It being the joy, privilege and duty of a grandfather to hand on his faith, I will share about several pressing issues. This first letter deals with the Catholic understanding of sexuality and chastity. This may be well known to you in your Catholic education; but it bears repeating. There are so many voices today; many confused, cacophonous, false. May mine...in dialogue with your family, friends and others...echo the voice of Christ in his Church.
Sexual chastity is a most significant, precious virtue for your happiness and holiness; yet it is widely underrated, ignored, misunderstood, and even disparaged. Especially for adolescent men, nothing pulls so many away from closeness to God and the Church as failings in chastity, a habit that is very difficult for men. Women for their part have immense influence as modesty in dress, manner, speech and action inspires in men the desire for purity of heart.
(Anecdote: I was speaking on a Jersey City corner with three men and got to talking about Dave O'Brien who came every year to talk to our confirmation class about "being chaste." A black guy from the streets of Newark was intrigued and asked: "Really? Being chased? Cool! You mean being chased by the police or what?") In our culture, chastity is a word that is not used and hardly intelligible. Chastity is simply reverence for your own self in your sexuality and for that of others. It is part of fidelity to your future spouse or vocation. It is the root of moral integrity and courage. It is the path to intimacy with God.
A bit of history may help. In the 1960s, when I was myself a teen, the most profound change in human history (after Adam and Eve and Jesus Christ himself) occurred: the birth control pill was perfected and sex became torn away from having children and marriage/family. It is my view that no other invention or technology has ever changed human life so drastically! (Not the internet, not the atom bomb, not guns, not fire!) Within 10 years, over 90% of child-bearing-age women went on the pill. The sexual revolution exploded and Cultural Liberalism, as liberation of sex from marriage, very quickly became the prevailing way of life. The word "diabolic" means demonic, but etymologically means "to tear apart." In both senses, the sundering of sex from new life was profoundly diabolic.
In the midst of the turbulence, 1968, Saint Pope Paul VI restated, in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, the Catholic tradition on sexuality and specifically contraception. One of the great prophetic teachings in the history of the Church! The statement was explosively controversial and split the Church into two parts: those who accepted it I will call Traditional Catholics and those who rejected it I will call Catholic Liberals. In the 54 years since then the Church has seen a fierce cultural, civil war on the meaning of sexuality. Popes John Paul and Benedict were both very clear and firm in upholding the teaching of Pope Paul; Pope Francis, despite his liberal sympathies, has upheld the traditional teaching and so disappointed the expectations of liberals.
You will have to decide for yourself which view you accept.
Saint Pope Paul said that contraception ("against conception"), the act to frustrate the life-giving meaning of the sexual act, is intrinsically and always a disorder/sin because it contradicts the conjugal meaning of sexuality. "Conjugal" refers to the mystery of Marriage: that God created us male-and-female in order that we could cling to each other as one flesh. So, sex is one dimension of a Great Masterpiece, a union of man and woman that is exclusive (only one person), permanent (for ever), free (not forced in any way), and fruitful (directed to having children and other life-giving activities.). This union is so much more as well: natural, in accord with the biological order; sacramental as an encounter with Christ; prayerful as the couple open themselves together to God's presence; a "small church" and a piece of heaven on earth; a vocation that defines man and woman more than any career or profession; a historical connection with two families going back in time and with many families still to come; a harbor that welcomes others who are lonely and abandoned; a school in generosity, sacrifice and self-gift. The physical act of love between a married man and woman is sacred in that it expresses this holy, wholesome union in all its dimensions (natural, sacramental, exclusive, free, permanent, life-giving, prayerful, heavenly, ecclesial, welcoming, communion with the past and future, sacrificial.)
So sex is holy and precious, even as it is fragile and dangerous. Its essential meaning is twofold: union of man/woman and open to new life. The two interpenetrate each other and enrich each other. In the joyful, generous embrace of bride and bridegroom the family is born, with God's grace, and the very foundation of society is laid.
If this sacredness is disrespected, the result is toxicity, violence and severe damage to all involved. A good image: sexuality is like a roaring fire outside on a frigid day. If it is properly contained by an enclosing fireplace wall, it gives warmth and light to all around it. But if the boundaries are not kept, it can escape and spread widely into a forest fire and destroy everyone and everything around it. Marriage is the fireplace; sex is the fire!
So every sin of unchastity is serious, mortal. For three reasons: First it touches the mystery of the creation of new life, of an eternal soul, and so is awesome. Second, it touches the other person deeply: unlike a mere assault, a sexual violation penetrates deeply to the heart and soul of the other. It sanctifies in marriage, but desecrates outside of it, even when consensual and affectionate. Thirdly, sexuality itself is the person, male or female, in the depths of the heart and soul so that any sin there penetrates with a profound corruption.
Saint Pope Paul predicted in Humanae Vitae that acceptance of contraception would result in great evils: disrespect for women, pornography, divorce, abortion, breakdown of the family, and a culture of promiscuity. He was exactly right: in the following decades all these evils increased immensely. This is the world you inhabit now: a contra (against)-conceptive (life-giving) society. It is not talked about, but is assumed like the air we breathe. The backup for failed contraception is, of course, abortion. This is why Biden and the Democrats insist that the Little Sisters of the Poor provide contraception and abortion: these are now seen as human rights in the new order of sex without children.
By contrast the Catholic understanding of sex as precious, beautiful and sacred, is strict and demanding. It is such for everyone! Sex is reserved for marriage, the married are obliged to fidelity to the spouse for ever, the unmarried are called to chastity and abstinence until the actual marriage ceremony. In addition to vowed priests and religious, those who do not or cannot marry are called to practice permanent celibacy and restrain. Needless to say, in today's society this Catholic view is widely despised.
Traditional Catholics accept this teaching; Catholic Liberals reject it. They would liberate (thus "liberal" here) sexuality from a strict connection, in every act, with procreation (new life) and would allow for intervention into the act to prevent conception for proper purposes. So, for example, a couple with a large family would be allowed birth control in light of the generous nature of their marriage. Every act need not be open to life. They argue: in fact not every such act produces life as we know that post-menopausal women are no longer fertile, many individuals are naturally sterile, and the monthly period provides infertile periods.
The Church offers Natural Family Planning by which a couple abstains in fertile periods to postpone childbirth in a way that does not interfere with the meaning of the act. This is based on very precise scientific information about the fertility cycle; it requires communication and mutual restrain of both spouses. It maintains the sacredness of the act of intercourse in every case. We might compare: one seeking to lose weight might exercise and diet; but it would be toxic and wrong to overeat and then purge to induce vomiting. The second of these is a violent, unnatural practice with grave addictive, toxic consequences. So it is with contraception.
As teens, there are other issues closer to your life. The liberal acceptance of contraception and tearing of sex from fruitfulness opens the door to: sex and cohabitation before marriage, pornography/ masturbation, homosexual activity and gay marriage. These are all around us in the culture. You may be facing them personally now or will be soon. In a few years you may see that all your friends are living together without marriage. You may come under pressure to do the same, even from the very one you love. You will feel the widespread contempt for the Church as homophobic, condemnatory, misogynist, and hateful because of its sexual code. Already in high school, and especially in college, you will decide for yourself if you want to follow the Traditional or the Liberal path.
So we see a clear contradiction between the Traditional Catholic and the Catholic Liberal, precisely on the issue of sex as fruitful. The Catholic ethos, in its reverence, is challenging and demanding, for everyone, as it is ennobling. It reserves the precious gift for the holy communion in marriage of a man and woman, open to new life as God determines. The Liberal sees this view as mistaken and worse...as archaic, judgmental, condemnatory, guilt-inducing and homophobic. The liberal view leads one to a contempt of what the Church has taught for centuries: restrain, sacrifice and chastity as the roots of fidelity.
We are taught to "hate the sin, love the sinner." We judge no one. But we must judge right from wrong. It is not kind, charitable or truthful to accept, encourage or accompany others into unchastity. A injustice occurs when Catholic Liberals advocate the LGBTQ agenda, or coerce support of contraception, or minimize the consequences of porn/masturbation. Such is not love in truth!
It is not for us to preach to or condemn others. We do well to pray, with clear minds and tender hearts, for those who fall into habits of unchastity. Often they lack understanding of the Truth/Beauty/Goodness of sex; they are blinded by fashionable falsehoods and confused by their deep longing for love; they fail to deliberate; they do not fully consent to the wrong that seduces them. It is for us to be clear in our own understanding; to pray for the grace of chastity and fidelity; to be an example to others; and to offer always compassion and pardon in the manner of Christ himself.
With Joy I commend you, my dear grandchildren, to the influence of St. Joseph, our Blessed Mother Mary, all the saints and Jesus himself!
With much love and prayers.......Paca
1 comment:
As a consistently practicing neocat Catholic, I have a different perspective:
-Neocat catechists rightly critique the misconception that we trade money and devotion for God's favor. But, they are not against the expiatory sacrifice of Christ, which the Church reiterates every Eucharist. Neocats solemnly celebrate it; but they do CELEBRATE it, in contrast to the average novus ordo mass today.
-The recovery of an awareness of the Passover meal heightens awareness of sacrifice in the OT. Neocat word celebrations also bring out the OT roots of the Eucharist.
-There are many moments of solemn silence in the neocat Eucharist.
-The parish is central for neocats-- they are far from being completely separate from the rest of parish life. It's just a different rhythm than the normal model-- which is clearly broken.
-At prevocational and vocational meeting and pilgrimages-- and probably other times too-- neocats practice adoration. Kiko set up a perpetual adoration chapel on the Mount of Beatitudes, thus fulfilling St. Charles of Jesus' wish.
-The lack of a tabernacle at neocat Eucharists is usually due to the practical need of having an appropriately sized room to celebrate in.
-Neocats are not Lutheran in their Eucharistic practice. The body of Christ in the Eucharist generates his body in the communion of the Church: this is radically Catholic, and neocats live it. The loss of the communal aspect of the Eucharist is what Vatican II rightly tried to recover, but is missing in the average novus ordo.
-Neocats often celebrate in churches and, in my experience, do so with tremendous liturgical care-- but admittedly there are some notable differences (e.g., no kneeling for Sunday Eucharist, as in the early church).
-The bread is moist, not crumbly. In fact, the liturgical rubrics say the bread should appear to be REAL bread if possible.
-Kiko and Carmen distinguish natural religion from supernatural Christianity. They do not scorn other religions. They are right.
-They want to recover the Spirit of the early Church, not to deny the many riches of the post-Constantine Church. Constantine and his heritage is problematic-- both good and bad. They have a point-- isn't freedom from the establishment desirable in an age of global liberal consumerism?
-The world is dark, as John the Evangelist says very clearly, and this is especially true today. But the light of Christ shines into the World. The Christian faith of faithful neocats-- and their love for each other, as well as the enemy-- reflects this light in the world.
-The Easter vigil is the main event in life, and the neocats are doing the Church the service of recovering this fact. The Easter vigil should not be clericalized. Who cares about the parish priest's desire to have all his parishioners in one place? What matters is that Christians wait together, in faith, for the second coming of our Lord.
I could go on. But, the main thing, for me, is that I have come to know Jesus in a much deeper and new way, by walking in the community, together with my wife and family.
Peace,
John
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