An Introduction to The Truth, Goodness and Beauty of Holy Sex

An Introduction to The Truth, Goodness and Beauty of Holy Sex

The Battle

The battle for sexual purity is one of the toughest battles in both the physical and the spiritual realm. This is especially true in modern times because the culture of the sexual revolution has made sex into a false god that is to be worshiped at the expense of the human being and of love. However, the Catholic Church gives us a view of sex and human sexuality which elevates it to a plane infinitely more dignified than the cultural "uplifting" of human sexuality which has degenerated not only sex, but made the human person into an object to be used rather than a person to be loved.

Love and the Sexual Revolution (or Bloody Civil War)

Love is wanting and doing what is best for the other person at all times. Truly loving another person will always require self sacrifice. When the sexual revolution swept through Western Civilization the idea that a human being, especially the woman, is a person to be loved was replaced by a false concept of freedom and love. Sex was equated to love. So, with this false and destructive idea of love, the sexual revolution put forth the idea that we are "free" to use a person to satisfy our sexual desires. However, our freedom to do as we wish ends where the other person's right to be loved is violated. It is easy to see the results of the sexual revolution have not been good for mankind and especially have not been kind to women. It has pitted men against women, wives against their husbands, mothers against their unborn babies, and society against both the family and children, which are the foundation of any civilized society. Since the sexual revolution started in earnest with the invention of the birth control pill, the divorce rate doubled in the first ten years, fathers have become absent from families in society which has resulted in more violent crime, much of it against women (at least 80% of prisoners incarcerated for violent crime grew up fatherless), pornography (which overwhelmingly shows women as objects to be used and discarded as soon as the man is satisfied and done with them) is now hard to avoid in our daily lives. In addition, STD's are at epidemic rates and AIDS has killed more than 30 million. Abortion has become the deadliest and most horrific result of the sexual revolution with 50+ million human beings brutally massacred in the womb of the mother. Mothers who have had abortions are victims of abortion as well and deserve our compassion. (If you are a woman who is a victim of abortion please contact Project Rachael for counseling and healing.) It has been nearly fifty years since the sexual revolution engulfed Western Civilization and the world. With the great division this evil belief system has caused and the bloody brutality on all levels of human existence the "revolution" has become the bloodiest civil war in human history!

The Foundation of Church and God's Teaching

Two thirds of all that has been written by the Church on human sexuality was written by Blessed John Paul II. The underlying truth that supports the Church's teaching in all areas of sexuality, including the beauty of the marital embrace and the immorality of any stimulation of the sexual organs outside of the marital covenant, is that each human being is person to be loved and to use that person in a way that violates human dignity is a sin against the high nobility of man; man made in the image and likeness of God. Blessed John Paul II wrote that "Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. Right "from the beginning," he is… essentially, an image of an inscrutable divine communion of persons." It is not easy to understand the mystery and nature of the eternal spiritual union of the Father and the Son, which has as its eternal fruit the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, however the union of husband and wife, which sometimes has as its fruit children, dimly reflects this union of love within the Trinity. This dim reflection should give us a glimpse of the marital union as sacred, precisely because of what it reflects. It is sacred because its original design was to show the "image and likeness" of the Trinitarian God, even though, through the fall of man, we have disfigured and obscured the original truth, goodness, and beauty of God's design. It is in this sacred character of the marital embrace that reflects the unwavering love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have for each other. The love of the husband, wife, and the children is intended to be a sign of the permanent character of the love within the Trinitarian God. This is why there are few exceptions for divorce in Catholicism; the whole family is meant to be a visible sign of the permanent internal unseen love of God.

True Love

In order for love to be true it must have a permanent character. When a person we truly love dies, like a parent or a brother or sister, we do not simply stop loving them because they have gone on to their eternal reward, the love we have for them continues. It is because of this permanent character that true love cannot be tied only to our temporary emotions and certainly not to our temporary physical urges. If you say you "love" someone today and six hours, or six weeks, or six months, or six years later you no longer "love" them how can you say you truly loved them in the first place. For sure, true love will have times of deep emotion and deep physical attraction and times when they don't, but within a lifelong committed marriage, when emotions and physical affection are at lull it does not jeopardize the relationship in any way. Love is based on the lifelong commitment you have to someone, whether that is a friend or most especially a spouse. You choose definitively to "do what is best for the other person at all times." This will mean that at some point you will have to lay aside your wants or desires to fulfill someone else's need or want. That is true love. Certainly there are different levels of love, but the more personal the relationship, the more permanent the character of love is. So, the love we have for our parents is greater and has a more permanent nature than the love we have for a co-worker. The love we have for a co-worker is greater and more permanent than the love we have for an acquaintance. The love we have for our spouse, being the most intimate love we can have, is the greatest and has should have the most permanent nature of all other loves here on earth. Our model for this sacrificial spousal love is Jesus. We should be willing to lay down our lives for our spouse just as Jesus laid down His life for His love. That is you and me.

The Problems

Once again we return to the definition: Love is wanting and doing what is best for the other person at all times. Implied in the definition of love is that there is another person to love. So when we engage in masturbation we have to ask the question: Who is it that you are loving? You are not loving another human being, for there is no one there but you. What you are "loving" is a fantasy and you cannot have a lifelong committed relationship with fantasy. This is one of the problems with pornography: it does not depict reality, but a fantasy. This hurts the individual who is learning that the woman in the fantasy, whether on the screen or in the mind, will do whatever you want them to do. If you do not like the woman on the screen or what she is doing you simply discard her for another fantasy. This is not a good way to learn self-sacrificing true love. If we take any situation where sex outside the committed marriage, we run into a host of problems. If you are talking a one night stand, just hooking up, or having friends with benefits, this obviously is using the other person for you own gratification. This is a blatant sin against human dignity, for God created human sexuality with a much greater purpose in mind. What about if you are really feel love for each other? There are millions of brokenhearted men and women who were "in love" and later found out something about that person that was a deal killer (such as infidelity.) When two people engage in sexual activity the body releases hormones which act as a bonding agent. In the safe confines of marriage, where you have already seen enough of your spouses faults with a clear head, this bonding chemical the body releases will help the couple to overlook and forgive each others faults more easily. However, during the dating phase of the relationship, where you are "interviewing" each other as potential spouse it is important to keep a clear head and see the faults the other person has and then decide if they are deal killers or not. Sex works against this intelligent way of dating. Children also enter into this definition of love. Children have a right to have both parents living together as husband and wife, so when two people who are not married, engage in intercourse they are not loving the children that may result from this illicit union. There are now millions of children who are deprived of this fundamental right, because of their parents' inability to truly love each other and their future children.

The Reason for Hope

“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (RSV Gen. 2:24) The institution of Marriage was given to mankind by God. The fall of man disrupted the original intent, but God provided a way for men and women to learn, with much difficulty, how to love each other again. It is no coincidence that Jesus performed His first public miracle at a wedding where He turned the water into wine. The wine signifies the merciful love of God and Jesus transformed between and 120-180 gallons of water into wine for just one wedding! Jesus wants to pour out His superabundant Love on all of humanity, but most especially He wishes to bless the one flesh union of husband and wife! This is one of the reasons Jesus founded the Catholic Church: to provide stable means of receiving His grace through the Sacraments and Jesus Himself raised the institution of Marriage to the level of a Sacrament. This means that Sacramental Marriage itself is a source of grace for those who can receive it. Sex outside of marriage does not have this grace and can truly be destructive. The battle for sexual purity is a difficult one, but through the Sacrament of the Eucharist and Reconciliation, God enables us to live the life He desires for us and when we do fall He restores us to relationship with Him.

Answering the Call

The call to sexual purity is not a call to follow a laundry list of do's and don'ts, but a call to discover how to love your fellow human being as a person made in the image and likeness of God, most especially our spouse. The call to true love is a call to strive to love as Jesus loves. Jesus Himself said to us "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." (RSV JN. 15:12) Our merciful loving Lord would not command us to do this if it were impossible.

Chip Awalt has been evangelizing since 1999 and graduated Cum Laude with a Masters in Theological Studies from Ave Maria University's Institute for Pastoral Theology.