Jonah
3:1-5,10 ─ 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 ─ Mark
1:14-20
January
22, 2012
“Set out for the great city
of Nineveh,
and announce to it the
message that I will tell you.” [Jonah 3:1]
Much of the homily below is taken from an essay by Dr. Janet Smith, which to read, click HERE.
This past week, the United States federal
government, through its Department of Health and Human Services, declared that
abortifacients—i.e., chemicals and devices that destroy unborn human life—would
have to be considered a form of “health care” that employers must provide in
their health plans, even if doing so violates their consciences. Catholic
hospitals are among the employers that this directive would include.
Friday, the archbishop of New York,
Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, spoke about this directive from the federal
government. Here are his words:
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO WATCH
CARDINAL-DESIGNATE DOLAN SPEAK ON THIS ISSUE:
Is it a coincidence that this directive
came from the federal government just days before the 39th anniversary of Roe
v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision declaring that it’s legal in the U.S. to
murder unborn children? The assaults on human life are not going to stop. This
weekend is a good time to step back and look at the bigger picture.
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Most Christians have been deeply
affected by modern culture’s view of sexuality, radically opposed as it is to
the Gospel. Ten minutes of watching MTV
or a soap opera; ten minutes of listening to any rock, pop, or country music
station; one visit to the grocery-store magazine rack convinces anyone that our
society has little respect for the Christian view of sexuality. But Christians themselves have begun
to lose sight of Christian tradition.
Today, then, within the culture that surrounds us, both internal and
external evangelization is necessary.
Christians themselves need to learn deeply their own tradition,
before they can witness to those in society who need to meet persons who are in
control of their sexuality, and who are happy because of it [not in spite
of it].
Last Sunday, in reflecting on a young
man who was considering the priesthood, we saw the need for the virtues of
discernment, and patience. These same
virtues are just as necessary for a young man or woman whom God calls to Holy
Matrimony. Discernment and patience are
needed, in different ways, both before a couple marries, and during
their married life.
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Why should sexual union only take place
within marriage? It can hardly be denied
that intercourse creates a powerful bond between individuals, even between
those who do not desire that bond. Those who have intercourse are engaging in an
action that speaks of a deep commitment to each another. Pope John Paul II uses an interesting phrase
in his teachings about sexuality: he
speaks about the “language of the body.” He claims that, like words, bodily actions
have meanings, and that unless we intend those meanings with our actions, we
should not perform those actions, any more than we should speak words we
do not mean, because in both cases, lies would be “spoken.” A very simple example would be two persons
who meet face-to-face and make an agreement:
when they conclude their deliberations, they say with their words,
“I agree to our deal”; and with the action of a handshake, they “say”
the same thing.
When it comes to human sexuality, the Christian
view is that intercourse has an objective meaning. The common secular view is that each
individual can make his actions mean whatever he wants. In the secular view, intercourse can either
mean a permanent commitment to the other person, or it can simply mean a
desire for physical pleasure, or it can mean anything in between: whatever the individual wants the
action to mean.
By contrast, the Christian view
is that intercourse has an objective meaning, independent of one’s
intention: namely, that this action
“says”, “I give my self to you freely, fully, faithfully, and fully open to new
life.” Individuals are not free
to assign their own personal meaning to this action, if they want to follow
Christ Jesus, because Christ is leading us to God the Father, who is the
Creator of human life, the Creator of human sexuality, and the Creator of the
Sacrament of Marriage. All three of
these—life, sexuality, and marriage—were not just created by God in the beginning.
God is the Creator of each and every human life, giving to each
individual the gift of sexuality. God is
present when each couple exchange their vows with each other, and it’s
His grace at that moment that creates the bond of their own marriage,
sealing these two human lives into one flesh.
The human will, and human actions by themselves are not powerful
enough to create the bond that couples need, to hold themselves
together, and to hold their family together.
The Christian husband and wife take
vows in marriage because they honestly admit that they are human: they are all too ready to give up when the
going gets tough. They realize that human
love alone waxes and wanes. But as the
divorce rate indicates, modern society ultimately does not take these vows very
seriously – or at least modern couples do not prepare for marriage in such a
way that they are prepared to keep their vows.
How do two Christians prepare to enter
the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony? It’s not
by meeting with their pastor, or by attending an “Engaged Encounter” weekend. Real marriage preparation must occur for many
years before a man and woman enter marriage (ideally, that preparation will
occur every year of their lives leading up to marriage).
Let me choose just one virtue as an example
to illustrate this point. It’s arguably
the most important of the virtues that allow someone to live a
successful marriage: that is, the virtue
of fidelity, or faithfulness. Most
spouses would surely agree how important fidelity is during marriage,
but what role does fidelity have in a young person’s life before he or
she marries? It may actually seem odd to
speak of the need to be faithful to one’s spouse before marriage: not so odd during the period of engagement
perhaps, but Christ demands even more of young people.
A young person who wants to follow
Christ is called by Christ to love his or her spouse even before the two meet! This means reserving the gift of oneself
until one is married: because in a very
profound sense, a young person’s sexuality belongs to his or her future spouse
as much as it does to oneself. A young
person may not know who that spouse is going to be, but the eternal God
does.
Recognizing the need for chastity
before marriage, though, simply raises a harder question: how does a young person live a chaste
life in the midst of American culture? A
life committed to the virtue of chastity is full of demands, and calls for
strength from the young person. For
instance, Christian chastity means being attentive to what provokes
sexual thoughts and desires, and consequently, avoiding those occasions. Chastity means, more often than not,
dissociating oneself from many of the forms of entertainment that are popular
today. Christians who view sexuality as
a gift, which one offers one’s spouse at the time of marriage, cannot
fall victim to the constant barrage of images and sounds that most Americans
face daily. We as Christians in America need
to be careful about what music we listen to, what movies and TV shows we watch,
and what clothes we wear.
So as a young Christian lives a life of
chastity, year after year, he or she might ask:
what difference is waiting until marriage going to make? This question comes up especially once a
couple is engaged. Why not live together
and start experiencing practically what they “know” they are going to
live like after the wedding?
There are several reasons, both
practical and spiritual. On the one
hand, a vow is not a vow until it is spoken: unspoken, unratified commitments
are all too easy to break. That’s the
very purpose of a vow: it takes
out of the hands of the two spouses a decision about their relationship. Even a moment before the vows are
spoken, separation is each of those person’s right: the moment after the vows are spoken,
the same act of separation would be a serious sin.
More practically, while engaged couples
try to convince themselves that living together helps them know each other
better, and therefore gives an opportunity to ensure that the couple is “compatible”,
the statistics of cohabitation and divorce demonstrate a clear connection of
cause and effect. In God’s design for marriage,
including authentic preparation for marriage, the time immediately
before marriage is an irreplaceable opportunity for two persons to know each
other better. However, engaging in
intercourse during this time creates a false sense of closeness. The emotions and feelings fostered by sexual
intimacy create a smokescreen that cloud deeper problems: problems that in the clear light of a chaste
relationship would raise red flags, which too often tragically, everyone else around
the couple can see all too clearly.
On the other hand, an engaged couple
who live chastely show that sexual attraction is not the most important
part of the relationship. They show
themselves and others that they can enjoy each other’s company, even when the pleasure
of intercourse is not available to them. This sort of fidelity and chastity before
marriage ensures greater fidelity and chastity during marriage. Whether because of pregnancy, or illness, or physical
separation, every couple must abstain at different times during marriage; and
so acquiring self-mastery before marriage fosters greater and easier
fidelity during those times.
Chastity before marriage—and,
consequently, chastity during marriage—have been undermined by one fact
more than any other: the widespread
availability of contraception. In modern
culture, contraception seems one of the chief enablers of sexual misconduct. There were fewer teenage pregnancies, fewer
abortions, and a lesser incidence of sexually transmitted diseases before
contraception became widely available. Contraception
has given people a false sense of security:
that they can engage in intercourse apart from the obligations of
marriage and children. Of course, contraceptives
do not actually remove these possibilities, because contraceptives do
not always achieve their intended purpose: instead, contraceptives have simply fostered
the culture which considers abortion as “Plan B”, to be turned to when
contraceptives fail. This is the c
culture which has seen fifty (“five-zero”) million abortions since Roe v.
Wade. What would those fifty million
individuals have accomplished, and contributed to our society, Church, and
world if their lives hadn’t been taken from them?
If we were to take the Holy Bible
seriously, it would seem that God has a preference for children. After all, His first command in the Bible was
not “You shall not have strange gods
before me”: that command comes in the second book
of the Bible. In the beginning, in the Book of Genesis, in chapter one, God commands the first humans: “Be
fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”
God did not say, “Be sterilized and use chemicals to destroy your
fertility.” God shows us that
fertility is a blessing. Modern man
believes that fertility is a disease.
That’s why so many today insist that taxpayers fund contraceptives as
part of what they call “health care”.
More specifically, this past week’s decision from the federal government
described access to contraceptives as “preventive care”, a phrase worthy of
George Orwell. “Preventive care”: what actually is being prevented? A tumor, or a cyst, or a cancer, or a human
life? Which of these four is not like
the others? This debate is reminiscent
of Catholic posts on the Internet during debates before the passage of
Obamacare: Catholics pointed out that
“Abortion is not health care, because pregnancy is not a disease.”
Of course, couples on occasion may have
good reasons to postpone childbearing, at least for a while. Many Catholics don’t see why couples may not
use contraceptives to help them space their children or to delay childbearing
if good reasons exists. They consider
contraception a marvelous invention of technology, and see no reason not to use
it. They find the Catholic counsel of
periodic abstinence, which demands the strength of fidelity and chastity, to be
irrational.
Among other reasons, Natural Family
Planning is without the health risks and immoral status of contraceptives. In fact, too many Americans are unaware that
what are often called “contraceptives” are nothing of the kind. By definition, a “contra-ceptive” prevents
conception. But to give just one
example, the IUD is not a contraceptive.
It is an abortifacient: that is, it works by causing an early-term
abortion. The IUD prevents the fertilized
egg, the new human person, from implanting himself or herself in the wall of
the uterus. Many popular forms of the
Pill work the same way. So those who are
opposed to abortion, and those interested in protecting the well being of women—not
to mention unborn children—would certainly not want to use or promote these abortifacients.
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Christians need to be ready and willing
to explain why the virtues of fidelity, patience, and discernment are
defining characteristics that strengthen marriage. Men and women today are tired of unfaithfulness. They are tired of shallow and brief
relationships. They crave something more
meaningful, something on which they can rely. Young people are sick of divorce. God
challenges Christians, who have the benefit of His wisdom through
Scripture and Tradition, to live chaste lives, and to form loving marriages and
families. The ideas and beliefs of modern
secular society lead people literally nowhere.
Marriage according to God’s design, is a path that leads to Heaven.
