For the the Theology of the Body week was transformative. I knew what TOB was but spending this week in Pennsyvania where the theology was so integrated with the heart (sacraments, prayer etc) really had a powerful effect. I wish I could bring everyone on this course, the teaching the TOB and understanding ourselves as God created us is so healing and powerful. I wanted to share some of my notes from the week (I have 20 pages) so have narrowed down some of the points and tried to sort them into rough headings. I know I am not doing these comments real justice by throwing them in like this with no foundations but some of the ideas spoke very much to my heart so I hope some of them might speak to you. This is not even the beginning, I really desire to be able to get TOB known in Austraia more. I encourage you to google 'Theology of the Body' or check out this page with articles by Christopher West. It is profound stuff!
LOVE…
The culture says that love is not possible, that we are not worthy of a love that dares to encompass us, just settle for the food in the dumpster. The culture tells us that there is no banquet…but as Christ said, ‘in the beginning it was not so’. Christ died and rose to restore creation to the purity of its origins. The Immaculate Conception is the sign that redemption worked, perfectly given and received. To say that we cannot overcome our lusts is to say the cross did not work, the journey is difficult but it will lead to resurrection. Living true love is a journey that is totally sustained by grace.
The love of man and wife is redemptive, the love they share is meant to be a symbol of Christ’s redemptive love. A man who truly loves will be able to heal the hurts of his beloved and the woman who loves will be able to heal the wounds of her beloved
It is written into a women’s heart to yearn for a man who will love her like Christ loves, someone who loves her as if she were the only women who would only exist. Not only is it women though who desire this sort of love but men actually desire to die for their women. It comes out in music and in film and art. The man however can doubt that he has this ability and the woman can also be led to believe that there is not really any man out there to love them unconditionally or they feel unworthy of hey meet someone who desires to love them in that way. This being said, as desirous as we are to live these ideals we will always fail from time to time, we are fallen and wounded
Listen to the novels, the movies, the music…every good story tells this story; everyone is longing for love. That love we are aching for though is beyond ourselves, we are seeking for the infinite exchange of love. When we seek the answers in finite things it results in addiction. Addiction demonstrates we yearn for something that never ends, that is a good yearning. When we sin we are looking for something good but sin is less than what will satisfy us
MAN AND WOMAN…
Our creation as man and woman is a window into heaven, it is an icon, it gives us the vision into understanding and living in heaven. When the image of man and woman is so distorted though The enemy leads us to believe that we cannot reach the beauty of heaven, we run the other way. But our humanity is deeper than the original sin that wounds us; we know we are created for more, listen to the echo in our hearts.
GOD THE FATHER…
Many of us carry a ‘father wound’, we mistake the love of God the Father and see him as a tyrant instead of the origin of every good gift. All of stand before the Father with one of two postures, receptivity to the gift or grasping at the gift. Mary is the model of receptivity towards the gift. If we don’t believe God is a loving Father, we will reach out to take what we want for ourselves.
Since the fall we have all taken the posture of fear before God, we have become spiritually naked. The Lord wants to remove the stone, like he removed the stone from the tomb of the dead Lazarus. There was the scent of death but from that the Lord brought forth life. We must all know our need to remove the stone.
SHAME…
A woman will cover her body if someone bursts into the bathroom, why is this? It is because she does not want to be seen by someone who may not see her for who she is. She carries an echo in her heart that she is not to be used. Adam and Eve covered themselves because they were not totally depraved, the felt natural shame, a good shame. Nakedness without shame is what we are called too and we can taste that to some level in an authentic marital relationship, we can also see that in art. We are not ashamed of the body but of the concupiscence through which it might be viewed. Marriage is the place in which shame is to some degree taken away, shame is absorbed by love.
CHASTITY…
True chastity is not perfected by never being alone together before marriage, a couple need to practice to control themselves. If a couple do not, they will not be able to exercise true chastity within marriage. We remain in chains. If we are slaves to sin we will see freedom as indulging in our desires to sin. We can walk on water if we keep our eyes on Christ.
Women do not want a man who cannot control his sexual desires. If he cannot say no then his yes means nothing; woman just becomes an outlet for him to indulge his lusts. On the contrary women need to be careful to not see their husbands as merely a means to fulfil a desire for children
MARRIAGE…
If you think you can never be happy unless you are married then you will always be disappointed. Those who are not married can be truly happy. Married people will never be completely happy in this life, they will never be able to fulfil all their spouses desires, as ones ultimate happiness can never come completely come from their spouse. Couples must learn to let go of the idolatry and expectations that they need to fulfil all the needs of the other person. Marriage is an icon, not an idol. Marriage and procreation is the historical dimension of the desire for heaven. The sexual union and communion of marriage is meant to point us to the communion of heaven.
The marital embrace is the opportunity to bring about the creation of another human being. All sexual sin is the attempt to grasp at the ecstasy without the agony. This is not to condemn anyone but to be awakened to the depth of grace we are offered. The dissatisfaction that so many marriages suffer is at the most basic root the rejection of the explosion of sexual love that is meant to be. Contracepted sexual union does not heal anything but it pours salt on the wounds.
Christ wants to enter a marital relationship with us; if we miss that we miss it all.
GOD’S LOVE…
We yearn for forgiveness of sins but that is not the end, it is only the beginning, what God wants is to have us sit down with his at the banquet. Even though we have offended God we are constantly invited not just to sit down with Him to a meal but to become part of His family.
SEXUAL UNION...
Sexual union is meant to proclaim the whole depth of God’s mystery, from creation to redemption. When spouses proclaim the language of their body, they perform an act of prophecy, they point to the communion of the Trinity. The question is as to whether or not the couple allow their union to have the character of a truthful sign. The Church imposes nothing on us when she says sexual love is meant to last forever. The Church wants all people to experience the love they long for. Do not give yourself sexually to another unless they have given themselves to you forever and that is…marriage. We are all looking for true love and when we don’t find it, it rips us apart.
Everything the church says about sex is this; don’t settle for less than what you really desire. The Church does indeed have a high view of sexual love and that can only be lived out by correspondence with grace. Through Christ there is always the possibility from error to truth and from sin to chastity, always an expression of a life lived according to the Holy Spirit In our world sex has become our religion, our idol. But there is a deeper hunger, what the world really wants is union with God but it is disguising it with an attempt at sex
THE SONG OF SONGS (SCRIPTURE)
My Sister, My Bride (Song of Songs 4:9-10). We are too quick in our culture to ignore the importance of having the fraternal theme beneath a relationship. To call a woman ‘sister’ before calling her ‘bride’ has a particular eloquence, it shows the man’s desire is not one of lust but of love. We can see it also when a woman sees in her lover a brother first and foremost, she would not treat her brother as merely a sperm bank or for the sake of financial security.
While there is much vulnerability on the hearts of women, there is much vulnerability on the parts of men initiating the gift. It is a very delicate exchange. If the lover is to enter the garden he cannot knock down the door or manipulate the woman in surrendering the key. The man must entrust himself to her freedom, for she might refuse. The is the risk the man has to take. In total freedom (the Lord will never force us) the beloved will say yes, in total freedom she says ‘I belong to my lover”.
A woman should have a sense of her own mystery and men must respect that mystery, tragically though, the free sex generation has caused many women to no longer appreciate their own mystery as it has been violated and many men to forget their role as true lovers. Forgiveness is needed towards those who offended and used us. The love shown to our violators will be the healing that will allow us to take on our role as men and women and find and live out the love the Lord calls us to
CONTRACEPTION…
If we understand ourselves as mere biology then tampering with our fertility will be no different to clipping our toenails; our sexuality though is meant to be a reflection of the love of God. We can compare any sexual behaviour to God’s love which is free, total, faithful, fruitful and see if that behaviour is authentic. Adultery, masturbation, homosexuality…are these acts that image God’s love? No. Is this meant to condemn anyone…no! It just means we are missing the mark and all of us in our fallen states miss the mark in some way. The important matter is not what our particular wound is but rather if we are willing to let God’s love heal us. We can ask the same about Contracepted sex, does it echo God’s call for free, total, faithful and fruitful love? The answer again…no. Contracepted sex turns the marital act into a lie when it is supposed to be the greatest moment of truth between couples. The thing is modern culture does not really like sex, it is scared of sex. What does our culture like? It likes orgasm. It likes the pleasure, but if we really loved sex we would not seek to alter it at such a fundamental level. There is a scene in ‘Will and Grace’ where a coule are trying for a child and the man says “Now we get to have sex for real”. There it is, right in modern culture, Contracepted sex, is simply not real sex.
NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING…
The Catholic Church has never, never, never taught that a couple must have as many children as is possible. This is where true responsible parenthood comes in. Having established that we cannot tell a lie with our bodies, what can we do? What most of us are doing right now…abstain. After all, God himself has not made a woman to be fertile all throughout her life, he is giving us the means for couples to space their families.
Contraception was not invented to prevent pregnancy, we already had a way to do that. Contraception was invented so we don’t need to abstain. Even the feminist Germaine Greer has recently says ‘The pill has called women into call girls to be readily available for meaningless sex’.
The only method of birth control that is in keeping with human dignity is self control. If you cannot say no then your yes means nothing.
The moral responsibility of the number of children a couple has rests in the shoulders of the parents and no one else. This decision must be made in truth before the Lord but it always be carried out using moral means.
The problem with birth control is not that it is artificial. It is not artificial vs natural. We need to talk in regard to contraception vs abstinence. With modern natural family planning methods a couple can be 99% sure about when they are fertile.
Some people say what is the difference between waiting and contracepting? Think then about what is the difference between killing grandma and waiting for her to die. It is the same difference between euthanasia and natural death. In euthanasia and contraception we take the power of God into our own hands. But many now do not even see the problem with euthanasia and that is because they accepted the story of contraception. When one becomes fuzzy on beginning of life issues one also becomes fuzzy on end of life issues.
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