, that is not your fault. That is their issue. Our pride is a fantastic protector of our ego. We don’t like to be called out or made to feel bad about our choices. We’d much rather everyone just go along with us and offer zero conflict. If we leave a relationship, the Church, or God over being called out, it is nine times out of ten because of our pride. Yet, it can also be because the delivery of the admonishment is done poorly like me in the story above. There is definitely a right and a wrong way to admonish someone.
We must always remember that we are to follow God’s Will, not our own or even a friend’s. Christ told us, “Brother will hand over brother to death, and the father his child; children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:21-22
I lost a friend that Spring Break because I refused to join to go along with everything she wanted to do. In truth, though, I also lost her because I didn’t truly show her that I was concerned for her soul but more about being right. What I wish was that my friend could have seen that I wanted more for her. Her behaviors were putting her in danger and I genuinely feared for her safety. Also, her behavior didn’t become her. I wanted more–better–for her. When my friends, husband, or even my children have called me out, instead of turning into a prideful hothead, I wish I could see that they are wanting more for me. I should never demand that they settle for seeing me self-destruct.
We must never enter into sin with anyone, Catholic Pilgrims. It places sin on our soul and can scandalize other souls. Our admonishment of sin, however, must always be tempered with loving mercy and a thoughtful explanation. If the other chooses not to heed our advice there is nothing we can really do other than pray. There are going to be times when this will be extremely tough to live out because we don’t want to upset a close friend or family member. The flip side of this is that we must never ask or require anyone to enter into sin with us. It is wrong to try to compel someone to go against their conscience. What is best is to pause, listen, and think about why they are encouraging us not to go down a certain path. Maybe, just maybe, they are trying to draw us to be better than we are at that given moment.
