"But the Church accepts federal money, so they need to play by federal rules!"
Not necessarily. My response, and then a little more following:
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As a blanket statement, accepting federal money does not mean you forfeit your constitutional rights. For instance, in Louisiana, when the Federal Government tried to force the state to raise the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 on the premise that the state was receiving federal funds for highways, the courts ruled that Louisiana did not have to comply with this federal regulation even though they were receiving federal money.
So the question is, can the federal government override constitutionally protected rights by giving of their money? I'm going to bet no. This mandate does not even exclude organizations which don't accept federal money; it's a red herring argument.
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If this is the game that the federal government is going to play, then the Catholic Church and its organizations need to tell the federal government, "To hell with your money," just as they have told us, "To hell with your beliefs and rights." If the bishops have said that they'd go to jail before complying with this unjust mandate, I'm pretty sure they'll be happy to tell the feds where they can put their money.
This needs to get to the Supreme Court. It doesn't have a leg to stand on. And no, I'm no lawyer. But I know a great one. Thanks, Amazing Advocate!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Submit, Woman! Submit!
To paraphrase the lady responding to an article which talks about all kinds of insurance coverage for sexually-natured surgeries for men, but when a woman wants the birth control pill all she gets is an aspirin..."But but but...the bible said women must submit to men, and you know, bear children until they die or whatever...how DARE we go against someone's God with our godless feminist ideals./sarcasm"
And so, of course, because I have not yet reached that degree of holiness where I feel blessed when others misrepresent, calumniate and lie about my faith, I was compelled to respond. I thought it was worth sharing, as I've just heard this portion of St. Paul's teachings twisted way too many times. I am sure you will be pleased with the lack of elaboration, as you know I do get...attack of the diarrhea hands.
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Actually X, the Bible goes beyond telling women to submit to their husbands, and tells men to love their wives like Christ loved the Church. Christ died for the Church. So it calls women to submit to a love that is patient, kind, not boastful, not envious, not arrogant, etc... and for men to die for their wives. Twisting scripture to make your case doesn't help it.
Godless feminists are certainly free to have ideals which go against someone else's God. They are not free, however, to ask the adherents of that God to go against their consciences and subsidize their ideals. The first amendment to the constitution is not disposable when it might impact your sex life if you work for a Catholic.
The coverage for mens' sexual surgeries is ludicrous. You know, when they were developing the pill way back when, it was originally designed for men. One or two men showed some testicular enlargement so they quit doing trials on men and started doing them on women instead. In the early runs, three women died. They adjusted the dosage. Sounds pretty anti-woman down to the roots to me. It's easy to demonize the other side as being anti-woman, but it's a baseless accusation. Catholicism reveres and respects women, and views their bodies as sacred. To suggest otherwise reveals that you have never actually gone to the Church's words to see what they teach about women.
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Hopefully this will at least clear up any ideas that women are somehow to be unjustly subjugated to power-hungry spouses, no matter what. If we loved as we ought to love, then nobody would take this scripture and misinterpret it, either in the case of the man who happens to be a tyrannical husband or in the case of the feminist who is trying to make Christianity--especially Catholicism--look anti-woman. Sorry folks, that anti-woman sentiment just is not there, not in the clergy, not in the religious, not in the laity.
And so, of course, because I have not yet reached that degree of holiness where I feel blessed when others misrepresent, calumniate and lie about my faith, I was compelled to respond. I thought it was worth sharing, as I've just heard this portion of St. Paul's teachings twisted way too many times. I am sure you will be pleased with the lack of elaboration, as you know I do get...attack of the diarrhea hands.
----------------------------------------------
Actually X, the Bible goes beyond telling women to submit to their husbands, and tells men to love their wives like Christ loved the Church. Christ died for the Church. So it calls women to submit to a love that is patient, kind, not boastful, not envious, not arrogant, etc... and for men to die for their wives. Twisting scripture to make your case doesn't help it.
Godless feminists are certainly free to have ideals which go against someone else's God. They are not free, however, to ask the adherents of that God to go against their consciences and subsidize their ideals. The first amendment to the constitution is not disposable when it might impact your sex life if you work for a Catholic.
The coverage for mens' sexual surgeries is ludicrous. You know, when they were developing the pill way back when, it was originally designed for men. One or two men showed some testicular enlargement so they quit doing trials on men and started doing them on women instead. In the early runs, three women died. They adjusted the dosage. Sounds pretty anti-woman down to the roots to me. It's easy to demonize the other side as being anti-woman, but it's a baseless accusation. Catholicism reveres and respects women, and views their bodies as sacred. To suggest otherwise reveals that you have never actually gone to the Church's words to see what they teach about women.
---------------------------------------------
Hopefully this will at least clear up any ideas that women are somehow to be unjustly subjugated to power-hungry spouses, no matter what. If we loved as we ought to love, then nobody would take this scripture and misinterpret it, either in the case of the man who happens to be a tyrannical husband or in the case of the feminist who is trying to make Christianity--especially Catholicism--look anti-woman. Sorry folks, that anti-woman sentiment just is not there, not in the clergy, not in the religious, not in the laity.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Wham Bam Thank You Maam Introduction to Catholic Sexual Thought
"The 'great mystery,' which is the Church and humanity in Christ, does not exist apart from the 'great mystery' expressed in the 'one flesh'...reality of marriage and the family." ~Pope John Paul II
For the record, my quotes are going to come from Christopher West's _Good News About Sex and Marriage_, although if I had to recommend a book to read on the issue, it would probably be Kimberly Hahn's _Life Giving Love_. I lent out my copy, and I think they might have liked it because I told them to send it back if they didn't. Awesome!
In my previous post, I talked a lot about sex being an act by which two people engage in self- donation, the giving of their entire selves to one another, without reserve. This is clearly not the culture's view of what sex is. Today, sex is a recreational activity. I'm going to play tennis, I'm going to a movie, I'm going to get laid. Just do it! Where does this idea of sex as self-donation come from, and why do we insist upon each intimate embrace between a man and woman being such an intense experience, one that could change their lives forever?
If you're an atheist, you may wish to hang it up now, unless you care to go on a quest to understand the existence of God and why God is a Trinity of three Divine Persons sharing one Divine nature. Goodness knows there is no shortage of writing upon this and people willing to answer questions. But I will start from the presupposition that God exists, and is a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
One of the opening paragraphs in West's book reads:
"'Love one another as I have loved you,' (Jn 15:12). These words of Christ sum up the meaning of life *and* the meaning of human sexuality. At its core, sexual morality is about expressing God's love through our bodies. This is why Pope John Paull II can say that if we live according to the truth of our sexuality, we fulfill the very meaning of our being and existence." (West, p.17) He goes on to discuss that the opposite is true, that if we disregard the truth of our sexuality, then we miss the meaning of life altogether, and as such true happiness and joy will elude us. He says, "Disputes about sexual morality, then, are not merely about differing ethical perspectives, different interpretations of Scripture, or Church authority versus personal conscience. No, they go much deeper than that. At their root, disputes about sexual morality are disputes about the very meaning of life." This is very important to understand, and provides a key as to why Catholics are, as people say, "So hung up on sex." (West, p.18) A little more...
"When we search out the true meaning of sexuality, we touch on the core of our being as men and women. We encounter our deepest longings and aspirations and, at the same time, our deepest fears, wounds, selfishness, and sins. Here lies the challenge: we must face the reality of our humanity--the good and the bad--if we are to discover the truth about our sexuality. Inevitably this leads us to the cross. For it is Christ who, by showing us the truth about love, shows us the meaning of life."(West, p.17) So this is important to know, and it is real. It does not ignore that we are fallen beings with disordered wills and inclinations. We do not have to be perfect angels to fit into this paradigm. It will require struggle--the cross--but in the end it will bring life and redemption.
So we start with God. Genesis. Creation and a marriage. The Bible ends with Revelation, and a wedding, the wedding feast of The Lamb and His Bride, which we know is Christ and the Church. Sandwiched in between these two books is a love story with the theme of God's love for His people being as the love of a husband for his wife. Marriage and relationships form the underlying theme of most of the books. I am sure I do not have to give you example upon example, but I will point out the books of Song of Songs and Tobit, the former with its poetry of lovers and seduction and the latter with its emphasis upon the marital bed not being a place of unbridled lust, but a sanctified altar upon which a sacrificial coming together of man and wife occurs, not without risk to those who undertake that coming together with the wrong intentions! So you have God and His people, the Jews. He binds Himself to them through covenants, and no matter the extent of their faithfulness-sometimes it was quite poor- He always remained faithful. God formed a covenental union with His people and divorce was not an option. Then, as today, God's people were hard-hearted and it took a long time to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. Christ did, come, though, the embodiment of the love of husband for bride. The New Covenant was going to be sealed with the sacrificial blood of God Himself. So, West says, "applying this analogy, we can say that God's plan from all eternity is to 'marry' us (see Hos 2:19). " (West, p.19) This plan was so important that God stamped it right onto our very beings so we wouldn't miss it. Our very existence, the meaning of our lives, who we are, who God is, how we are to live, all of these things are found in the truth and meaning of human sexuality and marriage. Now we're getting to the incredible stuff.
So God wants to "marry" us. Before He did this, before there even was an "us," there was God. John says that God is love, but it goes much deeper than this. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Read that again. God is a...family! He not only is "a" family, but He IS family. Our families are but mere images of the family that IS God. God is "a life-giving Communion of Persons." The Father pours Himself out, makes a gift of Himself in perfect love, to the Son, who is the "beloved" of the Father (Mt 3:17). The Son receives this outpouring of love from the Father, and returns the Father's self donation with His own. So the Father perfectly, eternally gives His entirety to the Son, and the Son back to the Father. That perfect love is "so real, so profound, that this love *is* another eternal Person--the Holy Spirit.
Let's go even further. The Son comes down, sent from the Father to make the marriage covenant with the people. Jesus comes. He fulfills the Father's Will perfectly. He gives Himself entirely to and for His people, past, present and future. He seals this New Covenant in His Blood, the infinitely perfect sacrifice of the New Adam making reparation for the infinitely offensive rebellion of the first Adam. So He gives Himself, and then it's all done? Well, yes...and no. Our redemption is complete, and now it is left to us to participate in this. How do we participate in Calvary? We participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which places us mystically at the crucifixion, and at which we do what the Father commanded His children to do with the Sacrificial Lamb, what Jesus, the Lamb of God, told us to do: We eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus Christ. We "communicate". We "receive Holy Communion." We take Jesus Christ into our bodies, body, blood, soul and divinity. We participate in our redemption by participating in the renewal of that Covenant that has taken place since the first days of Christianity, in which Christ is made present, under the form of bread and wine, offered to the Father (He is not sacrificed over and over; He is re-presented to the Father, for all those present. The one sacrifice is sufficient, and re-entered into, and re-presented to the Father), and then here's the kicker: this marital covenant, the new covenant, is consummated in the receiving of Jesus Christ into our bodies, our offering the totality of our beings to Him at this time, and from this communion of God and man springs forth life: spiritual life. He said in John 6 that whoever eats His Body and drinks His Blood lives in Him and He lives in us and He will raise us up on the last day. This is a mystery, a spiritual reality that we do not see or completely understand, but a reality nonetheless. Read the book of Revelation. Read about the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. It is the Mass. It is what we do every Sunday, and some of us every day. For a much greater exposition of this teaching, read Scott Hahn's _The Lamb's Supper_. But why am I talking about Mass and Holy Communion when I should be talking about sex?
As men and women made in the image and likeness of God, what does this mean for us? Well for one, as images of God, we need to mirror in our own lives the love of the Trinity. Our families on earth are but reflections of the Family that is God. We have both the model of the Father pouring Himself into the Son and vice versa, creating the Person that is the Holy Spirit, and we also have the model of Jesus Christ saying, "This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, poured out for the covenant," and then the reception of Jesus Himself into our bodies in this form to seal this marital covenant and bring forth the life that springs from this unbridled, liberal, selfless giving of the totality of persons to each other. These are not just "models," however. These are guides, directions by example of how we are to love each other in our families.
Husband and wife are called to submit to each other, in love and respect, and give of themselves sacrificially, saying to each other, "This is my body, this is my blood, shed for you." As the woman gives her body and blood in the sexual act and the bringing forth of a child, the husband gives his body and then blood in the efforts to support his family. Admittedly, it used to be a little more bloody for the guys than it is now. We are to love each other as Christ loved us, with our totality, unto sacrifice. He gave it all for us, and we are called to give it all for Him. In our marriages, this means we do not conracept. I speak about this in the context of marriage because it is the only context in which the sexual union--the renewal of the marital covenant which unites the spouses and from which new life springs--can licitly take place. The sexual act is a consummation and renewal of a covenant. (Holy Communion is also a consummation and renewal of a covenant. We should, of course, not over-sexualize the Mass, but these are Truths that cannot be denied and which help us place our sexuality into perspective.) To have sex outside marriage is to say a bond exists which does not yet exist, no matter whether the two people love each other, or plan on marrying, until God has joined them, that bond is not present. In some of the Eastern Catholic marriage rites, the bride and groom are presented to each other as each other's crosses by which they will get to Heaven. This is not a put down; we all know that marriage does not come without its sorrows and difficult times. The covenantal bond, and the renewal of that covenant in the marital embrace are what provide the grace to get through these difficult times.
How does contraception fit in? Well contraception is a refusal to give all unto sacrifice. It basically says, "I want the pleasure with none of the commitment, none of the pain." It is a naturally human feeling to be afraid of sacrificing. I cannot say that I am sitting here just jumping at the bit to go through morning sickness, watch my house fall to bits, and deal with the general chaos which come with pregnancy. But I'm either going to give my husband my ALL, or I'm going to wait until I can do that. Contraception, it could be said, could be akin to Jesus calling it quits right at the height of his popularity as He rode into Jerusalem to shouts of "Hosanna!" I'm sure that was a nice feeling for him, to feel the love from others. His love, however, was a different kind of love, one that did not end at the prospect of pain, suffering, and death. Jesus' love brought Him to Calvary, to suffer and die, and then back to each and every one of us who will come to Him in the Eucharist to receive Him. How beautiful that He still makes Himself vulnerable to us so that each and every one of us down through the ages can receive Him just like the apostles did at the Last Supper.
What if you applied contraception to the model of the Holy Trinity? You'd have no Holy Spirit. What if you applied contraception to the institution of the New Covenant? If the body of Christ did not suffer and die, then the body of Christ is not brought forth through the words of the priest and the power of the Holy Spirit for us to receive. This would all make John 6 very difficult to understand, and also Revelation. But fortunately for us, this is not God's way. Just as God does not divorce His people, and so divorce is not permitted to us, He does not withhold even the tiniest drops of His love, not within the Trinity, and not from us, His people, as evidenced in the Crucifixion..and so neither are we permitted to hold back from our spouses, even when it would bring sacrifice. This is love: the selfless pouring out of one to another without counting the cost to self.
So when I'm asked about the poor, and shouldn't they have contraception, I naturally recoil. Jesus had a special love for and affinity with the poor. He told us we'd always have the poor with us. They enable us to become Christ to others. They teach us what is truly important in life, especially when in the midst of their poverty they radiate joy and love. The poor may have few material possessions, but they have large hearts. Don't ask these people to compromise the extent of their ability to give and receive love within their marriages. Let them be generous with each other. Support their covenant of love. Give them tools to understand and work with their fertility so that if they need to postpone pregnancy for a time, or even indefinitely, they can do so without ruining the image of God's love in their love-making. Let them selflessly pour themselves into each other as they renew and strengthen the truest thing they have on this earth, their road to Heaven, their marital bond. For the little they may have, their dignity demands we not strip them of the selfless marital embrace. This will give them the grace they need to endure their hardships with strength.
God has given us periods of fertility and infertility each month for a reason. It is good for our bodies, and it is good for our marriages. Pregnancy is good for our bodies and good for our marriages. We could not have been designed any better. When we are trying to avoid pregnancy, rather than rendering sterile something which would otherwise be fertile and partaking of it in a degraded form, when we abstain during the fertile times, we are still accepting each other in totality, but saying "I accept your fertility and I respect it, so we will not suppress it for the sake of selfish pleasure. We would have to hold back our expressions of love, and therefore render divisive what should be unitive between us." When we contracept, we engage in the bulemia of sexuality. We binge and binge, and then do something very unnatural to reject the consequences of our gluttony. When men see their women as available 100% of the time, they may struggle when she does not wish to engage in relations as much as he does. He may come to resent when she turns his initiations to intimacy down, and take it personally, when it is not personal at all. Conversely, when the woman feels she has to be available all the time, she may give of herself more out of obligation to satisfy her husband's needs than out of a desire to give herself totally and receive the person of her husband, and the depths of the intimate union that entails. The union of man and woman is shortchanged, the spark that is the possibility of new life--even if a lower possibility due to a perceived time of infertility--is extinguished. Many couples experience the deterioration of their marriages when they contracept for long periods of time, or even worse, sterilize themselves. They do not know why, but if I had to guess, I would say that it has to do with the selfishness that gradually creeps into the marital embrace which renders it dull, and eventually dead. To those who know contraception is a mortal sin--one which cuts you off from the grace of God and extinguishes the life of God in your soul (until you receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ through the ministry of the priesthood)--they may not understand that their sexual unions no longer are providing grace to their marriages. You maybe cannot touch grace with your hands, but when the grace is gone, you know it. I don't see the oxygen I breathe, but I'd know pretty quickly if it were gone. I cannot see my husband's love for me, but I would know if it were gone. So mirroring the love of the Trinity, and the love of Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, for the Church, His Bride, we are called as spouses to keep our lovemaking open to receiving children. Even if we think we are infertile, God still has the power to open the womb. Our openness to this, and trust in His plan for us is paramount. Otherwise, when we take that pill, insert the IUD, or place the condom on, we are essentially shutting God out of the renewal of our marital covenant--the one we contracted with Him, for a marriage is really between three: man, woman, and God. We're saying, "Your kind of love is good for you, but we're not interested in loving as You do. It hurts too much." A slap in the face of the God who loved us so much He sent His Son to die on the cross for us. Could it hurt more than the Crucifixion did? "But God can get around a condom, IUD, pill, etc." Sure He can. But remember the stern warning of Our Lord, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." Do not play that game with God, and do not make presumptions on His making an exception in "your situation." He made no exception for His Son.
All this established, let it be known that Catholics are not prudes. We are a sensual bunch of people--we love sights, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. We are not afraid of our sexuality. We embrace it! It is good! You should hear Pope John Paul II discuss it, encouraging men to be sure their wives are receiving pleasure in their coming together. I have even heard it stated that the sexual climax is about the closest that we can come to the experience of the ecstasy of being one with God. It is no wonder we have a sex addiction problem in our society. We have a bunch of poor souls who don't have a correct understanding of the God who loves them so very much.
One last word, before I end this, to those Catholics who may be reading this and are using contraception. Now that you understand why contraception is such an affront to the love of God, and an insult to not only your spouse, but your marriage, the next time you go to Holy Mass, please refrain from receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, unless you have gone to confession and received absolution with the intent to never commit the sin of contraception again. Remember what Holy Communion is. Remember what contraception says. Do not receive the totality of Him who gave His All for you if you are not prepared to in turn do the same for your spouse, to "Love one another, as I have loved you."
For the record, my quotes are going to come from Christopher West's _Good News About Sex and Marriage_, although if I had to recommend a book to read on the issue, it would probably be Kimberly Hahn's _Life Giving Love_. I lent out my copy, and I think they might have liked it because I told them to send it back if they didn't. Awesome!
In my previous post, I talked a lot about sex being an act by which two people engage in self- donation, the giving of their entire selves to one another, without reserve. This is clearly not the culture's view of what sex is. Today, sex is a recreational activity. I'm going to play tennis, I'm going to a movie, I'm going to get laid. Just do it! Where does this idea of sex as self-donation come from, and why do we insist upon each intimate embrace between a man and woman being such an intense experience, one that could change their lives forever?
If you're an atheist, you may wish to hang it up now, unless you care to go on a quest to understand the existence of God and why God is a Trinity of three Divine Persons sharing one Divine nature. Goodness knows there is no shortage of writing upon this and people willing to answer questions. But I will start from the presupposition that God exists, and is a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
One of the opening paragraphs in West's book reads:
"'Love one another as I have loved you,' (Jn 15:12). These words of Christ sum up the meaning of life *and* the meaning of human sexuality. At its core, sexual morality is about expressing God's love through our bodies. This is why Pope John Paull II can say that if we live according to the truth of our sexuality, we fulfill the very meaning of our being and existence." (West, p.17) He goes on to discuss that the opposite is true, that if we disregard the truth of our sexuality, then we miss the meaning of life altogether, and as such true happiness and joy will elude us. He says, "Disputes about sexual morality, then, are not merely about differing ethical perspectives, different interpretations of Scripture, or Church authority versus personal conscience. No, they go much deeper than that. At their root, disputes about sexual morality are disputes about the very meaning of life." This is very important to understand, and provides a key as to why Catholics are, as people say, "So hung up on sex." (West, p.18) A little more...
"When we search out the true meaning of sexuality, we touch on the core of our being as men and women. We encounter our deepest longings and aspirations and, at the same time, our deepest fears, wounds, selfishness, and sins. Here lies the challenge: we must face the reality of our humanity--the good and the bad--if we are to discover the truth about our sexuality. Inevitably this leads us to the cross. For it is Christ who, by showing us the truth about love, shows us the meaning of life."(West, p.17) So this is important to know, and it is real. It does not ignore that we are fallen beings with disordered wills and inclinations. We do not have to be perfect angels to fit into this paradigm. It will require struggle--the cross--but in the end it will bring life and redemption.
So we start with God. Genesis. Creation and a marriage. The Bible ends with Revelation, and a wedding, the wedding feast of The Lamb and His Bride, which we know is Christ and the Church. Sandwiched in between these two books is a love story with the theme of God's love for His people being as the love of a husband for his wife. Marriage and relationships form the underlying theme of most of the books. I am sure I do not have to give you example upon example, but I will point out the books of Song of Songs and Tobit, the former with its poetry of lovers and seduction and the latter with its emphasis upon the marital bed not being a place of unbridled lust, but a sanctified altar upon which a sacrificial coming together of man and wife occurs, not without risk to those who undertake that coming together with the wrong intentions! So you have God and His people, the Jews. He binds Himself to them through covenants, and no matter the extent of their faithfulness-sometimes it was quite poor- He always remained faithful. God formed a covenental union with His people and divorce was not an option. Then, as today, God's people were hard-hearted and it took a long time to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah. Christ did, come, though, the embodiment of the love of husband for bride. The New Covenant was going to be sealed with the sacrificial blood of God Himself. So, West says, "applying this analogy, we can say that God's plan from all eternity is to 'marry' us (see Hos 2:19). " (West, p.19) This plan was so important that God stamped it right onto our very beings so we wouldn't miss it. Our very existence, the meaning of our lives, who we are, who God is, how we are to live, all of these things are found in the truth and meaning of human sexuality and marriage. Now we're getting to the incredible stuff.
So God wants to "marry" us. Before He did this, before there even was an "us," there was God. John says that God is love, but it goes much deeper than this. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Read that again. God is a...family! He not only is "a" family, but He IS family. Our families are but mere images of the family that IS God. God is "a life-giving Communion of Persons." The Father pours Himself out, makes a gift of Himself in perfect love, to the Son, who is the "beloved" of the Father (Mt 3:17). The Son receives this outpouring of love from the Father, and returns the Father's self donation with His own. So the Father perfectly, eternally gives His entirety to the Son, and the Son back to the Father. That perfect love is "so real, so profound, that this love *is* another eternal Person--the Holy Spirit.
Let's go even further. The Son comes down, sent from the Father to make the marriage covenant with the people. Jesus comes. He fulfills the Father's Will perfectly. He gives Himself entirely to and for His people, past, present and future. He seals this New Covenant in His Blood, the infinitely perfect sacrifice of the New Adam making reparation for the infinitely offensive rebellion of the first Adam. So He gives Himself, and then it's all done? Well, yes...and no. Our redemption is complete, and now it is left to us to participate in this. How do we participate in Calvary? We participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which places us mystically at the crucifixion, and at which we do what the Father commanded His children to do with the Sacrificial Lamb, what Jesus, the Lamb of God, told us to do: We eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus Christ. We "communicate". We "receive Holy Communion." We take Jesus Christ into our bodies, body, blood, soul and divinity. We participate in our redemption by participating in the renewal of that Covenant that has taken place since the first days of Christianity, in which Christ is made present, under the form of bread and wine, offered to the Father (He is not sacrificed over and over; He is re-presented to the Father, for all those present. The one sacrifice is sufficient, and re-entered into, and re-presented to the Father), and then here's the kicker: this marital covenant, the new covenant, is consummated in the receiving of Jesus Christ into our bodies, our offering the totality of our beings to Him at this time, and from this communion of God and man springs forth life: spiritual life. He said in John 6 that whoever eats His Body and drinks His Blood lives in Him and He lives in us and He will raise us up on the last day. This is a mystery, a spiritual reality that we do not see or completely understand, but a reality nonetheless. Read the book of Revelation. Read about the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. It is the Mass. It is what we do every Sunday, and some of us every day. For a much greater exposition of this teaching, read Scott Hahn's _The Lamb's Supper_. But why am I talking about Mass and Holy Communion when I should be talking about sex?
As men and women made in the image and likeness of God, what does this mean for us? Well for one, as images of God, we need to mirror in our own lives the love of the Trinity. Our families on earth are but reflections of the Family that is God. We have both the model of the Father pouring Himself into the Son and vice versa, creating the Person that is the Holy Spirit, and we also have the model of Jesus Christ saying, "This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, poured out for the covenant," and then the reception of Jesus Himself into our bodies in this form to seal this marital covenant and bring forth the life that springs from this unbridled, liberal, selfless giving of the totality of persons to each other. These are not just "models," however. These are guides, directions by example of how we are to love each other in our families.
Husband and wife are called to submit to each other, in love and respect, and give of themselves sacrificially, saying to each other, "This is my body, this is my blood, shed for you." As the woman gives her body and blood in the sexual act and the bringing forth of a child, the husband gives his body and then blood in the efforts to support his family. Admittedly, it used to be a little more bloody for the guys than it is now. We are to love each other as Christ loved us, with our totality, unto sacrifice. He gave it all for us, and we are called to give it all for Him. In our marriages, this means we do not conracept. I speak about this in the context of marriage because it is the only context in which the sexual union--the renewal of the marital covenant which unites the spouses and from which new life springs--can licitly take place. The sexual act is a consummation and renewal of a covenant. (Holy Communion is also a consummation and renewal of a covenant. We should, of course, not over-sexualize the Mass, but these are Truths that cannot be denied and which help us place our sexuality into perspective.) To have sex outside marriage is to say a bond exists which does not yet exist, no matter whether the two people love each other, or plan on marrying, until God has joined them, that bond is not present. In some of the Eastern Catholic marriage rites, the bride and groom are presented to each other as each other's crosses by which they will get to Heaven. This is not a put down; we all know that marriage does not come without its sorrows and difficult times. The covenantal bond, and the renewal of that covenant in the marital embrace are what provide the grace to get through these difficult times.
How does contraception fit in? Well contraception is a refusal to give all unto sacrifice. It basically says, "I want the pleasure with none of the commitment, none of the pain." It is a naturally human feeling to be afraid of sacrificing. I cannot say that I am sitting here just jumping at the bit to go through morning sickness, watch my house fall to bits, and deal with the general chaos which come with pregnancy. But I'm either going to give my husband my ALL, or I'm going to wait until I can do that. Contraception, it could be said, could be akin to Jesus calling it quits right at the height of his popularity as He rode into Jerusalem to shouts of "Hosanna!" I'm sure that was a nice feeling for him, to feel the love from others. His love, however, was a different kind of love, one that did not end at the prospect of pain, suffering, and death. Jesus' love brought Him to Calvary, to suffer and die, and then back to each and every one of us who will come to Him in the Eucharist to receive Him. How beautiful that He still makes Himself vulnerable to us so that each and every one of us down through the ages can receive Him just like the apostles did at the Last Supper.
What if you applied contraception to the model of the Holy Trinity? You'd have no Holy Spirit. What if you applied contraception to the institution of the New Covenant? If the body of Christ did not suffer and die, then the body of Christ is not brought forth through the words of the priest and the power of the Holy Spirit for us to receive. This would all make John 6 very difficult to understand, and also Revelation. But fortunately for us, this is not God's way. Just as God does not divorce His people, and so divorce is not permitted to us, He does not withhold even the tiniest drops of His love, not within the Trinity, and not from us, His people, as evidenced in the Crucifixion..and so neither are we permitted to hold back from our spouses, even when it would bring sacrifice. This is love: the selfless pouring out of one to another without counting the cost to self.
So when I'm asked about the poor, and shouldn't they have contraception, I naturally recoil. Jesus had a special love for and affinity with the poor. He told us we'd always have the poor with us. They enable us to become Christ to others. They teach us what is truly important in life, especially when in the midst of their poverty they radiate joy and love. The poor may have few material possessions, but they have large hearts. Don't ask these people to compromise the extent of their ability to give and receive love within their marriages. Let them be generous with each other. Support their covenant of love. Give them tools to understand and work with their fertility so that if they need to postpone pregnancy for a time, or even indefinitely, they can do so without ruining the image of God's love in their love-making. Let them selflessly pour themselves into each other as they renew and strengthen the truest thing they have on this earth, their road to Heaven, their marital bond. For the little they may have, their dignity demands we not strip them of the selfless marital embrace. This will give them the grace they need to endure their hardships with strength.
God has given us periods of fertility and infertility each month for a reason. It is good for our bodies, and it is good for our marriages. Pregnancy is good for our bodies and good for our marriages. We could not have been designed any better. When we are trying to avoid pregnancy, rather than rendering sterile something which would otherwise be fertile and partaking of it in a degraded form, when we abstain during the fertile times, we are still accepting each other in totality, but saying "I accept your fertility and I respect it, so we will not suppress it for the sake of selfish pleasure. We would have to hold back our expressions of love, and therefore render divisive what should be unitive between us." When we contracept, we engage in the bulemia of sexuality. We binge and binge, and then do something very unnatural to reject the consequences of our gluttony. When men see their women as available 100% of the time, they may struggle when she does not wish to engage in relations as much as he does. He may come to resent when she turns his initiations to intimacy down, and take it personally, when it is not personal at all. Conversely, when the woman feels she has to be available all the time, she may give of herself more out of obligation to satisfy her husband's needs than out of a desire to give herself totally and receive the person of her husband, and the depths of the intimate union that entails. The union of man and woman is shortchanged, the spark that is the possibility of new life--even if a lower possibility due to a perceived time of infertility--is extinguished. Many couples experience the deterioration of their marriages when they contracept for long periods of time, or even worse, sterilize themselves. They do not know why, but if I had to guess, I would say that it has to do with the selfishness that gradually creeps into the marital embrace which renders it dull, and eventually dead. To those who know contraception is a mortal sin--one which cuts you off from the grace of God and extinguishes the life of God in your soul (until you receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ through the ministry of the priesthood)--they may not understand that their sexual unions no longer are providing grace to their marriages. You maybe cannot touch grace with your hands, but when the grace is gone, you know it. I don't see the oxygen I breathe, but I'd know pretty quickly if it were gone. I cannot see my husband's love for me, but I would know if it were gone. So mirroring the love of the Trinity, and the love of Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, for the Church, His Bride, we are called as spouses to keep our lovemaking open to receiving children. Even if we think we are infertile, God still has the power to open the womb. Our openness to this, and trust in His plan for us is paramount. Otherwise, when we take that pill, insert the IUD, or place the condom on, we are essentially shutting God out of the renewal of our marital covenant--the one we contracted with Him, for a marriage is really between three: man, woman, and God. We're saying, "Your kind of love is good for you, but we're not interested in loving as You do. It hurts too much." A slap in the face of the God who loved us so much He sent His Son to die on the cross for us. Could it hurt more than the Crucifixion did? "But God can get around a condom, IUD, pill, etc." Sure He can. But remember the stern warning of Our Lord, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." Do not play that game with God, and do not make presumptions on His making an exception in "your situation." He made no exception for His Son.
All this established, let it be known that Catholics are not prudes. We are a sensual bunch of people--we love sights, sounds, smells, tastes, etc. We are not afraid of our sexuality. We embrace it! It is good! You should hear Pope John Paul II discuss it, encouraging men to be sure their wives are receiving pleasure in their coming together. I have even heard it stated that the sexual climax is about the closest that we can come to the experience of the ecstasy of being one with God. It is no wonder we have a sex addiction problem in our society. We have a bunch of poor souls who don't have a correct understanding of the God who loves them so very much.
One last word, before I end this, to those Catholics who may be reading this and are using contraception. Now that you understand why contraception is such an affront to the love of God, and an insult to not only your spouse, but your marriage, the next time you go to Holy Mass, please refrain from receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, unless you have gone to confession and received absolution with the intent to never commit the sin of contraception again. Remember what Holy Communion is. Remember what contraception says. Do not receive the totality of Him who gave His All for you if you are not prepared to in turn do the same for your spouse, to "Love one another, as I have loved you."
Maybe Not So Insane After All
A video was brought to my attention on Facebook this morning. Here is the link to the video: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/15/426509/the-five-birth-control/ One might view the statement that the Liberals are trying to get rid of the poor to be insane, but I think if you have an idea about the history of the birth control movement, Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood, etc, then that statement does not look so crazy after all.
Now I'm not quite sure where they get that Republicans are wanting the poor to get "rich". That's baloney. The only thing I have seen the Republicans looking out for over the last several years are--the Republicans. And believe you me, I am no Democrat.
However, with all due respect, I think where they're coming from is that if you look at Margaret Sanger, the "mother" of the birth control movement in this country, she had some very harsh views on racial minorities, the poor, the handicapped, etc. She was a eugenicist. She said the purpose of birth control--in her words--was to create a race of thoroughbreds. (for some of Sanger's colorful quotations, see: http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm ) Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, which pretty much targets poor neighborhoods, and poor women, with their poor quality contraception, and then abortions when those fail. This isn't paranoia; it comes straight from ex-PP clinic director Abby Johnson, author of _Unplanned_ who left when she saw that there was no efforts being made to reduce abortions and help women in other ways. On the contrary, one of the straws that broke the camel's back was when the clinics were given a quota of abortion pills to sell monthly, because money was getting tight. Women, especially poor women, deserve better than this. I do not believe that the lady who posted the video, or any of the "liberals" I know are out to exterminate the poor. But I do know the roots of Planned Parenthood ( _Blessed are the Barren: The Social Policy of Planned Parenthood_, by Marshall and Donovan, gives a comprehensive history of and look into the organization.) I am aware of Sanger's feelings towards the disadvantaged--and it appears there are some really powerful people who have not shed these ideas. I was sad to hear the president speaking proudly of the contraception mandate in terms of "This will save us money because children cost more money than contraceptives." That really made me sick to my stomach. You cannot put a price on the worth of a child!
These hormones they are filling these poor womens' bodies with, they are highly carcinogenic. Yes, they may lower the risks of uterine and ovarian cancers, but they dramatically raise the risk of breast cancer, and that is a more common cancer than either uterine or ovarian cancer. To anyone who wants evidence, I recommend the research of Dr. Chris Kahlenborn, who has taken good hard looks at all the available studies, evaluated them, attempted to explain their discrepencies, and shows why the *one* study that people are using to discount the many many more studies that prove this link is a flawed one. So in the name of "saving money," they are promoting the havoc on womens' bodies that is hormonal contraception. There is also the implicit pressure from all around not to have children. I came across an article yesterday that there was a PP clinic who was handing out 2 forms of contraception, unsolicited, even to women who didn't have a need of it, to every woman with an appointment, and then charging the gov't for birth control counseling. If someone handed me a condom, then that would scream one loud message to me: "You don't belong reproducing. You shouldn't have children." Although I am currently avoiding pregnancy, this mere statement would be such a tremendous insult not only to me, but to my husband. The sexual embrace, which in body language says, "I give myself totally to you, and I receive your totality, and this communion of body and soul may be so strong we may have to name it in nine months," should be respected in every marriage, even those of the poor. I am well aware that unmarried men and women have sexual relations--I myself was certainly one of those, and was four months pregnant when we married, poor college students--but I think we'd see a lot less "using" of women if artificial contraception didn't render women perpetually "available." I'd sooner pay for a poor woman's baby before I paid for her hormones, and I'd spend the time and effort empowering her with knowledge of her fertility instead of handing her a condom.
Mother Teresa worked with the poor women in Calcutta. They did a study with these women, and they achieved a success rate of over 98% with the use of Natural Family Planning. Fertility awareness has grown by leaps and bounds since even this study was done. A woman does not even have to take her waking temperatures in the morning to keep track of her fertility. I completely agree that a woman should have the tools to avoid conception if she so wishes. I do not agree that the way to do it is to give them these hormones which will not only raise their risk of cancer,but heart attacks, blood clots, pulmonary embolism, stroke, and so on, and so forth. The future medical care for what these women are doing to themselves is going to be mighty expensive.
Children are always a blessing, whether you're rich, poor, black, white, healthy, ill, etc. With all my heart, I would rather help support a poor family with my money, and spend time helping her learn about her fertility--buy her a fertility monitor even, if she wished--and use my money to support the dignity of that family than to suggest the bill of goods that is usually offered to them these days. Children are the crowning glory of a family, even a poor family. Fertility is not a disease and should not be treated as such.
Which situation do you think affirms a relationship better:
~The one in which the poor couple uses artificial contraception in fear and trembling, only with regards to pleasure (and not even unity), feeling they should not reproduce due to societal attitudes, in which the woman--or man in the case of a vasectomy-- may be undergoing the indignity of health problems related to essentially "breaking" a healthy functioning part of her body, in which many times the only factor considered is the desire of the man, because he may have a greater libido and she is perpetually "available," but many times ends up feeling used and degraded; in which the unplanned child is potentially disposable.
or
~The one in which the poor couple respects their mutual fertility and the integrity of their bodies, neither harming themselves or impairing their natural healthy functions in the efforts to avoid a pregnancy; in which the potential for new life to spring from love is kept alive, and discussed periodically, rather than suppressed and avoided; in which the woman's capacity to bear a child is automatically respected by the man in his self-control, during those times they have chosen to avoid pregnancy; in which a couple who is avoiding pregnancy felt enough support that if they were to find themselves pregnant, they knew things would be alright because those around them recognize and respect the sacredness of the sexual union and the springing forth of a child as a result.
I cannot cover every "but what about" in reference to the poor and contraception. I am fully aware that the vast majority of people see the second situation as somewhat different from the views of "modern" society regarding sexuality. The fact that some people do not act in accord with the human dignity they had at their conceptions does not mean they are not entitled to this same dignity as sexually active adults. The message we need to be getting across is not "We don't want you to reproduce, and we're willing to sacrifice the sacredness of your marriage/sexuality and your bodily integrity to do that," but "You are precious, and your fertility is a gift from which good will spring as a result of the sacred union between you and your spouse. Of course you have much say as to the timing and amount of blessings you receive, but disrespecting your dignity, your body, and your relationship is not an option. You are worth the wait, and worth the effort. Let us teach you how to work with your fertility to both achieve and avoid pregnancy, to help you be healthy and understand how your body normally works."
Yes, I believe all of this, and if that makes me insane, then so be it. I have an intense respect for women, men, and the power of the sexual union to both unite and bring forth new life. Poor women are no less deserving of this than women of better means.
You could say I went on quite a tangent, but really it is all connected. Do I think every "liberal" wants to get rid of the poor? Of course not. I find many of them to be empathetic people who wish to give what they can of their sweat and hard-earned money to help their less fortunate brothers and sisters. Do I think there is a contingent of liberals who still maintain the vision of Margaret Sanger, and wish to see greater population control, especially amongst the poor, or those they'd like to see less of? Absolutely. Our president sees babies as punishments. His science czar John Holdren does not hold back in his admiration of eugenicist Harrison Brown. Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, sat on the committee which helped the president formulate the now much disputed contraception mandate. You and I, the poor, the majority of those who work at places like Planned Parenthood in the name of helping women--we are all just pawns in a scary game of population control. Because the vast majority of people have lost view of the nature of sexuality--no better than a box of Frosted Flakes these days ("They're GRRREAT!")--then they are content to see happen whatever happens as long as their loins are kept happy. I think that the poor are deserving of having healthy, stable relationships built upon the foundation of mutual respect for each other's bodies, minds, and souls. I don't care how many people "just don't think that way" or "really have no control of themselves" or whatever. You do not abandon the ideal, you do not make the poor settle for less than they deserve because you do not think they can change their behavior, or see things from a different point of view. Human dignity is theirs by right. Let them keep it.
I will end with an amazing quote by G.K. Chesterton:
The Birth-Controller does not bother about all these things, for the perfectly simple reason that it is not such people that he wants to control. What he wants to control is the populace, and he practically says so. He always insists that a workman has no right to have so many children, or that a slum is perilous because it produces so many children. The question he dreads is “Why has not the workman a better wage? Why has not the slum family a better house?” His way of escaping from it is to suggest, not a larger house, but a smaller family. The landlord or the employer says in his hearty and handsome fashion: “You really cannot expect me to deprive myself of my money. But I will make a sacrifice. I will deprive myself of your children.”
Now I'm not quite sure where they get that Republicans are wanting the poor to get "rich". That's baloney. The only thing I have seen the Republicans looking out for over the last several years are--the Republicans. And believe you me, I am no Democrat.
However, with all due respect, I think where they're coming from is that if you look at Margaret Sanger, the "mother" of the birth control movement in this country, she had some very harsh views on racial minorities, the poor, the handicapped, etc. She was a eugenicist. She said the purpose of birth control--in her words--was to create a race of thoroughbreds. (for some of Sanger's colorful quotations, see: http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm ) Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, which pretty much targets poor neighborhoods, and poor women, with their poor quality contraception, and then abortions when those fail. This isn't paranoia; it comes straight from ex-PP clinic director Abby Johnson, author of _Unplanned_ who left when she saw that there was no efforts being made to reduce abortions and help women in other ways. On the contrary, one of the straws that broke the camel's back was when the clinics were given a quota of abortion pills to sell monthly, because money was getting tight. Women, especially poor women, deserve better than this. I do not believe that the lady who posted the video, or any of the "liberals" I know are out to exterminate the poor. But I do know the roots of Planned Parenthood ( _Blessed are the Barren: The Social Policy of Planned Parenthood_, by Marshall and Donovan, gives a comprehensive history of and look into the organization.) I am aware of Sanger's feelings towards the disadvantaged--and it appears there are some really powerful people who have not shed these ideas. I was sad to hear the president speaking proudly of the contraception mandate in terms of "This will save us money because children cost more money than contraceptives." That really made me sick to my stomach. You cannot put a price on the worth of a child!
These hormones they are filling these poor womens' bodies with, they are highly carcinogenic. Yes, they may lower the risks of uterine and ovarian cancers, but they dramatically raise the risk of breast cancer, and that is a more common cancer than either uterine or ovarian cancer. To anyone who wants evidence, I recommend the research of Dr. Chris Kahlenborn, who has taken good hard looks at all the available studies, evaluated them, attempted to explain their discrepencies, and shows why the *one* study that people are using to discount the many many more studies that prove this link is a flawed one. So in the name of "saving money," they are promoting the havoc on womens' bodies that is hormonal contraception. There is also the implicit pressure from all around not to have children. I came across an article yesterday that there was a PP clinic who was handing out 2 forms of contraception, unsolicited, even to women who didn't have a need of it, to every woman with an appointment, and then charging the gov't for birth control counseling. If someone handed me a condom, then that would scream one loud message to me: "You don't belong reproducing. You shouldn't have children." Although I am currently avoiding pregnancy, this mere statement would be such a tremendous insult not only to me, but to my husband. The sexual embrace, which in body language says, "I give myself totally to you, and I receive your totality, and this communion of body and soul may be so strong we may have to name it in nine months," should be respected in every marriage, even those of the poor. I am well aware that unmarried men and women have sexual relations--I myself was certainly one of those, and was four months pregnant when we married, poor college students--but I think we'd see a lot less "using" of women if artificial contraception didn't render women perpetually "available." I'd sooner pay for a poor woman's baby before I paid for her hormones, and I'd spend the time and effort empowering her with knowledge of her fertility instead of handing her a condom.
Mother Teresa worked with the poor women in Calcutta. They did a study with these women, and they achieved a success rate of over 98% with the use of Natural Family Planning. Fertility awareness has grown by leaps and bounds since even this study was done. A woman does not even have to take her waking temperatures in the morning to keep track of her fertility. I completely agree that a woman should have the tools to avoid conception if she so wishes. I do not agree that the way to do it is to give them these hormones which will not only raise their risk of cancer,but heart attacks, blood clots, pulmonary embolism, stroke, and so on, and so forth. The future medical care for what these women are doing to themselves is going to be mighty expensive.
Children are always a blessing, whether you're rich, poor, black, white, healthy, ill, etc. With all my heart, I would rather help support a poor family with my money, and spend time helping her learn about her fertility--buy her a fertility monitor even, if she wished--and use my money to support the dignity of that family than to suggest the bill of goods that is usually offered to them these days. Children are the crowning glory of a family, even a poor family. Fertility is not a disease and should not be treated as such.
Which situation do you think affirms a relationship better:
~The one in which the poor couple uses artificial contraception in fear and trembling, only with regards to pleasure (and not even unity), feeling they should not reproduce due to societal attitudes, in which the woman--or man in the case of a vasectomy-- may be undergoing the indignity of health problems related to essentially "breaking" a healthy functioning part of her body, in which many times the only factor considered is the desire of the man, because he may have a greater libido and she is perpetually "available," but many times ends up feeling used and degraded; in which the unplanned child is potentially disposable.
or
~The one in which the poor couple respects their mutual fertility and the integrity of their bodies, neither harming themselves or impairing their natural healthy functions in the efforts to avoid a pregnancy; in which the potential for new life to spring from love is kept alive, and discussed periodically, rather than suppressed and avoided; in which the woman's capacity to bear a child is automatically respected by the man in his self-control, during those times they have chosen to avoid pregnancy; in which a couple who is avoiding pregnancy felt enough support that if they were to find themselves pregnant, they knew things would be alright because those around them recognize and respect the sacredness of the sexual union and the springing forth of a child as a result.
I cannot cover every "but what about" in reference to the poor and contraception. I am fully aware that the vast majority of people see the second situation as somewhat different from the views of "modern" society regarding sexuality. The fact that some people do not act in accord with the human dignity they had at their conceptions does not mean they are not entitled to this same dignity as sexually active adults. The message we need to be getting across is not "We don't want you to reproduce, and we're willing to sacrifice the sacredness of your marriage/sexuality and your bodily integrity to do that," but "You are precious, and your fertility is a gift from which good will spring as a result of the sacred union between you and your spouse. Of course you have much say as to the timing and amount of blessings you receive, but disrespecting your dignity, your body, and your relationship is not an option. You are worth the wait, and worth the effort. Let us teach you how to work with your fertility to both achieve and avoid pregnancy, to help you be healthy and understand how your body normally works."
Yes, I believe all of this, and if that makes me insane, then so be it. I have an intense respect for women, men, and the power of the sexual union to both unite and bring forth new life. Poor women are no less deserving of this than women of better means.
You could say I went on quite a tangent, but really it is all connected. Do I think every "liberal" wants to get rid of the poor? Of course not. I find many of them to be empathetic people who wish to give what they can of their sweat and hard-earned money to help their less fortunate brothers and sisters. Do I think there is a contingent of liberals who still maintain the vision of Margaret Sanger, and wish to see greater population control, especially amongst the poor, or those they'd like to see less of? Absolutely. Our president sees babies as punishments. His science czar John Holdren does not hold back in his admiration of eugenicist Harrison Brown. Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, sat on the committee which helped the president formulate the now much disputed contraception mandate. You and I, the poor, the majority of those who work at places like Planned Parenthood in the name of helping women--we are all just pawns in a scary game of population control. Because the vast majority of people have lost view of the nature of sexuality--no better than a box of Frosted Flakes these days ("They're GRRREAT!")--then they are content to see happen whatever happens as long as their loins are kept happy. I think that the poor are deserving of having healthy, stable relationships built upon the foundation of mutual respect for each other's bodies, minds, and souls. I don't care how many people "just don't think that way" or "really have no control of themselves" or whatever. You do not abandon the ideal, you do not make the poor settle for less than they deserve because you do not think they can change their behavior, or see things from a different point of view. Human dignity is theirs by right. Let them keep it.
I will end with an amazing quote by G.K. Chesterton:
The Birth-Controller does not bother about all these things, for the perfectly simple reason that it is not such people that he wants to control. What he wants to control is the populace, and he practically says so. He always insists that a workman has no right to have so many children, or that a slum is perilous because it produces so many children. The question he dreads is “Why has not the workman a better wage? Why has not the slum family a better house?” His way of escaping from it is to suggest, not a larger house, but a smaller family. The landlord or the employer says in his hearty and handsome fashion: “You really cannot expect me to deprive myself of my money. But I will make a sacrifice. I will deprive myself of your children.”
Monday, February 13, 2012
Shut Up and Give Me My Wafer.
1 Timothy 3:15 states: "But if I should be delayed, you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth."
Are you getting tired of those whose panties are in a wad about the Catholic Church defending her right not only to not be forced to provide free contraceptives to women, but to simply have a moral code at all? In the last few days I've seen people refer to the Church's stance as "propaganda," "institutionalized dogmatic preaching," and "myopic rhetoric."
News alert: The Church is not a group of people who affirm that I'm OK and you're OK. The Church's primary reason for existence is not to provide you with warm fuzzies and fellowship. The Church is a Divine institution, begun by Jesus Christ, and it is the Mystical Body of Christ, who IS the Way, the TRUTH and the Life. The Mystical Body of Christ can no more cease proclaiming TRUTH than Jesus Christ can cease BEING Truth.
What is the pillar and foundation of Truth? The CHURCH. The mission of the Church, therefore, is the spreading of the Gospel and the keeping of Jesus' command to go out into the world doing the things He commanded be done: baptize, forgive sins, offer the Mass, and so on and so forth. All of the wonderful things the Church does in its corporal and spiritual works of mercy would be NOTHING without the Truth which lies behind those works. You see the works--you need to learn the faith which has prompted us to work in love.
The Church has every right to have a moral code and tell you which actions are moral and which are immoral. How can we know the Truth of which the Church is the pillar and foundation if she does not preach that Truth? It is a hard Truth, no doubt, as even Jesus Himself says that it is very difficult to walk in His ways.
I cannot express my concern enough for those who ignore and write off the Church's teachings in faith and morals as worthless rhetoric and propaganda. Even worse is when those people are self-proclaimed Catholics, or proclaim to follow Christ in any way. Jesus told the adultress: "Go and sin no more." However are we to live this if we have no defined objective moral code?
The Church is doing her duty when she proclaims the sinfulness of contraception and stands up for her right to not be forced to pay for contraceptives for women (this does not include those medications of a contraceptive nature which are prescribed for other reasons). Frankly, she hasn't done it enough over the last couple of generations, and so here we are in 2012 with many Catholics embarrassed (their ignorance shines--the teachings are so beautiful and profound, if they truly understood them they would hold their heads high and shout them from the rooftops) about the Church's stance on birth control, and flinging insults her way to cover up their lack of catechesis on this issue. It is much easier to point the finger at the Church as "out of touch" than it is to admit you know nothing about the Church's rich teachings on sexuality. The only one who is out of touch is the one who hasn't bothered to spend time with the Catechism, Humanae Vitae, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, Theology of the Body, and the many other works which treat this subject. They aren't out of touch with society, though; they are out of touch with the Truth and out of touch with Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church's teachings are so taboo today that even a self-proclaimed Catholic who has decided to switch from birth control to Natural Family Planning makes a special effort to let everybody know that she ISN'T doing it "for religious reasons," as if it would be degrading to her to be using NFP for religious reasons and not degrading for any other reason. It's as if she's saying that if she cites her reasons for NFP as being religious in nature (which doesn't necessarily mean being theological, because respect for one's body is also part of religion) then she is telling others that she is submissive to her faith and that she has abandoned her intellect, because only ignorant people would use NFP for religious reasons.
The essence of our faith is the Eucharist, also known as "Communion." It is an expression that we are all One Body, One Faith, One Church, One Baptism. We are all brothers and sisters united by blood, the blood of Christ. To reject the Church's authority as a teaching body places you outside the communion of the Church, and therefore ineligible to participate in the reception of Holy Communion. If you profess to be a member of Christ's Church, you must also accept her place as a teaching authority. You cannot embrace Christ and reject His Mystical Body.
As I stated to someone last night, next time you are at a wedding, go ahead and tell the bridegroom that his bride is ignorant, out of touch with who he is, and uneducated, and that when they have children, they should have no right--and especially her--to tell their children how to conduct themselves while in their house. Tell the bridegroom that his wife needs to shut up, be a good little housewife, and continue serving the corporal needs of the family--and all those in need--with his his hard-earned bread, while you fling insults at her from all sides. Afterwards, demand that they include you in their wedding feast. I want you to get back to me and let me know how that goes over. I predict it won't go over well, and it will give you a foretaste of what you can expect when Christ asks you why you disregarded His Bride and spoke of her the way you did, then continued to receive Him in Holy Communion.
In the end, though, if you will insult and speak the sexual lie that is contraception to your own spouse, is it any wonder you would insult and lie to the Spouse of Christ? "I give you my all....but not really! Just give me what I want."
Are you getting tired of those whose panties are in a wad about the Catholic Church defending her right not only to not be forced to provide free contraceptives to women, but to simply have a moral code at all? In the last few days I've seen people refer to the Church's stance as "propaganda," "institutionalized dogmatic preaching," and "myopic rhetoric."
News alert: The Church is not a group of people who affirm that I'm OK and you're OK. The Church's primary reason for existence is not to provide you with warm fuzzies and fellowship. The Church is a Divine institution, begun by Jesus Christ, and it is the Mystical Body of Christ, who IS the Way, the TRUTH and the Life. The Mystical Body of Christ can no more cease proclaiming TRUTH than Jesus Christ can cease BEING Truth.
What is the pillar and foundation of Truth? The CHURCH. The mission of the Church, therefore, is the spreading of the Gospel and the keeping of Jesus' command to go out into the world doing the things He commanded be done: baptize, forgive sins, offer the Mass, and so on and so forth. All of the wonderful things the Church does in its corporal and spiritual works of mercy would be NOTHING without the Truth which lies behind those works. You see the works--you need to learn the faith which has prompted us to work in love.
The Church has every right to have a moral code and tell you which actions are moral and which are immoral. How can we know the Truth of which the Church is the pillar and foundation if she does not preach that Truth? It is a hard Truth, no doubt, as even Jesus Himself says that it is very difficult to walk in His ways.
I cannot express my concern enough for those who ignore and write off the Church's teachings in faith and morals as worthless rhetoric and propaganda. Even worse is when those people are self-proclaimed Catholics, or proclaim to follow Christ in any way. Jesus told the adultress: "Go and sin no more." However are we to live this if we have no defined objective moral code?
The Church is doing her duty when she proclaims the sinfulness of contraception and stands up for her right to not be forced to pay for contraceptives for women (this does not include those medications of a contraceptive nature which are prescribed for other reasons). Frankly, she hasn't done it enough over the last couple of generations, and so here we are in 2012 with many Catholics embarrassed (their ignorance shines--the teachings are so beautiful and profound, if they truly understood them they would hold their heads high and shout them from the rooftops) about the Church's stance on birth control, and flinging insults her way to cover up their lack of catechesis on this issue. It is much easier to point the finger at the Church as "out of touch" than it is to admit you know nothing about the Church's rich teachings on sexuality. The only one who is out of touch is the one who hasn't bothered to spend time with the Catechism, Humanae Vitae, The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, Theology of the Body, and the many other works which treat this subject. They aren't out of touch with society, though; they are out of touch with the Truth and out of touch with Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church's teachings are so taboo today that even a self-proclaimed Catholic who has decided to switch from birth control to Natural Family Planning makes a special effort to let everybody know that she ISN'T doing it "for religious reasons," as if it would be degrading to her to be using NFP for religious reasons and not degrading for any other reason. It's as if she's saying that if she cites her reasons for NFP as being religious in nature (which doesn't necessarily mean being theological, because respect for one's body is also part of religion) then she is telling others that she is submissive to her faith and that she has abandoned her intellect, because only ignorant people would use NFP for religious reasons.
The essence of our faith is the Eucharist, also known as "Communion." It is an expression that we are all One Body, One Faith, One Church, One Baptism. We are all brothers and sisters united by blood, the blood of Christ. To reject the Church's authority as a teaching body places you outside the communion of the Church, and therefore ineligible to participate in the reception of Holy Communion. If you profess to be a member of Christ's Church, you must also accept her place as a teaching authority. You cannot embrace Christ and reject His Mystical Body.
As I stated to someone last night, next time you are at a wedding, go ahead and tell the bridegroom that his bride is ignorant, out of touch with who he is, and uneducated, and that when they have children, they should have no right--and especially her--to tell their children how to conduct themselves while in their house. Tell the bridegroom that his wife needs to shut up, be a good little housewife, and continue serving the corporal needs of the family--and all those in need--with his his hard-earned bread, while you fling insults at her from all sides. Afterwards, demand that they include you in their wedding feast. I want you to get back to me and let me know how that goes over. I predict it won't go over well, and it will give you a foretaste of what you can expect when Christ asks you why you disregarded His Bride and spoke of her the way you did, then continued to receive Him in Holy Communion.
In the end, though, if you will insult and speak the sexual lie that is contraception to your own spouse, is it any wonder you would insult and lie to the Spouse of Christ? "I give you my all....but not really! Just give me what I want."
Sunday, February 12, 2012
But what if...
A question was posed to me on Facebook in reference to my status update, which was expressing my hope that the current crisis around the contraception mandate would prompt so-called "Cafeteria Catholics" to take a look at the teachings of the Church regarding contraception to learn what exactly the Church teaches about sexuality and why. There are many facets to this teaching: philosophical, theological, health, natural law, and so on. Contrary to what some may believe, this moral law has nothing to do with the Pope's desire to make as many Catholics as possible to fill up the coffers of the Church. It has nothing to do with the notion that a woman must have as many babies as her body can crank out. Nor is it the whim of a sexually oppressed high-ranking male clergyman who has no understanding of sexuality and wishes to make all of us miserable. (Sidenote: Ever notice how when a priest or religious agrees with the Church's teaching on contraception they "know nothing" and are "out of touch" with reality because of their celibate status, but when they disagree with the teachings on contraception they are "educated" "enlightened" and "understanding"...I suppose *despite* their celibate status? Double standard, anybody? I digress...)
So where I'm going with this is, that in a culture in which the widespread view is that morality is "gray," or even worse, in which black is white and white is black, we tend to rationalize all sorts of evil so that we are never culpable for our actions, our circumstances are. We are losing, very quickly, the understanding that there are some things which are wrong all of the time. One of these things is the use of artificial birth control with the intention of thwarting the natural results of the conjugal act between a man and a woman. In short, contraception.
So the question was posed to me by my friend L: "I am curious.. what is your take on bearing as many babies as God and your body will allow if you are full on welfare, multi generationally and not working and never will, and don't want to. Is it OK to burden tax payers with ten or twenty kids that the parents can't pay for themselves?.. just asking the q and wondering your thoughts in that circumstance re birth control (NFP or other) thanks.. not trying to be argumentative I just really am interested in other perspectives..I like to open my mind, you know?" Well L, the following is the answer I tried to type to you repeatedly and lost on my iPad. It will actually be much more thorough as I can explain more things in the blog format. I want to start at the beginning, and work through it sentence by sentence, as there is no easy answer to the situation which you have proposed.
"What is your take on bearing as many babies as God and your body will allow ..."
The first thing I wish to stress here is that the Catholic Church never has and never will teach that a woman has to bear as many babies as God and her body will allow. The Church leaves the decision of family size, timing and spacing of children up to the parents. We are called to be open, but it is understood that there are circumstances in which it is prudent for a time, and sometimes for an indefinite period of time, for a couple to refrain from having more children. The sin of contraception is not in the intent to avoid bearing a child. It lies in the way in which that avoidance is achieved. When a man needs to support his family, he can go to work and earn the money, or he can rob a bank. It's not his desire to support his family which is remiss, but the way in which he goes about it which can be. So to be clear, have one child, have twenty, the Church is not going to stick her nose into it beyond the extent that all married couples are required to be open to life and not break the natural law or demean the dignity of either each other or the marital embrace in the carrying out of their decision to avoid pregnancy. To go a little further, if a couple enters into a marriage with the intention of never having children, then there exists no marriage at all. This is grounds for an annulment. While a couple needs to be open to having at least one child, for that is the primary purpose of the vocation of Holy Matrimony, they need to remain prayerful and discerning about their situations, and whether God may or may not be calling them to open their hearts to the possibility of another child. Where three, six months ago there may have been a major reason to avoid conception, it could be that things have very much improved. I know that to some, not having the question settled once and for all sounds scary. I find it an energizing injection of life into a marriage. The excitement of, "We could truly co-create another child with God," adds amazing depth to the mutual self-donation that is the act of making love. There is no such thing as "casual sex". Each act can be forever life-changing. This really affects the way I look at my spouse, and the way he looks at me. Each one says to the other, "I love you, I affirm who you are, and am willing for you to be (maybe yet again) the parent of my child. I am willing to subject myself to greater sacrifice, to the laying down of my life, my comfort, etc. in the name of our deep love. This is my body, given for you." I cannot think of a soul who deserves any less in a sexual partner. We all have the deep yearning for unselfish love and affirmation from another. This is where the rubber hits the road--but hopefully not the genitals.
This is the language of the sexual act. Contraception has a language, also. It says, "I will take, but I will not give." It says, "I will not control myself for the sake of making sure that our relations are as unselfish as possible." I am well aware that there are those who, due to serious health conditions, should absolutely NOT get pregnant. Well, they don't belong relying on birth control, which doesn't tell you when you're fertile or not. They need to either abstain completely--rather than turn the sexual act into something purely for physical pleasure--or make sure to reserve it for the infertile times of the woman's cycle. "This is a hard saying; Who can bear it?" Yeah, they said that to Jesus, too, when He told them to eat His Flesh and drink His blood. Then they left, save for the apostles. "Well what if a man is a sex addict? And his wife cannot get pregnant because of a life-threatening condition?" Yup. Abstinence, or recourse to the infertile periods. And therapy for the man. Our fallen natures are not reason to lower the bar of our human dignity. There can be healing, but we must always respect both the dignity and sacredness of the human body, male and especially female, and the dignity and sacredness of the sexual act, which is our lying down ourselves for our spouses in a most unselfish act of complete self-donation. It's not so much, "I'm gonna make you feel GOOD!" as "I am utterly and completely YOURS, and you are utterly and completely MINE. This is the type of unselfish attitude which fosters love and respect between man and woman. You accept each other as-is, fertility and all. You do not change a potentially fertile act into an infertile act. Having recourse to the infertile periods means using those times that have naturally been set aside as infertile; it was never fertile at that time to begin with. There is something very endearing about being married to somebody who thinks, "You know, I certainly would not mind if there was another you around here, and I would put my money and effort where my mouth is."
Moving on...
"if you are full on welfare, multi generationally and not working and never will, and don't want to."
This is unfortunate. I do understand there are people out there who will milk the system for all it is worth. This is where we with good hearts need to step in and try to fill the gaps. Are there some who will never change? Perhaps. I think most everybody is reachable at some point, especially when they are being courted by somebody who is *truly* interested in helping *them* and not just saving a few bucks, or doing a token "good deed". I do not pretend to have the answer for this, but again, these peoples' refusal to act according to the human dignity that was theirs at their conception is no excuse for us to deny that to them. I simply do not believe that the vast majority of those on welfare are this type of person. I have very close friends who are on different kinds of public assistance. They, their spouses, their marriages, their marital beds, deserve as much respect and have as much dignity as that of those with better means. In short, no matter your financial situation, no matter whether or not you act in accordance with your dignity, we are never to treat one another as any less than we would treat Christ. Christ died for each one of us, and each one of us are worthy of having the kind of loving relationship I described above. This is what God desires for us in our relationships, and we should wish for no less for each other, and hold up no less of an ideal, no matter how some behave.
"Is it OK to burden tax payers with ten or twenty kids that the parents can't pay for themselves?."
Do I relish the thought of this? No. Is this an excuse to deny someone the dignity that is their right? No. Nobody should have contraception forced upon them, period. I realize there is a problem with this in our culture. It is one that is not going to be fixed in one presidential term, in a decade, whatever. This problem has taken generations to grow as it did, and it will take generations to get out of. We will get out of this by reaching the youth. They are starving for Truth. They are starving for love, true love. We need to treat every single one of these people, the adults and the children, with respect, and help them understand how special they are. If the children are in a dangerous situation, i.e. neglect, drugs, whatever, then of course we need to help their parents get help, if possible, and rescue the children if the parents persist in maintaining a dangerous situation for the children. But the children are the ones who need to be taught what true love means. They need to NOT have contraceptives shoved at them at 11, 12, 13, and they need to NOT be told that they're "going to do it anyways, so they may as well be 'safe'." No greater lie was ever told. They have then just learned that sex is nothing but a selfish act designed to get pleasure, and nothing more. Children end up having children to be part of the crowd, and these little ones end up being fed into the system. No, this is not working for us. Women are simply objects of pleasure, men are leaving them single with children (and children by multiple dads), and the women are left to provide and pick up the pieces left when Dad is gone. We need young women empowered with the knowledge of their bodies, not trusting in a piece of rubber, not poisoning their bodies with chemicals. We need young women taught what love really is, both by word and by example. However will they take us seriously when we do not practice this selfless giving in our own lives, both inside and outside the bedroom? They need people invested in them, as a group and as individuals, who can lead them to something greater. As I said, this is not something that can be fixed in one generation. It's a tall order indeed, but these disadvantaged youth are deserving of it.
I'm going to end this now, with the promise of one more post to come. I mentioned self-donation, selfless giving, etc etc, and there is a reason for that. I will get into this in the next post. If you got this far, go have a good drink.
So where I'm going with this is, that in a culture in which the widespread view is that morality is "gray," or even worse, in which black is white and white is black, we tend to rationalize all sorts of evil so that we are never culpable for our actions, our circumstances are. We are losing, very quickly, the understanding that there are some things which are wrong all of the time. One of these things is the use of artificial birth control with the intention of thwarting the natural results of the conjugal act between a man and a woman. In short, contraception.
So the question was posed to me by my friend L: "I am curious.. what is your take on bearing as many babies as God and your body will allow if you are full on welfare, multi generationally and not working and never will, and don't want to. Is it OK to burden tax payers with ten or twenty kids that the parents can't pay for themselves?.. just asking the q and wondering your thoughts in that circumstance re birth control (NFP or other) thanks.. not trying to be argumentative I just really am interested in other perspectives..I like to open my mind, you know?" Well L, the following is the answer I tried to type to you repeatedly and lost on my iPad. It will actually be much more thorough as I can explain more things in the blog format. I want to start at the beginning, and work through it sentence by sentence, as there is no easy answer to the situation which you have proposed.
"What is your take on bearing as many babies as God and your body will allow ..."
The first thing I wish to stress here is that the Catholic Church never has and never will teach that a woman has to bear as many babies as God and her body will allow. The Church leaves the decision of family size, timing and spacing of children up to the parents. We are called to be open, but it is understood that there are circumstances in which it is prudent for a time, and sometimes for an indefinite period of time, for a couple to refrain from having more children. The sin of contraception is not in the intent to avoid bearing a child. It lies in the way in which that avoidance is achieved. When a man needs to support his family, he can go to work and earn the money, or he can rob a bank. It's not his desire to support his family which is remiss, but the way in which he goes about it which can be. So to be clear, have one child, have twenty, the Church is not going to stick her nose into it beyond the extent that all married couples are required to be open to life and not break the natural law or demean the dignity of either each other or the marital embrace in the carrying out of their decision to avoid pregnancy. To go a little further, if a couple enters into a marriage with the intention of never having children, then there exists no marriage at all. This is grounds for an annulment. While a couple needs to be open to having at least one child, for that is the primary purpose of the vocation of Holy Matrimony, they need to remain prayerful and discerning about their situations, and whether God may or may not be calling them to open their hearts to the possibility of another child. Where three, six months ago there may have been a major reason to avoid conception, it could be that things have very much improved. I know that to some, not having the question settled once and for all sounds scary. I find it an energizing injection of life into a marriage. The excitement of, "We could truly co-create another child with God," adds amazing depth to the mutual self-donation that is the act of making love. There is no such thing as "casual sex". Each act can be forever life-changing. This really affects the way I look at my spouse, and the way he looks at me. Each one says to the other, "I love you, I affirm who you are, and am willing for you to be (maybe yet again) the parent of my child. I am willing to subject myself to greater sacrifice, to the laying down of my life, my comfort, etc. in the name of our deep love. This is my body, given for you." I cannot think of a soul who deserves any less in a sexual partner. We all have the deep yearning for unselfish love and affirmation from another. This is where the rubber hits the road--but hopefully not the genitals.
This is the language of the sexual act. Contraception has a language, also. It says, "I will take, but I will not give." It says, "I will not control myself for the sake of making sure that our relations are as unselfish as possible." I am well aware that there are those who, due to serious health conditions, should absolutely NOT get pregnant. Well, they don't belong relying on birth control, which doesn't tell you when you're fertile or not. They need to either abstain completely--rather than turn the sexual act into something purely for physical pleasure--or make sure to reserve it for the infertile times of the woman's cycle. "This is a hard saying; Who can bear it?" Yeah, they said that to Jesus, too, when He told them to eat His Flesh and drink His blood. Then they left, save for the apostles. "Well what if a man is a sex addict? And his wife cannot get pregnant because of a life-threatening condition?" Yup. Abstinence, or recourse to the infertile periods. And therapy for the man. Our fallen natures are not reason to lower the bar of our human dignity. There can be healing, but we must always respect both the dignity and sacredness of the human body, male and especially female, and the dignity and sacredness of the sexual act, which is our lying down ourselves for our spouses in a most unselfish act of complete self-donation. It's not so much, "I'm gonna make you feel GOOD!" as "I am utterly and completely YOURS, and you are utterly and completely MINE. This is the type of unselfish attitude which fosters love and respect between man and woman. You accept each other as-is, fertility and all. You do not change a potentially fertile act into an infertile act. Having recourse to the infertile periods means using those times that have naturally been set aside as infertile; it was never fertile at that time to begin with. There is something very endearing about being married to somebody who thinks, "You know, I certainly would not mind if there was another you around here, and I would put my money and effort where my mouth is."
Moving on...
"if you are full on welfare, multi generationally and not working and never will, and don't want to."
This is unfortunate. I do understand there are people out there who will milk the system for all it is worth. This is where we with good hearts need to step in and try to fill the gaps. Are there some who will never change? Perhaps. I think most everybody is reachable at some point, especially when they are being courted by somebody who is *truly* interested in helping *them* and not just saving a few bucks, or doing a token "good deed". I do not pretend to have the answer for this, but again, these peoples' refusal to act according to the human dignity that was theirs at their conception is no excuse for us to deny that to them. I simply do not believe that the vast majority of those on welfare are this type of person. I have very close friends who are on different kinds of public assistance. They, their spouses, their marriages, their marital beds, deserve as much respect and have as much dignity as that of those with better means. In short, no matter your financial situation, no matter whether or not you act in accordance with your dignity, we are never to treat one another as any less than we would treat Christ. Christ died for each one of us, and each one of us are worthy of having the kind of loving relationship I described above. This is what God desires for us in our relationships, and we should wish for no less for each other, and hold up no less of an ideal, no matter how some behave.
"Is it OK to burden tax payers with ten or twenty kids that the parents can't pay for themselves?."
Do I relish the thought of this? No. Is this an excuse to deny someone the dignity that is their right? No. Nobody should have contraception forced upon them, period. I realize there is a problem with this in our culture. It is one that is not going to be fixed in one presidential term, in a decade, whatever. This problem has taken generations to grow as it did, and it will take generations to get out of. We will get out of this by reaching the youth. They are starving for Truth. They are starving for love, true love. We need to treat every single one of these people, the adults and the children, with respect, and help them understand how special they are. If the children are in a dangerous situation, i.e. neglect, drugs, whatever, then of course we need to help their parents get help, if possible, and rescue the children if the parents persist in maintaining a dangerous situation for the children. But the children are the ones who need to be taught what true love means. They need to NOT have contraceptives shoved at them at 11, 12, 13, and they need to NOT be told that they're "going to do it anyways, so they may as well be 'safe'." No greater lie was ever told. They have then just learned that sex is nothing but a selfish act designed to get pleasure, and nothing more. Children end up having children to be part of the crowd, and these little ones end up being fed into the system. No, this is not working for us. Women are simply objects of pleasure, men are leaving them single with children (and children by multiple dads), and the women are left to provide and pick up the pieces left when Dad is gone. We need young women empowered with the knowledge of their bodies, not trusting in a piece of rubber, not poisoning their bodies with chemicals. We need young women taught what love really is, both by word and by example. However will they take us seriously when we do not practice this selfless giving in our own lives, both inside and outside the bedroom? They need people invested in them, as a group and as individuals, who can lead them to something greater. As I said, this is not something that can be fixed in one generation. It's a tall order indeed, but these disadvantaged youth are deserving of it.
I'm going to end this now, with the promise of one more post to come. I mentioned self-donation, selfless giving, etc etc, and there is a reason for that. I will get into this in the next post. If you got this far, go have a good drink.
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