I GET a good laugh everytime I give a talk on this topic. The look of
disbelief I see on the faces of those attending my talk simply amuses
more than worries me.
It is as if I’m talking about a very strange, arcane topic, a doctrine
from the moon perhaps. I could almost hear their suppressed reaction:
“Hello, good morning, are you still on earth? Are you an alien? Get
real, man!”
This simply confirms my suspicion that there’s a lot of ignorance and
confusion surrounding this basic aspect of married life. We can
presume from there that a lot of irregular and highly immoral acts
must be taking place around!
In the first place, there’s that terribly mistaken notion that
chastity is just a matter of not doing this and not doing that. It’s
seen as a killer of freedom, a spoiler of spontaneity. It’s even
accused of being anti-human.
Many others now believe that chastity, if ever it has some use is just
for the little children or the very old and dried-up persons. At best,
it is only for the single if not the abnormal. They claim it has no
place in a normally constructed person. And definitely no place in
married life.
As if marriage gives a person the license to act as brutes, to follow
simply the impulses of one’s hormones and instincts. It is as if
marriage means one can forget his conscience, his spiritual life, his
supernatural destination.
Hardly appreciated is the fundamental truth that chastity is an
affirmation of love, a defense of the true meaning and nature of human
sexuality and marriage, removing them from the clutches of some blind
forces. Lost is the truth the chastity makes one simple and with
self-dominion, and most important, it is what makes us see God, as one
of the beatitudes would put it.
If ever it involves sacrifices and self-denial, it is simply because
as men and women we are free to choose to be either an animal or a
person, a merely biological organism or a child of God. And in that
choice, some struggle is unavoidable.
Making things worse are the shameless campaigns promoting population
control, family planning, reproductive health, sex education, safe
sex, etc., that twist, distort and disfigure the reality of human
sexuality, chastity and marriage.
We have to remind everyone that chastity is indispensable in marriage
because we continue to be human persons ad children of God when we
marry. Human sexuality is not debased when its direct, genital use is
properly done in marriage. Yes, properly, because many also are the
improper ways of using it.
The Catholic Church has always proclaimed the goodness and lawfulness
of the acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the
spouses takes place. She is no prude.
But she teaches that these actions should be effectively guided by
objective criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and human
action. We just cannot be ruled by the laws of practicality and
pleasure-seeking, though they also have their proper place.
Chastity in marriage follows these criteria that respect the total
self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. It
includes as an essential element that of openness to life in the acts
proper to marriage, something that is openly denied by certain
powerful ideologies nowadays.
Thus, chastity in marriage necessarily excludes the intrinsically
immoral act of contraception, defined as “any action which either
before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically
intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or as a means.”
Contraception usurps God’s power of giving life. It in effect makes
man, not God, the ultimate source of human life. It makes man, not
God, exercise the power to dictate the coming into existence of a
human person, a fundamental error that we should try to avoid at all
costs.
Besides, contraception breaks the naturally inseparable connection
between the unitive and procreative properties of the marriage act. It
gets hooked with the unitive aspect and all its pleasure-giving
component, and rejects the responsibility associated with its
procreative aspect.
Actually, no matter how one sweetens or rationalizes it, contraception
is a degradation of married love and a corruption of the couple
concerned. It makes the marital act not an act of love, but rather an
act of selfishness.
We need to make a strong and clear reminder of this fundamental
requirement of married life, and to promote chastity in marriage
everywhere.
disbelief I see on the faces of those attending my talk simply amuses
more than worries me.
It is as if I’m talking about a very strange, arcane topic, a doctrine
from the moon perhaps. I could almost hear their suppressed reaction:
“Hello, good morning, are you still on earth? Are you an alien? Get
real, man!”
This simply confirms my suspicion that there’s a lot of ignorance and
confusion surrounding this basic aspect of married life. We can
presume from there that a lot of irregular and highly immoral acts
must be taking place around!
In the first place, there’s that terribly mistaken notion that
chastity is just a matter of not doing this and not doing that. It’s
seen as a killer of freedom, a spoiler of spontaneity. It’s even
accused of being anti-human.
Many others now believe that chastity, if ever it has some use is just
for the little children or the very old and dried-up persons. At best,
it is only for the single if not the abnormal. They claim it has no
place in a normally constructed person. And definitely no place in
married life.
As if marriage gives a person the license to act as brutes, to follow
simply the impulses of one’s hormones and instincts. It is as if
marriage means one can forget his conscience, his spiritual life, his
supernatural destination.
Hardly appreciated is the fundamental truth that chastity is an
affirmation of love, a defense of the true meaning and nature of human
sexuality and marriage, removing them from the clutches of some blind
forces. Lost is the truth the chastity makes one simple and with
self-dominion, and most important, it is what makes us see God, as one
of the beatitudes would put it.
If ever it involves sacrifices and self-denial, it is simply because
as men and women we are free to choose to be either an animal or a
person, a merely biological organism or a child of God. And in that
choice, some struggle is unavoidable.
Making things worse are the shameless campaigns promoting population
control, family planning, reproductive health, sex education, safe
sex, etc., that twist, distort and disfigure the reality of human
sexuality, chastity and marriage.
We have to remind everyone that chastity is indispensable in marriage
because we continue to be human persons ad children of God when we
marry. Human sexuality is not debased when its direct, genital use is
properly done in marriage. Yes, properly, because many also are the
improper ways of using it.
The Catholic Church has always proclaimed the goodness and lawfulness
of the acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the
spouses takes place. She is no prude.
But she teaches that these actions should be effectively guided by
objective criteria drawn from the nature of the human person and human
action. We just cannot be ruled by the laws of practicality and
pleasure-seeking, though they also have their proper place.
Chastity in marriage follows these criteria that respect the total
self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. It
includes as an essential element that of openness to life in the acts
proper to marriage, something that is openly denied by certain
powerful ideologies nowadays.
Thus, chastity in marriage necessarily excludes the intrinsically
immoral act of contraception, defined as “any action which either
before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically
intended to prevent procreation, whether as an end or as a means.”
Contraception usurps God’s power of giving life. It in effect makes
man, not God, the ultimate source of human life. It makes man, not
God, exercise the power to dictate the coming into existence of a
human person, a fundamental error that we should try to avoid at all
costs.
Besides, contraception breaks the naturally inseparable connection
between the unitive and procreative properties of the marriage act. It
gets hooked with the unitive aspect and all its pleasure-giving
component, and rejects the responsibility associated with its
procreative aspect.
Actually, no matter how one sweetens or rationalizes it, contraception
is a degradation of married love and a corruption of the couple
concerned. It makes the marital act not an act of love, but rather an
act of selfishness.
We need to make a strong and clear reminder of this fundamental
requirement of married life, and to promote chastity in marriage
everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment