Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex. Show all posts
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Restoring Marriage Today
What is the most pressing need today? Sharing Christ's vision of marriage and the family. Here is an exciting opportunity for us to deepen our own understanding. Catholic Answers is offering a conference March 3-5, 2016, in San Diego. In addition to Catholic Answers' outstanding staff apologists such as Tim Staples, Trent Horn, and Jimmy Akin, we'll have the opportunity to hear from scholars the stature of Jennifer Roback Morse. For more information and to register, click here, or watch the trailer below.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Help Matt Fradd Deal Porn a DEATH BLOW!
Matt Fradd is putting together a new monster website to combat pornography and set men and women free from addiction to it. Please consider financially supporting this incredibly important apostolate!
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Like Children
How many times have we heard children say those words after their parents have told them "No"? Children only hear their parents frustrating their desires for happiness. It never dawns upon them that their parents could be acting in their (the child's) best interest. As adults we come to understand that that is exactly what good parents are supposed to do!
"That's not fair! You hate me!" Those are the same charges leveled against the Church and individual Christians when they say "no" to behaviors (especially those of a sexual nature). There is no attempt to step back and consider the possibility that this "no" might have an entirely different motivation - one grounded in reason and authentic love for all concerned.
You would think we would have learned not to jump to conclusions so quickly.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Beauty of "Catholic" Sex - Why It's Good for the Baby
One of the hazards of being off school for a snow day is that you might be channel surfing and get sucked into watching an episode of Katie Couric's new talk show. There was a story I just had to hear: A fertility clinic had accidentally implanted another couple's child into a woman's womb. I am absolutely thrilled to say that the woman this happened to never contemplated abortion. She said that her first thought was, "What if someone had accidentally been implanted with my child? I would be on my knees begging her to carry my child to term." And she did. She and her husband contacted the other couple with the news that they had another child on the way - and they were overwhelmingly grateful that their child was going to be allowed to come into the world. Nine months later, after the healthy birth of a boy named Logan, the woman at the heart of the story was told that her body was unable to endure another pregnancy. Still wanting to welcome the children she and her husband had partnered with the lab to create, the couple hired a surrogate to carry their twin girls to term.
The story reminded me of a short post I wrote in 2009 where, with the help of The Office's Michael Scott, I talked about the dark side of IVF (in vitro fertilization). The most shocking thing that I had discovered about IVF was how many "extra" embryos - human beings - are created in the laboratory, but never inserted into a mother. (That's standard practice.) There are over 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States alone! Those are human beings in suspended animation. Since I wrote that post, even the mainstream media has caught wind of how a higher percentage of children conceived through IVF are born with significant birth defects, in comparison to their normally-conceived peers (9 percent vs. 6.6 percent). As with the story on Katie Couric, these are problems - serious problems - that God wants to safeguard us and our children from.
The Magisterium of the Church (the teaching office exercised by the pope and bishops) has always been clear that IVF is not compatible with God's will. Before I say anything further let me state categorically that the Church has never, and will never, look down upon anyone conceived through IVF! No matter how a person is conceived, he or she is a human being and has the same dignity as every other human being. (That goes for a person conceived through an act of fornication, adultery, IVF, and even rape. If the Church believed differently then we wouldn't have canonized saints, such as St. Martin de Porres, who were born out of wedlock. Give it a hundred years and we could very well have a saint who was conceived through IVF.) You won't catch me condemning parents who have used IVF either; the vast, vast majority have done so with no awareness of its difficulties or the Church's teaching on the subject.
In addition to the problems with IVF cited above, why do the Church's teachers - the shepherds to whom Jesus committed His flock - feel compelled to speak out against the use of IVF?
To safeguard the dignity and well-being of the child. There are truths we have to keep in mind:
1. A child is not an end, a good (to be sought in a lab), but a person with his or her own inviolable dignity and rights.
Yes, we experience the yearning to be parents to a child of "our own." But the child is not our property; the child is his or her own person, with his/her own rights.
2. Every child has the right to be conceived through an act of love between its parents.
The child is a person, and persons are meant to come into existence through the sincere, bodily gift of his/her mother and father to one another. (The child is not a product that a doctor can mistakenly implant in the wrong mother.)
Last year a friend shared his niece's plight with me: At age 16 she discovered that she was conceived through IVF. She also discovered that she was the sole surviving embryo of several that had been created. She confided in her cousin (my friend's daughter) the sense of shame she felt - her brothers and sisters being allowed to die, so that in a sense, she could live. It messed with her mind. She was angry with her parents. Not to mention her initial reaction - "I was made in a lab?"
3. Sex, by its very nature, is love-giving and life-giving.
Everyone thinks the Catholic Church's oppostion to contraception is crazy, but it both maintains the reality of the sexual act and the dignity of the child(ren) produced by it. What do I mean?
"This pregnancy was an accident." Bull. An accident is when something goes wrong. If a pregnancy resulted from your lovemaking then biologically everything went exactly right - it couldn't have gone better! Contraception has twisted how we see reality. A child is never an accident, never some unforeseen by-product of a night of romance.
Creating a new life is an inseparable part of the sexual act. And those who do try to separate it out, eliminate it, are doing something against nature. Only by ignoring that obvious truth can an individual - or a society - speak of the growing child as an "accident."
When a Catholic husband and wife make love, they give their whole selves to one another. There is nothing about their fertility that needs to be suppressed or treated as a hindrance to their love for one another. If they are practicing NFP (natural family planning), and come together during a time in the wife's cycle when they believe her to be infertile, and if a pregnancy should result; then they understand that their child is anything but an accident - a surprise, sure; but never an "accident"! That child is the result of their love - a beautiful gift entrusted to them by God. That child is its own person, brought into existence to enrich the world and spend eternity with God.
The child did not come into being to meet a need felt by the parents. The child is the fruit naturally springing from their love. They are there to love the child - to pour themselves out for the enrichment and growth of this new person. In doing so they will be enriched - both in the way they image and make present the love of God, and in the love their child returns to them. But it is an enrichment that takes place while safeguarding the dignity and rights of the child.
The vast majority of people who have sought IVF have done so innocently, without anyone raising even one of these issues with them. They know that they want to give their love to a child and have never heard its darker side or the moral problems associated it. The Church's vision of sex and procreation safeguards the dignity of the child as well as prevents horrible situations like that being experienced by my friend's niece or young Logan from today's Katie Couric show. Someday Logan will hear the story of his conception. There is the silver lining of the woman who respected his life enough to carry him to term ... but there's so much else there that will likely be difficult to hear. And it doesn't have to be that way.
The story reminded me of a short post I wrote in 2009 where, with the help of The Office's Michael Scott, I talked about the dark side of IVF (in vitro fertilization). The most shocking thing that I had discovered about IVF was how many "extra" embryos - human beings - are created in the laboratory, but never inserted into a mother. (That's standard practice.) There are over 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States alone! Those are human beings in suspended animation. Since I wrote that post, even the mainstream media has caught wind of how a higher percentage of children conceived through IVF are born with significant birth defects, in comparison to their normally-conceived peers (9 percent vs. 6.6 percent). As with the story on Katie Couric, these are problems - serious problems - that God wants to safeguard us and our children from.
The Magisterium of the Church (the teaching office exercised by the pope and bishops) has always been clear that IVF is not compatible with God's will. Before I say anything further let me state categorically that the Church has never, and will never, look down upon anyone conceived through IVF! No matter how a person is conceived, he or she is a human being and has the same dignity as every other human being. (That goes for a person conceived through an act of fornication, adultery, IVF, and even rape. If the Church believed differently then we wouldn't have canonized saints, such as St. Martin de Porres, who were born out of wedlock. Give it a hundred years and we could very well have a saint who was conceived through IVF.) You won't catch me condemning parents who have used IVF either; the vast, vast majority have done so with no awareness of its difficulties or the Church's teaching on the subject.
In addition to the problems with IVF cited above, why do the Church's teachers - the shepherds to whom Jesus committed His flock - feel compelled to speak out against the use of IVF?
To safeguard the dignity and well-being of the child. There are truths we have to keep in mind:
1. A child is not an end, a good (to be sought in a lab), but a person with his or her own inviolable dignity and rights.
Yes, we experience the yearning to be parents to a child of "our own." But the child is not our property; the child is his or her own person, with his/her own rights.
2. Every child has the right to be conceived through an act of love between its parents.
The child is a person, and persons are meant to come into existence through the sincere, bodily gift of his/her mother and father to one another. (The child is not a product that a doctor can mistakenly implant in the wrong mother.)
Last year a friend shared his niece's plight with me: At age 16 she discovered that she was conceived through IVF. She also discovered that she was the sole surviving embryo of several that had been created. She confided in her cousin (my friend's daughter) the sense of shame she felt - her brothers and sisters being allowed to die, so that in a sense, she could live. It messed with her mind. She was angry with her parents. Not to mention her initial reaction - "I was made in a lab?"
3. Sex, by its very nature, is love-giving and life-giving.
Everyone thinks the Catholic Church's oppostion to contraception is crazy, but it both maintains the reality of the sexual act and the dignity of the child(ren) produced by it. What do I mean?
"This pregnancy was an accident." Bull. An accident is when something goes wrong. If a pregnancy resulted from your lovemaking then biologically everything went exactly right - it couldn't have gone better! Contraception has twisted how we see reality. A child is never an accident, never some unforeseen by-product of a night of romance.
Creating a new life is an inseparable part of the sexual act. And those who do try to separate it out, eliminate it, are doing something against nature. Only by ignoring that obvious truth can an individual - or a society - speak of the growing child as an "accident."
When a Catholic husband and wife make love, they give their whole selves to one another. There is nothing about their fertility that needs to be suppressed or treated as a hindrance to their love for one another. If they are practicing NFP (natural family planning), and come together during a time in the wife's cycle when they believe her to be infertile, and if a pregnancy should result; then they understand that their child is anything but an accident - a surprise, sure; but never an "accident"! That child is the result of their love - a beautiful gift entrusted to them by God. That child is its own person, brought into existence to enrich the world and spend eternity with God.
The child did not come into being to meet a need felt by the parents. The child is the fruit naturally springing from their love. They are there to love the child - to pour themselves out for the enrichment and growth of this new person. In doing so they will be enriched - both in the way they image and make present the love of God, and in the love their child returns to them. But it is an enrichment that takes place while safeguarding the dignity and rights of the child.
The vast majority of people who have sought IVF have done so innocently, without anyone raising even one of these issues with them. They know that they want to give their love to a child and have never heard its darker side or the moral problems associated it. The Church's vision of sex and procreation safeguards the dignity of the child as well as prevents horrible situations like that being experienced by my friend's niece or young Logan from today's Katie Couric show. Someday Logan will hear the story of his conception. There is the silver lining of the woman who respected his life enough to carry him to term ... but there's so much else there that will likely be difficult to hear. And it doesn't have to be that way.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
How Often Do You Make Love?
Warning - Mature Content (Spiritual and Otherwise)
A very good friend of mine, a priest, shared a story with me several years ago: A woman approached him after he had finished saying morning Mass. He had been recently transferred to the parish and the parishioners were not used to the way his celebration of the Mass took slightly longer than pastor of the parish's and the previous associate pastor's that he replaced. (Attending one of my friend's Masses is incredible - the preaching, the love with which he prays each word of the Eucharistic Prayer - it is beautiful.) The woman said to him, "Father, that was a wonderful celebration of the Eucharist; thank you. I wanted to tell you though that we are used to a quicker celebration on weekdays. I have to be to work in a few minutes, and I am used to having more lead time." My friend, perhaps the most gentle priest I know, glanced down at the ring on the woman's left hand, looked back up into her eyes and responded, "Madame, I would never presume to tell you how to make love to your husband; and you should not presume to tell me how to make love to my God!" And that was the end of that.
My priest friend understood one of the truths that far too many Christians live their lives completely unaware of - the Church is the Bride of Christ. The sexual union between spouses is an image, a foretaste, that God gives us of the even deeper union Jesus longs to effect between Himself and us, His Church. And where does that happen? The Eucharist.
Look at what Paul taught about the sacramentality of marriage:
In the Eucharist Jesus comes to us, His Bride, like the groom on his wedding night, "This is My Body." The Eucharist is His means for effecting a one flesh, spousal union with us:
I was reminded of the profound unity the Eucharist gives us with Jesus when I visited a non-denominational church last weekend. I had a wonderful time worshiping God in song, and listening to an associate pastor break open James 1:19-25. It really was an excellent Liturgy of the Word. And then ... and then ... we sang another song and dismissed. We had built to a crescendo, the Word of God had been proclaimed, but then the Word did not become flesh (Jn.1:14), Jesus did not become "real food" and "real drink" for our bodies and souls (Jn.6:55).
What my non-denominational brothers and sisters have is real. God is present to them and they hear Him speaking in His Word - as we do in the first half of the Mass. It's simply that they do not realize how much more Jesus wants to give them, the deeper union He wants to give them with Himself in the Eucharist. It is analogous to a bride who basks in the pleasure of kisses and caresses from her beloved, but never goes on to consummate their union - never knows the greater bliss of intercourse and the even deeper union it will effect between she and her groom.
But once we understand the reality of Jesus' presence in the Eucharist - that He is really, truly, substantially present and that He joins us to Himself, makes us part of His Self-offering to the Father - then it becomes the center of our spiritual lives. Like the saints, we begin to enter into this union with the Lord more frequently; Sunday Mass is not enough. Our personal prayer, our Bible study, singing, praying of the Rosary - all is important for deepening our relationship with the Lord; but they climax in Eucharistic worship. Scripture records only two specific directives that Jesus gave the Apostles regarding how He wanted them to worship:
 |
| The Kiss, Gustav Klimt |
My priest friend understood one of the truths that far too many Christians live their lives completely unaware of - the Church is the Bride of Christ. The sexual union between spouses is an image, a foretaste, that God gives us of the even deeper union Jesus longs to effect between Himself and us, His Church. And where does that happen? The Eucharist.
Look at what Paul taught about the sacramentality of marriage:
Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (Eph.5:28-33)If that shocks you or sexual union somehow seems inappropriate when speaking of the spiritual life - get over it! That's how we Catholics roll - from the writings of St. Paul, to the great mystics and Scriptural commentators of the Middle Ages, right on down to Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body! All of creation speaks of God - but nothing like man and woman, and especially their spousal union. It is a created image both of the Oneness, the Unity, between the Three Persons of the Trinity as well as between God and us. The Old Testament frequently likens God to Israel's Husband (Ezek.16:17-19 is a powerful example) and you must recall how John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the Bridegroom (Jn.3:29) - an image which Jesus went on to use for Himself in His parables. (This pervading sense that sex is somehow "dirty," and incompatible with holiness comes not from Catholicism but American culture's roots in Puritanism. Remember, we Catholics are the ones with the huge families - and how do you think we get those!?)
In the Eucharist Jesus comes to us, His Bride, like the groom on his wedding night, "This is My Body." The Eucharist is His means for effecting a one flesh, spousal union with us:
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. (Jn.6:53-57)In the Eucharist Jesus enters our bodies and souls in a manner analogous to the way Father, Son, and Spirit compenetrate each other within the Trinity! We hear Jesus petition the Father for unity among the members of His Church at the Last Supper, when after establishing the Eucharist, He prayed, "... that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You, that they also may be in Us" (Jn.17:21).
I was reminded of the profound unity the Eucharist gives us with Jesus when I visited a non-denominational church last weekend. I had a wonderful time worshiping God in song, and listening to an associate pastor break open James 1:19-25. It really was an excellent Liturgy of the Word. And then ... and then ... we sang another song and dismissed. We had built to a crescendo, the Word of God had been proclaimed, but then the Word did not become flesh (Jn.1:14), Jesus did not become "real food" and "real drink" for our bodies and souls (Jn.6:55).
What my non-denominational brothers and sisters have is real. God is present to them and they hear Him speaking in His Word - as we do in the first half of the Mass. It's simply that they do not realize how much more Jesus wants to give them, the deeper union He wants to give them with Himself in the Eucharist. It is analogous to a bride who basks in the pleasure of kisses and caresses from her beloved, but never goes on to consummate their union - never knows the greater bliss of intercourse and the even deeper union it will effect between she and her groom.
But once we understand the reality of Jesus' presence in the Eucharist - that He is really, truly, substantially present and that He joins us to Himself, makes us part of His Self-offering to the Father - then it becomes the center of our spiritual lives. Like the saints, we begin to enter into this union with the Lord more frequently; Sunday Mass is not enough. Our personal prayer, our Bible study, singing, praying of the Rosary - all is important for deepening our relationship with the Lord; but they climax in Eucharistic worship. Scripture records only two specific directives that Jesus gave the Apostles regarding how He wanted them to worship:
- "This then is how you should pray, 'Our Father, Who art in heaven ...'" (Mt.6:9)
- "This is My Body ... this is My Blood ... do this" (1 Cor.11:23-25)
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
WHO is Leading a War on Women? (and Who is Fighting FOR Women?)
I had an amazing time praying the Rosary this morning. I was thinking about Mary being pregnant with Jesus after having just posted my interview with Christopher West and reading one of the most insightful/convicting posts I've come across in ages, Denise Fath's What Went Wrong in the Presidential Election? (It has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with becoming a passionate saint.)
West has me thinking about the awesome beauty of human sexuality and of women in particular. Who is more Christ-like than a mother? Throughout pregnancy she says to her child, "This is my body, given for you ... This is my blood." She manifests Christ's redemptive love in her body, in her femininity. Astounding! And we can't forget how a woman becomes pregnant - a man who gives himself completely to her, through his body. This is love, a love that images God's. It's a love that can even be a Sacrament, a conduit of Divine Love, one for the other! A man surrendering himself to his wife, and a wife surrendering herself to her husband, both of them accepting the other exactly as he and she is ... and the two of them cherishing and nurturing and guiding the child who comes from them to do the same - that's the awesome dignity of the family - of men and women. How can we not find that beautiful, not desire it for everyone we love?
That's why I not only can't embrace contraception personally, but believe is it harmful to everyone who embraces it - most especially women. I want to see women loved in their entirety, for who they are - as God made them. I want to see a woman's fertility cherished for the indescribable gift it is and a woman never made to feel that there is something wrong with her - that she needs to be altered chemically. (And she should never have to consider "improving" herself through cosmetic surgery either!) Her fertility can't be thought of as something that "holds her back," it is her. You love a woman for who she is; you don't divide her up into different aspects or parts! But that's exactly what I see us doing. Every one of us is looking for LOVE - for someone to accept us, totally and completely, and to give himself or herself to us in that same way. BUT then we adopt the mindsets and go forward with actions, that make this kind of true marital love next to impossible!
There is deep confusion throughout our culture, and Christians by and large have proved just as susceptible to it as everyone else. We have mistook Sentimentality for Love. Sentimentality is all about feeling - desire, warmth - whereas Love is powerful feeling joined to an absolute commitment. Love knows desire and warmth, but it is able to endure distance and cold. It is able to sacrifice, if that it is what is needed to meet the needs of the beloved. Sentimentality will deny reality or seek to distort it when abnegation is called for, whereas Love recognizes sacrifice as something inherent to itself.
Sentimentality is when a man or woman says to the other, "I have to have you." But Love is when each says, "I want to give myself to you."
Sentimentality is at peace with a lie: "I'm in no position to build a life with you. I have to finish my education and start a career before I could actually stand up before everyone we know and vow to love you until death ... but I want the pleasure of your body now. I want the warm emotions that come from having you next to me ... lets pretend for tonight ..." It's a lie! It's selfishness wrapped up in pleasurable emotion.
And its compounded by another lie and even more selfishness when contraception enters the picture: "I need you, I have to have you right now ... but not all of you. I don't want your fertility. Right now we're not in a place for our love to become anything more than pleasurable sensations and emotions."
Love acknowledges our physical attraction to the beloved but disciplines it for the sake of the beloved. Not only is that living in reality - it's about the most romantic thing imaginable! (Look at all of the thirty and forty-something ladies pining for Twilight's Edward Cullen!) Chastity, abstinence before marriage - that's authentic love.
"But Shane, kids are going to 'do it'! We have to protect them from the consequences. Teens need to be given contraception." Sure, if you want to continue the cycle I've been describing. If the goal is to keep men from truly loving women, from being willing to forego the urge of the moment, then by all means please keep giving kids contraception. But if we want to teach them that they are something more than an animal unable to control its urges, then we'll tell them what it actually means to love a woman! Make the expectation known - extol the virtues of self-control and chastity.
Yes, we will see pregnancies. That is the natural end of the sexual act. It's not an "accident;" everything happened exactly the way it was designed to! And we cannot pretend these unborn children are accidents to be "cleaned up" through abortion. No, these children are precious; and we must help their young parents assume their roles, their responsibilities. That's what their bodies were saying "yes" to when they came together sexually. Until our society comes to grips with that fact - that sex is the manifestation of a life-long commitment and that the creation of new life is an inherent part of it, we will continue to spiral out of control. Women's fertility will be looked upon as a detriment instead of a gift. There is a "War on Women," but it's being waged by those pushing contraception, sterilization, and abortion as "healthcare."
The way out of this mess is for each of us to desire and work at becoming saints - and to begin expecting the Christians around us to do the same! I'm not saying "condemn them when they fall;" but make known the standard of Love that we are expected to live up to, and then provide loving support on those occasions when someone does not live up to it. But we have to stop pretending like real Love isn't possible, that fertility is something bad, that a child is ever a "mistake." That's a lie. It's being propagated by the powers that be, but like all great lies it has a demonic origin. Who today is fighting for women? Look at who is still standing up and speaking the truth ... the Catholic Church. And the way this fight will be won is for each of us to embrace and joyfully live this vision of human persons and human sexuality, to celebrate each new life and all of the responsibility they call forth from us. We have to live with the vision of the saints and recognize the beauty of humanity as it comes from the hand of God. With that gleam in our eye (and love in our actions) others will be drawn and the culture changed.
West has me thinking about the awesome beauty of human sexuality and of women in particular. Who is more Christ-like than a mother? Throughout pregnancy she says to her child, "This is my body, given for you ... This is my blood." She manifests Christ's redemptive love in her body, in her femininity. Astounding! And we can't forget how a woman becomes pregnant - a man who gives himself completely to her, through his body. This is love, a love that images God's. It's a love that can even be a Sacrament, a conduit of Divine Love, one for the other! A man surrendering himself to his wife, and a wife surrendering herself to her husband, both of them accepting the other exactly as he and she is ... and the two of them cherishing and nurturing and guiding the child who comes from them to do the same - that's the awesome dignity of the family - of men and women. How can we not find that beautiful, not desire it for everyone we love?
That's why I not only can't embrace contraception personally, but believe is it harmful to everyone who embraces it - most especially women. I want to see women loved in their entirety, for who they are - as God made them. I want to see a woman's fertility cherished for the indescribable gift it is and a woman never made to feel that there is something wrong with her - that she needs to be altered chemically. (And she should never have to consider "improving" herself through cosmetic surgery either!) Her fertility can't be thought of as something that "holds her back," it is her. You love a woman for who she is; you don't divide her up into different aspects or parts! But that's exactly what I see us doing. Every one of us is looking for LOVE - for someone to accept us, totally and completely, and to give himself or herself to us in that same way. BUT then we adopt the mindsets and go forward with actions, that make this kind of true marital love next to impossible!
There is deep confusion throughout our culture, and Christians by and large have proved just as susceptible to it as everyone else. We have mistook Sentimentality for Love. Sentimentality is all about feeling - desire, warmth - whereas Love is powerful feeling joined to an absolute commitment. Love knows desire and warmth, but it is able to endure distance and cold. It is able to sacrifice, if that it is what is needed to meet the needs of the beloved. Sentimentality will deny reality or seek to distort it when abnegation is called for, whereas Love recognizes sacrifice as something inherent to itself.
Sentimentality is when a man or woman says to the other, "I have to have you." But Love is when each says, "I want to give myself to you."
Sentimentality is at peace with a lie: "I'm in no position to build a life with you. I have to finish my education and start a career before I could actually stand up before everyone we know and vow to love you until death ... but I want the pleasure of your body now. I want the warm emotions that come from having you next to me ... lets pretend for tonight ..." It's a lie! It's selfishness wrapped up in pleasurable emotion.
And its compounded by another lie and even more selfishness when contraception enters the picture: "I need you, I have to have you right now ... but not all of you. I don't want your fertility. Right now we're not in a place for our love to become anything more than pleasurable sensations and emotions."
Love acknowledges our physical attraction to the beloved but disciplines it for the sake of the beloved. Not only is that living in reality - it's about the most romantic thing imaginable! (Look at all of the thirty and forty-something ladies pining for Twilight's Edward Cullen!) Chastity, abstinence before marriage - that's authentic love.
"But Shane, kids are going to 'do it'! We have to protect them from the consequences. Teens need to be given contraception." Sure, if you want to continue the cycle I've been describing. If the goal is to keep men from truly loving women, from being willing to forego the urge of the moment, then by all means please keep giving kids contraception. But if we want to teach them that they are something more than an animal unable to control its urges, then we'll tell them what it actually means to love a woman! Make the expectation known - extol the virtues of self-control and chastity.
Yes, we will see pregnancies. That is the natural end of the sexual act. It's not an "accident;" everything happened exactly the way it was designed to! And we cannot pretend these unborn children are accidents to be "cleaned up" through abortion. No, these children are precious; and we must help their young parents assume their roles, their responsibilities. That's what their bodies were saying "yes" to when they came together sexually. Until our society comes to grips with that fact - that sex is the manifestation of a life-long commitment and that the creation of new life is an inherent part of it, we will continue to spiral out of control. Women's fertility will be looked upon as a detriment instead of a gift. There is a "War on Women," but it's being waged by those pushing contraception, sterilization, and abortion as "healthcare."
The way out of this mess is for each of us to desire and work at becoming saints - and to begin expecting the Christians around us to do the same! I'm not saying "condemn them when they fall;" but make known the standard of Love that we are expected to live up to, and then provide loving support on those occasions when someone does not live up to it. But we have to stop pretending like real Love isn't possible, that fertility is something bad, that a child is ever a "mistake." That's a lie. It's being propagated by the powers that be, but like all great lies it has a demonic origin. Who today is fighting for women? Look at who is still standing up and speaking the truth ... the Catholic Church. And the way this fight will be won is for each of us to embrace and joyfully live this vision of human persons and human sexuality, to celebrate each new life and all of the responsibility they call forth from us. We have to live with the vision of the saints and recognize the beauty of humanity as it comes from the hand of God. With that gleam in our eye (and love in our actions) others will be drawn and the culture changed.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Fundamentalism - What it is, and isn't
You have undoubtedly heard someone say, "We Catholics are not fundamentalists;" and they are correct. The problem arises when it is followed by something like, "we're not bound by the social taboos of an earlier time. As a Catholic, I support 'marriage equality,'" and by that mean redefining "marriage" in a way completely at odds with Scripture and the Catholic Faith. (Think I heard our V.P. say something like that recently.)
When a Catholic, such as Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) says that he or she is not a fundamentalist, they do not mean that they have freedom to reinterpret the doctrinal and moral tenets of the Faith, which as Catholics they believe the truth of which is guaranteed by God. Or to put it in shorthand:
When Scripture shows God saying, "Thou shalt not kill ..." it is a positive assertion, and we are bound to it. Same with the host of biblical statements on marriage and sexual morality that a significant number of Christians today, more influenced by the world than by Scripture and 2,000 years of Christian teaching, seem comfortable ignoring and even opposing. They misunderstand the statement "We are not fundamentalists" to mean "We do not have to be faithful to these hard teachings, these teachings that our culture has started to belittle."
The Jesus of history, the Jesus recorded in Scripture, made a bold assertion. It should make us pause before we reject what Christianity has always proclaimed to be true: "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels" (Lk.9:26).
When a Catholic, such as Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) says that he or she is not a fundamentalist, they do not mean that they have freedom to reinterpret the doctrinal and moral tenets of the Faith, which as Catholics they believe the truth of which is guaranteed by God. Or to put it in shorthand:
"I am not a fundamentalist" ≠ "I can say Scripture or the Church has been wrong on a point of faith or morals"If someone has led you to believe otherwise then he or she has done you a gross disservice. The Church's morality, given to her by God, does not change. The authentic Catholic understanding is:
"I am not a fundamentalist" = "When I read the Bible I understand that ancient authors, just like today's authors, make use of literal as well as figurative language; and it sometimes takes study to understand which is which."In her official documents the Church has stated time and again that Scipture was written in a different culture than our own, and makes use of literary genres that we do not. History was written under different rules. When you read that a king reigned "X" number of years, the author may have been using a symbolic number (40 was a popular one, meaning 'fullness'), or a multiple of it - never meaning his number to be read as those recorded in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The Bible's authors used idioms and hyperbole just as we do today ... the only difference being that we are unfamiliar with theirs. (We're like four year-olds who start to squirm when dad tells them an X-Box costs "an arm and a leg.") And when we Catholics come at the creation accounts in Genesis 1-3, we understand that the author had no intention of writing a scientific account! What he wrote was 100% true, but communicated in language we might characterize as a "poetic" history, as opposed to a scientific one. (We understand that man and woman were made by God, that the family is willed by God, there was a Fall from grace, etc.) When we read Luke's account of the Resurrection on the other hand, he was making claims about what witnesses saw, and reporting history in a way familiar to us today.
When Scripture shows God saying, "Thou shalt not kill ..." it is a positive assertion, and we are bound to it. Same with the host of biblical statements on marriage and sexual morality that a significant number of Christians today, more influenced by the world than by Scripture and 2,000 years of Christian teaching, seem comfortable ignoring and even opposing. They misunderstand the statement "We are not fundamentalists" to mean "We do not have to be faithful to these hard teachings, these teachings that our culture has started to belittle."
The Jesus of history, the Jesus recorded in Scripture, made a bold assertion. It should make us pause before we reject what Christianity has always proclaimed to be true: "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels" (Lk.9:26).
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
"Must be nice living in your 'black and white' world"
"It really is. My life became so much easier after I realized that every time I touched the hot stove I got burned; every time I tried flying like Superman gravity still won out; and every time I tried to breathe underwater I nearly died. As many times as I tried, I could never find any grey areas. Seeing as how we're both here having a discussion, I'm going to say that you didn't either. The only difference between us is that you won't admit that there our laws at work in our sexual expression too; you're just refusing to acknowledge the cause and effect we see working itself out in the society around us - not to mention what happens at the level of the soul."
I'm thinking out loud here. Click on the comment section and chime in. (If your comment doesn't pop up right away, don't worry; there's an approval process.) Look forwarding to hearing from you!
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Christopher West's "At The Heart of the Gospel"
I remember the discussion I had with my friend Michael in the summer of 2009 when, following a story on ABC's Nightline, criticism of Christopher West was coming fast and furious. Both of us had really benefited from West's work, so it disturbed us to read comments on the internet like, "West is leading people into dangerous waters . . . He isn't doing justice to John Paul II's Theology of the Body . . . West is not taking into account the incredible strength of concupiscence, and his readers and listeners are going to be caught off-guard." As I talked with Michael, the most intense lover of the Carmelites I've ever met, the conviction emerged that West's critics were not accounting for the spiritual theology of one of the Church's great Doctors, the Carmelite's St. John of the Cross. West's critics appeared comfortable teaching that Jesus could empower people to overcome any sin - racism, alcoholism, the hunger for revenge, etc. -and actually live as blazing examples of those sins' opposing virtues . . . except for when it came to living a real, sustained victory over lust. In that one area we seemed forever doomed to live on a precipice. West on the other hand seemed to completely embrace St. John's teaching that God can bring us into a transforming union with Him, one that allows us to conquer temptations and take on the image of Christ, albeit with some slight imperfections, even in this life! Jesus' desire is to brings healing and wholeness to the whole person - and sexuality is an integral part of who we are as human beings."I have come that they may have life and have it to the full" (Jn.10:10).
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| Christopher West |
. Does West answer his critics? Yes, and with a tremendous amount of charity. Hats off to him for taking those criticisms to prayer, reflecting upon them, and emerging with an even stronger presentation of Theology of the Body (TOB hereafter) to show for it. Throughout this new book he anchors his explanation of TOB with quotations from John Paul II's text as well as Scripture and the Catechism. He supports his points with TOB commentary from theological heavy weights like Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) and Dr. Michael Waldstein (who in 2006, made the new, critical translation of John Paul's TOB), and offers supporting insights from bedrocks of orthodoxy such as Fulton J. Sheen. I have absolutely no doubts that what West gives readers is a completely faithful presentation of John Paul's thought, accessible to today's culture.Christopher West does a masterful job of teaching us the true value of the body within Christian Faith. As much as the world around us - and even our own poor catechesis - would like to characterize Christianity as souls seeking release from sinful flesh, nothing could be further from the truth. The great scandal of Christianity - as opposed to the Platonism of the Greeks, or the Cartesian duality of today - is the conviction that God not only descended into human flesh but, through the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, has raised it to literally unimaginable heights. The goal, the victory, we Christians await is not our souls' liberation from the body and the spiritual experience of heaven, but the glorification of both soul and body on the day Christ brings heaven to earth!
I did find myself taken aback at several points in the book - not from anything irreverent or immodest on West's part, but by the depth of the Holy Father's reflection. Allow me to site one example: the Holy Father's vision of marriage as the "primordial sacrament" (TOB 97:2). Prior to humanity's fall, John Paul sees marriage acting as an "efficacious sign," communicating divine life (TOB 19:4). The union of man and woman, and the new life that flowed from it, was an anticipation of the union to be achieved by Jesus and His redeemed Church, His Bride (Eph.5:31-32), and the supernatural life that would come into the world through it.
And the "transforming union" Michael and I discussed so many moons ago? Oh, it's here - in spades. West quotes from John Paul II (TOB 43:6), showing the Holy Father's complete agreement with St. John of the Cross that we can experience a "liberation of our hearts from 'concupiscence,'" a true transformation of our desires. (The Holy Father's agreement with St. John isn't surprising considering that he was the subject of JPII's 1948 doctoral thesis!) But like John of the Cross, the Holy Father and West insist that the purity of heart Jesus spoke of in the Beatitudes (Mt.5:8) comes only after many purifications and dark nights. We should not overestimate our strength or progress in the spiritual life. For the vast, vast majority of us, periodic "custody of the eyes" will be a necessary safeguard to looking upon someone of the opposite sex with lust for a good, long while. But we are called to transformation. We are journeying toward looking at others with the very eyes and mind of Christ - that's the Beatitudes, that's the Sermon on the Mount. And the Lord wouldn't issue the call unless it were a real possibility! The question is, how serious are we about achieving it?
Looking back at what I've written so far, I recognize that my words have not, and in my opinion cannot, do justice to the depth of this book. I already have a list of friends to whom I plan to loan it. If you are ready to see yourself, marriage, reality, to see the Catholic Faith through a new set of eyes, then click this link:
Monday, March 1, 2010
Teens Sexually Active... as Parents LOOK ON?
NO, of course they wouldn't be! Which is the point of a great article penned by Catholic Exchange editor, Mary Kochan. If you're a parent, I recommend you give it a look. My kids aren't of dating age yet, but Mary sure has me thinking about when they will be...and what my responsibility toward them is.
Putting the Vision Back in Supervision by Mary Kochan
Putting the Vision Back in Supervision by Mary Kochan
Monday, July 21, 2008
"Contraception? Oh, Come ON!"
That's the reaction I think most people have when they hear, yet again, that the Catholic Church opposes contraception. It seems like one of the stupidest positions you could take. I mean, the Catholic Church is the great enemy of abortion - and isn't contraception all about preventing the circumstances that lead to abortion?Well lets start with what the Church means by "contraception." It is any act which intentional drives a wedge between the love-giving and life-giving aspects of sexual intercourse; it seeks to derail the natural procreative process with which God graced human nature. (This is a quantum leap from the legitimate method of postponing or avoiding additional pregnancies offered by natural family planning - a husband and wife using the latest medical information regarding the wife's fertile and infertile times to determine when intercourse will most likely result in conception.)
There seems to be this Western cultural amnesia that EVERY form of Christianity was morally opposed to contraception up until 1930 (not to mention non-Christians such as Gandhi and Sigmund Freud). That was the year that the Anglican Church decided that it was permissible in some cases, but emphatically warned against recourse to contraception because of "selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience." From there it was a snowball effect, one Christian body after another abandoning its historic position (Martin Luther had gone so far as to claim that contraception was, "far more atrocious than incest and adultery,"and John Calvin that it "kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born." WOW - have you ever heard a Catholic theologian take it that far?) By 1968, the Catholic Church stood alone; that was the year Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae, and reiterated this element of classic, orthodox Christianity - this truth engrained in the natural order. And he predicted that if the Truth was ignored, there would be dire consequences. (Sound kind of like Moses? the Old Testament prophets? Jesus? Paul?)
Now, today's subject is owed to an article I just read by Christopher West over at the Catholic Exchange website (I'm there everyday), that demonstrates the connection between our culture's embrace of a contraceptive mindset and the explosion of "adultery, divorce, premarital sex, STD’s, out-of-wedlock births, abortion, fatherless children, homosexuality," etc . (Chris has some fantastic books out there - but I digress.) I just want to quote from his article, because I can't say it better myself; and I know Chris would want me to pass the info along:
"What’s the connection with contraception? While today’s societal chaos is certainly complex, the following demonstrates the 'inner logic' of contraception’s contribution. People are often tempted to do things they shouldn’t do. Deterrents within nature itself and within society help to curb these temptations and maintain order. For example, what would happen to the crime rate in a given society if jail terms suddenly ceased?
"Apply the same logic to sex. People throughout history have been tempted to commit adultery. It’s nothing new. However, one of the main deterrents from succumbing to the temptation has been the fear of pregnancy. What would happen if this natural deterrent were taken away? As history demonstrates, rates of adultery would skyrocket. What’s one of the main causes of divorce? Adultery. Apply the same logic to pre-marital sex. Such behavior has, indeed, skyrocketed. Premarital sex, as a kind of 'adultery in advance,' is also a prime indicator of future marital breakdown.
"It gets worse. Since no method of contraception is 100% effective, an increase in adultery and pre-marital sex will inevitably lead to an increase in 'unwanted pregnancies.' What’s next? So many people think contraception is the solution to the abortion problem. Take a deeper look and you’ll see that that’s like throwing gasoline on a fire to try to put it out. In the final analysis, there is only one reason we have abortion - because men and women are having sex without being “open to life.” If this mentality is at the root of abortion, contraception does nothing but foster and afford this mentality.
"Not everyone will resort to abortion of course. Some will choose adoption. Other mothers (most) will raise these children by themselves. Hence the number of children who grow up without a father (which has already been increased by the rise in divorce) will be compounded...
"What about homosexuality? Our culture is impotent to resist the 'gay agenda' because we have already accepted its basic premise with contraception — the reduction of sex to the exchange of pleasure. When openness to life is no longer an intrinsic part of the sexual equation, why does sexual behavior have to be with the opposite sex?" [End extended quotation from Chis West]
DUDE! All I can say after that is, "Contraception? Oh, COME ON! Can't you see where that has led us?"
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