Marriage: Remote Preparations

MODULE 7

Names: _____________________________________________________________

Course and Block: _____________________________________________________________

Instructor/Professor: ______________________________________________________________

Date: ______________________________________________________________

Introduction. Do we need to prepare ourselves for this vocation, marriage? This module
presents that preparation in marriage is a condition sine qua non. Man and woman will not just
get married as they wish and like. They need to prepare themselves. They have to know the pros
and cons of married life.
.
.

MODULE INTRODUCTIONS AND FOCUS QUESTION (S):

Module 6 of Unit II presented to us the teachings of Jesus Christ about marriage

and family according to the Gospel and the teachings of the Church. This biblical
perspective focuses on how the Gospels and the fathers of the Church elucidated
more the concept of a family/marriage. Module VII will present to us how we
prepare ourselves in building our own family. The preparation starts within us,
knowing and understanding our own capabilities, mentally, emotionally, physically
and financially. Module 7 will present to us the remote preparation in building a
family. It will discuss how we understand ourselves, especially our sexuality. In this
module I ask what are the things should I prepare before I get married. What is the
good of human sexuality? What is good human sexuality? What is the point of sex?
And what does sexuality have to do with love of God and love of neighbor? Am I
mentally, emotionally, physically, socially and financially prepared to get married?
Do I know the roles and responsibilities being required in getting married? Am I
really for a married life?
In this module, you should be able to ....
After completing the unit 2, the students will be able to:
1. DOCTRINE; demonstrate understanding on the concept of Human Sexuality,
love and responsibility
2. MORAL: Manifest respect and desire to preserve chastity, promote inclusive
healthy relationship (sexuality) and unfailing love that prepare themselves to be
a responsible and mature individual.
3. WORSHIP: invoke God’s guidance and grace to be able to discover the
importance of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of
receiving one another from God.
As Dominican-educated youth, the students are able to practice the Dominican three-
fold mission at the end of the module, through:
1. Laudare —To praise God for the gift of sexuality and imbibe the values of giving oneself in
the context of conjugal love.
2. Benedicere — To experience a blissful life through the gift of human sexuality
S. Praedicare — To preach God’s mystery of personal loving communion in the context of
responsible marriage and family life.
Opening Prayer

and take from me the double

darkness in Which l have been
born,

an obscurity of both sin and

In the name of
ignorance.
the Father, and of
the Son, and of Give me a sharp sense of
the Holy Spirit. understanding, a retentive
Amen. memory, and the ability to
grasp things correctly and
Creator of all
fundamentally.
things,
Grant me the talent of being
true Source of
exact in my explanations,
light and wisdom,
lofty origin of all and the ability to express
being, myself with thoroughness and
charm.
graciously let a
ray of Your Point out the beginning, direct
brilliance the progress, and help in
penetrate into completion; through Christ our
the darkness of Lord.
my
understanding
In the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
 Let’s find out how much you already know about this topic. Think and
give your best answers to the question by clicking the Yes or NO. Please
answer all items. After taking this short test, you will see your score.
Take note of the items that you were not able to correctly answer and
look for the right answer as you go through this module.

Response “YES” Statement Response “NO”

1. Sexuality affects all aspects of the

human person in the unity of
his/her body and soul.
2. Man and woman, should
acknowledge and accept their
sexual identity. Physical, moral,
and spiritual difference and
complementarity are oriented
toward the goods of marriage and
the flourishing of family life
3. In creating 'male and female,' God
gives man and woman an equal
personal dignity.

4. Adam’s solitude is the first act of

knowing himself before knowing
Eve. Human being is capable of
deriving self-knowledge from the
consciousness of their
experiences which is the meaning
of original solitude
5. The human body is the only
Creation of God which expresses
and manifests in a visible way a
spiritual reality: personhood.

Quaestio
ACTIVITY 1: Anticipation Reaction Guide (ARG)

What are your ideas when you think about preparing for marriage and building your own family? What
are the things that a man or a woman needs to prepare him/herself in marriage? Do I need to know first
myself and become mature before getting married? Do I need to plan and prepare myself in getting married?
Is it proper that I should wait for the right time, right moment and right person in order to get married? Is
being at the right age will be the right time and moment to get married? Is sexuality the same with sex and
gender? Start the module by answering the first column of the Anticipation Reaction Guide (ARG).
Instruction: Respond to each statement twice. Once before the lesson and again after reading the discussion
of the lesson

 Write I believe if you agree with the statement

 Write I don’t believe if you disagree with the statement

Response Before Statement Response After the

the Lesson Lesson

1. God inscribed in the humanity of man and

woman the vocation, and thus the capacity
and responsibility, of love and communion.
2. Self-knowledge and maturity (physical,
emotional, mental and financial) are one
important recipes before getting married?
3. The nuptial meaning of the body is the
fundamental truth about human beings that
we are created in and for love and that our
bodies are the means of expressing and
receiving that love.
4. Attraction is of the essence of love and in
some sense is indeed love, although love is
not merely attraction.
5. Love as desire cannot be reduced to desire
itself. It is simply the crystallization of the
objective need of one being directed towards
another being which is for it a good and an
object of longing.

Activity 2: Engage yourself…

Inspiring you to know more about preparation in marriage, engage yourself by
interviewing your father and mother, as your mentor on how they prepare themselves
personally before getting married. Also engage yourself by undergoing Self Awareness
Exercises to Get to Know Your Personality (https://scottjeffrey.com/self-awareness-activities-
exercises/#Self_Awareness_Exercises_to_Get_to_Know_Your_Personality) as a remote preparation for
getting married. As you go interviewing your parents and trying to know yourself, contemplate
what and how your interview and personality will build and affect your marriage.
Choose only one activity. Self-awareness activities for your personality include:

1. Personality tests. Assessments like Enneagram and Myers-Briggs provide insights into
the dominant patterns of behavior for your personality type.
(https://www.truity.com/test/enneagram-personality-test
(TAKE PICTURE OF THE RESULT AND POST IT IN THE ANSWER SHEET)
https://www.crystalknows.com/enneagram-test; https://enneagramtest.net/
Click Get Started Free, Sign Up, and Start!
(TAKE PICTURE OF THE RESULT AND POST IT IN THE ANSWER SHEET)
2. Strengths assessment. The Values in Action Strength Test from the University of
Pennsylvania will highlight your most natural strengths and your weaknesses.
(https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/Account/Register)
Click Get Started Free, Sign Up, and Begin the Survey!
(TAKE PICTURE OF THE RESULT AND POST IT IN THE ANSWER SHEET)
3. Self-reflection. Take time each evening to reflect on your behavior for the day. How
do you perceive yourself? How do others perceive you? What can I learn from observing
my behavior today?
4. Personal values. Core values answer the question: what’s most important  to
me? When you become aware of your personal values, you can evaluate if you’re living
in accord with them.
5. Personal vision. We have an ideal future self. This future self is our realized innate
potential. Maslow found that self-actualizing individuals all have a sense of destiny.
Invest time to clarify your personal vision for the future.
6. Journaling. Capturing your inner thoughts and feeling in a journal helps us objectify
them.
7. Personal narrative. Your life story is a fundamental component of your personality.
Psychologist Dan McAdams says, “The stories we tell ourselves about our lives don’t just
shape our personalities—they are our personalities.”
8. Shadow work. We are complex creatures with opposing tensions within us. For every
aspect of our character we identify with, an opposing quality lives within our
unconscious. Shadow work seeks to bring these opposing qualities to light so they won’t
influence our behavior.
9. Inner Dialogue. Within our minds is a family of inner voices (or subpersonalities) with
their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Dialoguing with these characters out loud or in a
 journal helps us develop self-awareness of our emotional terrain. See Jay Earley’s Self-
Therapy (audiobook) for a step-by-step process.
10. Observe others. We are all more alike than we are different. In observing other
people, we can often learn a great deal about our behavior.

All of these activities and processes help you get to know your personality, improve intrapersonal
intelligence, and build self-awareness.

Activity 3: Answer the following the questions below.

1. After doing an extensive research about knowing your personality through the self-
awareness activities. What prompted you then to choose certain activity that it would
help you in the process of remote preparation for getting a successful marriage in the
future? (Minimum of three paragraph)
2. What are the things that I need to prepare for myself in getting marriage? Minimum of three
paragraph)
3. Is it proper that I should wait for the right time, right moment and right person in order to
get married? Minimum of three paragraph)
4. Is being at the right age will be the right time and moment to get married? Minimum of
three paragraph)
5. How can I resolve such doubts and fears (Discovering Self-awareness personality that
revealed your weaknesses) that becomes an obstacle for successful marriage in the
future? Minimum of three paragraph)

Objectio
 One of the prevailing problems of the society right now is early or teenage
pregnancy. Teenager at present only recognizes the need of their body. They never
look and consider the consequences of their acts. Sexuality is equated with sex.
Sexual freedom is the name of the game. They believe that the more you have
sexual experiences the better, you become an expert. Sex becomes a temporary
recreational activity without any consequence or obligation or commitment, and
chastity is ridiculed. Sex becomes a commodity but not an expression of a
responsible total giving of oneself. Watch the videos link below and discover how
the Catholic Church explained sexual intimacy outside the context of marriage, is a
lie. Write a reflection paper on the proposed title “Sex is the Celebration of Selfless
Giving of Life and Love”. Take note what you understand from the videos.
Activity 3 Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgWYNJ9C9E4

Format:
12 Times New Roman
Single Space
Short Bond paper

Analysis/Sed
Contra

1. Human Sexuality (CCC 2331-2336)

"MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM..."

"God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race
in his own image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and
responsibility, of love and communion." [FC 11] (CCC 2331)
"God created man in his own image... male and female he created them"; [Gen 1:27] He blessed them
and said, "Be fruitful and multiply"; [Gen 1:28] "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created." [Gen
5:1-2]
Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns
affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of
communion with others. [CCC 2332]
Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and
spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of
family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity,
needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out. [CCC 2333]
"In creating 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity." [FC 22; Cf. GS 49
# 2] "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the
personal God." [MD 6] [CCC 2334]
Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a
different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's
generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they
become one flesh." [Gen 2:24] All human generations proceed from this union. [Cf. Gen 4:1-2, 25-26; 5:1]
[CCC 2335]
Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets
God's plan strictly: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that
everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." [Mt 5:27-28]
What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. [Cf. Mt 19:6] [CCC 2336]

2. Nuptial Meaning of the Body (TOB, Jan 9, 1980)

Beginning with the fifth address of the Theology of the Body series, St./Pope JP II begins the analysis of
the experiences recorded in the second chapter of Genesis. One of John Paul’s key points is that in the second
chapter, as opposed to the first one, Adam is created before Eve. Before the Creation of Eve, Adam is not
defined as a male. Masculinity and femininity are only mentioned after the Creation of Eve. Adam (humanity)
is alone. Adam comes to realize his solitude, that he is alone, when God asks him to name the animals present in
the Garden. Through this process, Adam realizes that there is no other created being like him, that he is in fact
alone in the world. The naming of the animals is actually Adam’s search of his own identity.

The Pope writes:

“Man finds himself alone before God mainly to express, through a first self-definition, his own self-
knowledge as the original and fundamental manifestation of mankind. Self-knowledge develops at the same
rate as knowledge of the world, of all the visible creatures, of all the living beings to which man has given a
name to affirm his own dissimilarity with regard to them. In this way, therefore, consciousness reveals man as
the one who possesses the cognitive faculty as regards the visible world. With this knowledge which, in a
certain way, brings him out of his own being, man at the same time reveals himself to himself in all the
peculiarity of his being. He is not only essentially and subjectively alone. Solitude, in fact, also signifies man’s
subjectivity, which is constituted through self-knowledge. Man is alone because he is ‘different’ from the
visible world, from the world of living beings. . . . He reveals himself to himself and at the same time asserts
himself as a ‘person’ in the visible world.”[11]
In naming the animals, Adam is looking for someone like himself. He does not find anyone like himself
because he realizes in seeing and naming the animals that no other being has what he has: the capability not
only of doing things (of acting), but also of watching himself act. He names the animals and watches himself
naming the animals. He has an awareness of what is happening, of what he is doing. Through this awareness
which he has (and the animals clearly do not have), he distinguishes himself from all of the other beings in the
visible world. He therefore develops a self-knowledge—a realization that he is different. As the Pope writes in
the above quotation, “consciousness [Adam’s self-awareness of his acts—his ability to “watch himself” doing
things] reveals man as the one who possesses the cognitive faculty.” Adam, in differentiating himself from the
visible world as one who has a mind, realizes he is a person. Since there is no other person in the visible world,
Adam realizes that he is alone. This realization (that he is a person capable of deriving self-knowledge from the
consciousness of his experiences) is the meaning of original solitude.
When the Pope uses the word, “meaning,” he is using this word in a semi-technical sense. “Meaning”
indicates the conclusions derived by a human person from an examination of the experiences contained within
his or her consciousness. Adam named the animals and had an awareness (consciousness) of this act. In
examining this experience, (by examining his consciousness which “contained” this experience), he came to
know himself as different from the animals (because they obviously did not have this consciousness of their
own acts). He came to know himself as a person. This knowledge is the “meaning” of solitude. The meaning of
an experience is the knowledge gleaned from an examination of the experiences contained in one’s
consciousness. (This definition will be very important as we continue to analyze the Pope’s thought.)
In addition to the experience of naming the animals, Adam heard the Lord God say, “You are free to eat
from any of the trees of the Garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not
eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die."[12] With this command, Adam must make a
choice. He then has the awareness (consciousness) of choosing and he comes to realize that he not only has a
mind to know himself, but also a faculty which allows him to choose. He knows himself as a person with the
powers of thinking and choosing. As the Pope writes, “The anthropological definition contained in the Yahwist
text [i.e., the second and third chapters of Genesis] approaches, on its part, what is expressed in the theological
definition of man, which we find in the first narrative of Creation, (‘Let us make man in our image after our
likeness:’ Gen. 1:26).”[13]
It is also obvious that in the process of naming the animals, Adam gazed at each of them, at their bodies.
He distinguished himself from them as different because their bodies were different from his own body. He,
therefore, had a consciousness of his own body as revealing his own interior life, his own personhood. As the
Pope writes, Adam “discovers the meaning of his own corporality.”[14] He comes to realize, in the now famous
phrase of John Paul, that his body expresses his person.[15] As the Pope remarks: “The body, in fact, and it
alone, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It was created to transfer into
the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden since time immemorial in God, and thus be a sign of it.”[16]
The human body, then, is more than the sum of its biological parts. Through these apparently understandable
biological functions, human personhood is revealed. The human body is the only Creation of God which
expresses and manifests in a visible way a spiritual reality: personhood. The angels are persons and so are the
three Persons in God, but none of these can express or make visible their persons. That is left, by the design of
God, to human beings who are the only persons with bodies. (Of course, Jesus in His humanity made His
Person visible, but He was able to do this because He assumed to Himself a human nature with a body. It was as
a man, a human being, that He was able to reveal Himself in and through His body. Therefore it is true that only
human beings are capable of manifesting personhood in the visible world.)
 Our bodies manifest our persons, but since we are images of God, our bodies not only manifest our own
persons, but actually reveal something of who God is. How could it be otherwise? God created human beings
in His image and likeness. Human beings have bodies which reveal who they are: an image of God. When you
see a living human body, you see a visible expression of an image of God. When you see an image of God, you
see something of God, Himself. In expressing our own persons and in manifesting God Himself, the human
body is a unique Creation of God and full of incredible value and dignity. Human beings are truly a “little less
than a god.”[17] This is the truth Adam came to realize in discovering the meaning of his body.
Adam, humanity—not yet distinguished as male and female--, knows himself as a person with the
powers of thinking and choosing. He knows that his body is the outward, visible manifestation of his interior
personhood, of what he thinks and what he chooses. Since he knows himself as a body-person or a person-body
and he has heard God’s warning that he will surely be “doomed to die” if he eats the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, he also knows that his body can die, can cease to have life. “The alternative between death and
immortality enters, right from the outset, the definition of man and belongs ‘from the beginning’ to the meaning
of his solitude before God Himself.”[18]
Having experienced solitude Adam knows himself (has an awareness of himself) as a being who thinks,
chooses, and manifests himself in the visible world through his flesh and blood. But he is alone. Then God puts
Adam to sleep and forms the first woman, Eve. Adam’s cry of joy is well known: “This one, at last, is bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh.”[19] Humanity “awakens from his sleep as ‘male and female’.”[20]The Pope
writes about this line, “If it is possible to read impression and emotions through words so remote, one might
also venture to say that the depth and force of this first and ‘original’ emotion of the male-man in the presence
of the humanity of the woman, and at the same time in the presence of the femininity of the other human being,
seems something unique and unrepeatable.”[21] Adam recognizes in Eve another whose body expresses a
person.[22] He recognizes in her (and she in him) personhood. (Eve, as another human person, shared with
Adam the common experience of solitude because solitude belongs to Adam as human person, not as male-
person. The experience of solitude belongs, as it were, to humanity. Eve, together with Adam, had the benefit of
the experience of solitude so she, too, had come to the realization of who she was as a person with self-
awareness of mind, will and body.)
Adam (and Eve as well) implicitly understands that something is lacking in solitude. In naming the
animals, he does not find one like him. With the Creation of Eve, this implicit lack is made explicit. This is the
reason for the cry of inexpressible joy: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Only
through the Creation of a helper “fit for him” can Adam surpass “the limit of man’s solitude.”[23] In both Adam
and Eve, there is a recognition of a mutual belonging as opposed to the rest of the visible Creation—the rest of
the living bodies in the world. There is a sense of a mutual reciprocity. “Indispensable for this reciprocity was
all that constituted the foundation of the solitude of each of them and therefore also self-knowledge and self-
determination [the power of choosing], that is, subjectivity, and consciousness of the meaning of one’s own
body.”[24]
When Adam and Eve see each other, they realize that there are “two complementary dimensions, as it
were, of self-consciousness [here used to indicate self-knowledge known through the mind] and self-
determination [here used to indicate the power to choose, the will], two complementary ways of being
conscious of the meaning of the body.”[25] In a word, they discover masculinity and femininity. “That is why a
man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.”[26] Adam and
Eve entered into a marriage, a union of their persons expressed in and through their bodies. It was the first
marriage. This marriage, as all marriages, was entered into by a choice in each of their wills. John Paul sees in
the verb, “cling,” an indication that Adam and Eve both choose to give themselves to each other. “The very
formulation of Genesis 2:24 indicates not only that human beings, created as man and woman, were created for
unity, but also that precisely this unity, through which they become ‘one flesh,’ has right from the beginning a
character of union derived from choice.”[27]
 The free choice to commit themselves to each other was done on the basis of their mutual
complementarity, i.e., on the basis of masculinity and femininity. They realized that their bodies were made for
a union between them. But this union was not just of the body. It involved a realization, a consciousness of
masculinity and femininity, as well as a free choice. Their self-gift to each other was given in a personal way,
with both understanding in their minds who they were and both choosing in full freedom to give themselves to
each other.
Of particular importance in Adam and Eve’s experience of unity is their understanding of the meaning
of their bodies, what the Pope calls the nuptial meaning of the body. If, as we have said, “meaning” indicates
the conclusions derived by a human person from an examination of the experiences contained within his or her
consciousness, then the nuptial meaning of the body signifies the conclusions Adam and Eve derived from the
experience of their union, or even from their recognition of the possibility of their union. In seeing Adam, Eve
realized “here at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” In seeing Eve, Adam realized “here at last is
bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Their bodies were made for one another and they did not hesitate to
unite with one another. In this experience of union, Adam and Eve “watch themselves with their
consciousness.” They see themselves making a choice to give themselves to each other. They see themselves
knowing that they are made for one another. In this awareness of their own experience of union, they come to
discover love. They discover that they are created to love each other in and through their bodies. This
discovery is the discovery of the nuptial meaning of the body.
The discovery of the nuptial meaning of the body is a subjective confirmation of what was objectively
revealed in the first chapter of Genesis. In the first chapter, God created “man in his image; in the divine image
he created him; male and female he created them.”[28] Created like God, human persons are called, from their
very being, to act like God. An image is a reflection. When looking in a mirror and combing one’s hair, one
sees the image in the mirror combing its hair. We are images of God. We are called to act like God. God loves
and so we are called to love in the very same way God does. This objective fact is revealed in the first chapter
of Genesis. In the second chapter, man discovers this truth, this meaning. “This meaning (inasmuch as it is
revealed and also conscious, ‘lived’ by man) confirms completely that the creative giving, which springs from
love, has reached the original consciousness of man, becoming an experience of mutual giving, as can already
be seen in the archaic text.”[29] God reveals the truth that created in his image, human persons are called to
love as He loves, but Adam and Eve discover the same truth through their experiences, through their realization
of the nuptial meaning of their bodies.
“Awareness of the meaning of the body that is derived from them [i.e., from the first pages of the Book
of Genesis] –in particular of its ‘nuptial’ meaning—is the fundamental element of human existence in the
world.”[30] Of course, the awareness of the nuptial meaning of the body is the fundamental truth about human
beings: it is the truth that we are created in and for love and that our bodies are the means of expressing and
receiving that love. The conscious awareness of this truth proclaimed by God when He created us in His image
and likeness is absolutely central to all human life worth living. We are created to love and to be loved. As John
Paul taught in his first encyclical, “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible
for himself, his life is senseless if love is not revealed to him, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if
he does not participate intimately in it”[31] because every human person is created in the image and likeness of
God and called to do what God does, i.e., love. The discovery of this truth subjectively is what John Paul means
when he speaks of the nuptial meaning of the body.
Clearly, this discovery by Adam and Eve was partially made when they first saw one another even prior
to their full union. This is revealed by the cry of joy, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my
flesh.”[32] The discovery was complete through their marital union. Of course, both events occurred while they
were naked. The author of Genesis even remarks that “the man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no
shame.”[33] But the most important point John Paul is trying to make in the passages treating the nuptial
meaning of the body is not that Adam and Eve were naked, but that they discovered that they were created to
love and for love, i.e., that they discovered the nuptial meaning of the body.
It is almost impossible for those of us born with the inheritance of sin to experience nakedness in the
same way as Adam and Eve and to discover the nuptial meaning of our bodies in the way Adam and Eve did.
Sin has clouded our vision and our comprehension of the true value of other persons. Genesis speaks of this
lack after sin when it mentions that after their sin Adam and Eve “realized that they were naked; so they sewed
fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.” “Only the nakedness that makes woman an ‘object’ for
man, or vice versa, is a source of shame. The fact that ‘they were not ashamed’ [before sin] means that the
woman was not an ‘object’ for the man nor he for her.”[35] In the experience of original unity, both Adam and
Eve freely choose to give themselves to each other. They wished to surrender themselves to each other for the
benefit of the other. This is what love is. After sin, the lust of the flesh, caused by sin, led one or the other of
them to want the other. Instead of giving themselves freely—realizing that the other was complete and total gift
—lust led them to appropriate the other for himself or herself. Instead of a giving, there was a desire to take as
one does with things. This desire was manifested in their bodies and both saw this manifestation of the desire to
take. They were each ashamed in the presence of the other because they knew that they should not reduce the
other to an object and yet after sin, their desire to take each other was apparent in their naked state. Therefore,
for those of us who are the heirs of sin—the entire human race after Adam and Eve except for Mary and Christ
—it is difficult, not to say impossible, for us to discover the nuptial meaning of the body in the way Adam and
Eve did. Of course, this is one of the reasons it is revealed to us, not only objectively in the first chapter of
Genesis, but through the record of Adam and Eve’s experiences in the second chapter of Genesis.
In discovering the nuptial being of the body, Adam and Eve realized that they were a gift for one
another, presented to each other by God. Just as their gift to one another was one of love, so also was God’s gift
of the other to each of them one of love. They thus came to realize that in loving one another, in giving
themselves to each other, they mirrored the gift of God to them. Their union of love was simultaneously a
mirror, a reflection, an image, of God’s love for them. Their union made visible the interior life of God. Not
only were each of their bodies taken individually the expression of who they were and a revelation of who God
is, but in acting, loving each other, Adam and Eve, made visible the love of God, i.e., the love in the Trinity,
itself. Of course, not knowing of the existence of the Trinity, Adam and Eve could not consciously reflect the
love of the Triune God, but they were conscious of mirroring the love God showered on them when He created
them for each other and, of course, the love shown by God when He created the whole world for them. The
Pope remarks that the love of Adam and Eve is “a primordial sacrament, understood as a sign that transmits
effectively in the visible world the invisible mystery hidden in God from time immemorial. And this is the
mystery of truth and love, the mystery of divine life, in which man really participates.” [36]
According to John Paul’s analysis of the second and third chapters of Genesis, Adam and Eve’s
awareness (consciousness) or their first experiences led them to discover the truths about themselves as
individuals. Adam and Eve both come to know that they are each created in God’s image as persons with minds
and wills. They come to understand that their bodies express themselves and reveal God. They know that they
are a gift for one another and that God lavished gifts on them in creating them for one another. In these self-
discoveries realized through their own subjective experiences, they confirm the truths revealed in the objective
order in the first chapter of Genesis.
These original experiences, while always part of all of us because we are rooted in our theological
prehistory, can never be repeated. Sin has wounded us to the point that we can never re-live solitude in the way
Adam did or original unity in the way Adam and Eve did. The change in us because of sin is implied in Genesis.
Before sin, they were naked and were not ashamed. After sin, they were naked and sewed fig leaves on
themselves. This betrays a radical change in Adam and Eve. (The Nuptial Meaning of the Body, Fr. Richard M.
Hogan)
3. The Person in Love (Love and Responsibility)

In the section entitled, “The Metaphysical Analysis of Love,” Karol Wojtyla discusses a number of
aspects that make up the “invisible” side of love, namely attraction, desire, goodwill, reciprocity, and
friendship. These are experiences that men and woman have when they meet one another.
Wojtyla takes as his starting point the fact that "love is always a mutual relationship between persons," a
relationship based on "particular attitudes toward the good, adopted by each of them individually and by both
jointly" (p. 73). He then outlines the balance of the chapter and the need to present a metaphysical,
psychological and ethical analysis of the elements of love as a relationship between persons, particularly
between a man and a woman.

a. Love as an Attraction (LR 7-79)

Here Wojtyla is concerned with one basic element in human love, that of attraction. He is, in short, here
concerned with what the medievals called the amor complacentiae (the English text mistakenly reads amor
complacentia). As an attraction love includes a cognitive element--a cognitive commitment of the subject--but
there is in attraction something more, extra-intellectual and extra-cognitive factors involving a commitment of
the will. Wojtyla maintains that attraction is "so to speak, a form of cognition which commits the will but
commits it because it is committed by it," and because the human person is a bodily being, attraction likewise
involves the emotions.
The principal point is that an attraction consists of responses to a number of distinct values. Since these
values have their source in a person, attraction has "as its object a person, and its source is the whole person."
From this it follows that "attraction is of the essence of love and in some sense is indeed love, although love is
not merely attraction" (p. 76). Attraction is not just an element of love but "one of the essential components of
love as a whole" (pp. 76-77). One is attracted to a value one finds in a person, a value to which one is
particularly sensitive.
But Wojtyla holds that love as attraction must be rooted in the truth, and that emotional-affective
reactions (whose object is not the truth) can distort or falsify attractions--if so, emotional love easily turns to
hate (pp. 77-78). Thus in any attraction "the question of the truth about the person towards whom it is felt is so
important.... the truth about the person who is its object must play a part at least as important as the truth of the
sentiments. These two truths, properly integrated, give to an attraction that perfection which is one of the
elements of a genuinely good and genuinely 'cultivated' love" (p. 78)--and obviously sexual values can elicit
attraction. It is therefore important, Wojtyla continues, "to stress that the attraction must never be limited to
partial values, to something which is inherent in the person but is not the person as a whole. There must be a
direct attraction to the person: in other words, response to particular qualities inherent in a person must go with
a simultaneous response to the qualities of the person as such, an awareness that a person as such is a value, and
not merely attractive because of certain qualities which he or she possesses" (p. 79). In the development of this
theme Wojtyla makes the following most significant comment: "A human being is beautiful and may be
revealed as beautiful to another human being" (p. 79). And beauty is more than skin deep: the love between
persons, and between a man and a woman has as one of its components an attraction originating "not just in a
reaction to visible and physical beauty, but also in a full and deep appreciation of the beauty of the person" (p.
80).

An attraction—a “liking”— happens quite naturally between men and women. An instant or initial
attraction occurs, Wojtyla writes, as a result of natural sexual desire, but in order to really like someone on the
personal level, we have to know them. Attraction to another person—a man to a woman, a woman to a man—
“does not mean just thinking about some person as a good, it means a commitment to think of that person as a
certain good, and such a commitment can in the last resort be effected only by the will.” This is a really
important point: we have to consent to an attraction before it will really take hold. Feelings may arrive
spontaneously, but not a full attraction of one person to another.
Our culture says the opposite: that attraction is a blind force, a passion, that moves people without their
consent. We think that we have to be attracted to so-and-so; we have no choice in the matter. Wojtyla says that
is not true: “At the base of attraction is a sense impression, but this is not decisive in itself. For we discover in
an attraction a certain cognitive commitment of the subject, a man, let us say, towards the object, in this case a
woman.”
Let’s say that a man sees a woman at a bar and is struck by her; He thinks she’s the most beautiful
woman he’s ever seen. He starts walking over to ask for her number… when he realizes that she’s wearing a
wedding ring. If he’s a good man (we’re going to presume that he is), the moment is over. “That woman at the
bar” may always be the most beautiful woman the man has ever seen, but he’s not going to nurture an attraction
toward her. He knows that being attracted to someone else’s wife is not going to make him happy. (Obviously,
if he decided that he had “no choice” but to pursue an attraction to her regardless of her marriage, he’s not a
good man!)
Wojtyla also analyzes the unpredictability of attraction, pointing out that every human person is
complex and reacts to different qualities in others based on temperament, past experience, family background,
etc. You can never tell who is going to like each other! We are all a mixed bag, if you will. (Wojtyla’s phrase is
“uneven good.”) This is why setting friends up on blind dates can be risky (though it’s a risk we encourage you
to take!).
Wojtyla writes that an attraction must discover that it is rooted in the truth about the person before it can
be called love. Perhaps Sally thinks that Harry is kind, but then she sees him repeatedly acting in an unkind
way. Perhaps Harry thinks Sally is sweet and then finds her kicking puppies. This is when disillusionment sets
in: “This person isn’t who I thought they were!” Wojtyla writes, “This emptiness and the feeling of
disappointment which goes with [this experience] often produce an emotional reaction in the opposite direction:
a purely emotional love often becomes an equally emotional hatred for the same person.”[v] That’s why it’s so
important to always seek to know the real person, not the image in your head!
To sum things up: attraction is the beginning of love, but requires knowledge and truth to become the
kind of love that marriage can be built on.

b. Love as a Desire (LR, 80-82)

Wojtyla next considers love as desire, or what the medievals called the amor concupiscentiae (not amor
concupiscentia, as the text reads). Desire belongs to the very essence of love, and does so because the human
person, as a limited and not self-sufficient being, is in need of other beings (p. 80). In particular, a man as a
being of the male sex is in need of a woman as a being of the female sex and vice versa: the two are
"complementary," i.e., they help fulfill each other, and the sexual urge is oriented in part to this completion of
the one sex by the other. "This is 'love of desire,' for it originates in a need and aims at finding a good which it
lacks. For a man, that good is a woman, for a woman it is a man" (p. 81).
But, and this is most important, "there is...a profound difference between love as desire (amor
concupiscentiae) and desire itself (concupiscentia), especially sensual desire." Desire as such implies a
utilitarian attitude. Hence "love as desire cannot be reduced to desire itself. It is simply the crystallization of the
objective need of one being directed towards another being which is for it a good and an object of longing. In
the mind of the subject love-as-desire is not felt as mere desire. It is felt as a longing for some good for its own
sake.... love is therefore apprehended as a longing for the person, and not as mere sensual desire,
concupiscentia. Desire goes together with this longing, but is...overshadowed by it" (p. 81). Wojtyla notes that
"to be useful is not the same as being an object of use.... thus, true 'love as desire' never becomes utilitarian in
its attitude for [even when desire is aroused] it has its roots in the personalistic principle" (p. 82).

c. Love as Goodwill (LR 82-84)

Here Wojtyla is concerned with what the medievals termed amor benevolentiae. "Love is the fullest
realization of the possibilities inherent in man.... The person finds in love the greatest possible fullness of being,
of objective existence....A genuine love is one in which the true essence of love is realized--a love which is
directed to a genuine...good in the true way" (pp. 82-83).
Love of benevolence or benevolence is essential to love between persons. It is unselfish love, for
goodwill is free of self-interest and is indeed "selflessness in love.... Love as goodwill, amor benevolentiae, is
therefore love in a more unconditional sense than love-desire" (p. 83).

Additional topics:

d. Reciprocity

Wojtyla here notes that since human interpersonal love, and particularly the love of man for woman and
vice versa, is a love which exists between them, this suggests that "love is not just something in the man and
something in the woman--but is something common to them and unique" (p. 84). We come now to the
communication of incommunicable persons. How is this possible? How can the "I" and the "Thou" become a
"We"?
The path lies through the will. "The fact is that a person who desires another person as a good desire
above all that person's love in return for his or her own love, desires that is to say another person above all as
the co-creator of love, and not merely as the object of appetite.... The desire for reciprocity does not cancel out
the disinterested character of love.... Reciprocity brings with it a synthesis, as it were, of love as desire and love
as goodwill" (pp. 85-86). Wojtyla then recalls Aristotle's thought on friendship and reciprocity. Aristotle
distinguished different kinds of reciprocity, depending on the "good on which reciprocity and hence the
friendship as a whole is based....If it is a genuine good...reciprocity is something deep, mature and virtually
indestructible....So then...if that which each of the two persons contributes to their reciprocal love is his or her
personal love, but a love of the highest ethical value, virtuous love, then reciprocity assumes the characteristics
of durability and reliability [leading to trust"] (pp. 86-87). A utilitarian attitude, rooted in a merely useful good
and not an honest good, destroys the possibility of true reciprocity (p. 87).

e. Friendship

Here Wojtyla first analyzes sympathy as an emotional kind of love whereby one feels with another and
refers to experiences that persons share subjectively. The danger here is that what will count is the value of the
subjectively experienced emotion (the sympathy) and not the value of the person (p. 90). But sympathy has the
power to make people feel close to each other; it is hence quite important as a palpable manifestation of love.
But the most important element in love is will, and sympathy must be integrated into the person through the will
if friendship, based on the objective value of the person, is to take root: "sympathy must be transformed into
friendship, and friendship supplemented by sympathy" (p. 91). But "friendship...consists in a full commitment
of the will to another person with a view to that person's good" (p. 92). While love is "always a subjective thing,
in that it must reside in subjects," at the same time "it must be free of subjectivity. It must be something
objective within the subject, have an objective as well as a subjective profile." It must, in other words, be rooted
in friendship. Comradeship, while distinct from both sympathy and friendship, can ripen into friendship
inasmuch as it "gives a man and a woman an objective common interest" (p. 94).

4. Characteristics of Conjugal Love (HV 9)

a. Human
Married love is fully human and involves free will. It is not the love of angels (who lack bodies), nor the
instinct of animals (who lack spiritual souls). Rather, it unites husband and wife in both body and spirit. It is
lived out in bodily form in the day-in and day-out lives they share together. This love is uniquely expressed and
made possible in the bodily act of the marital embrace.

b. Total
Married love is total. It is a unique kind of love that results in bodily and spiritual oneness and mutual
belonging. Given to each other by God, husband and wife are called to share everything with the other and to
put the other first. Most especially, the oneness to which husband and wife are called is made visible in the very
flesh of their children.

c. Faithful and Exclusive

Faithfulness for life — is implied by the previous two. If married love is spiritual, embodied and total, it
cannot be partial or limited. If husband and wife belong mutually each to the other, they cannot bestow
themselves to another. Likewise, they cannot give themselves “only for a time.” Married love implies the gift of
one’s whole life
d. Fruitful
Married love is fruitful. It is the very nature of married love to be directed toward children and the
family. When we stop and think about it, the male body makes no sense if considered separately from the
female body, and vice versa. The complementarity of man and woman just as obviously rests on the possibility
of having children together. Without this ordination to bearing and raising children, the love of husband and
wife risks closing in on itself. Scripture therefore relates the creation of man and woman directly and
immediately to the first commandment of the Bible: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28).

5. Education in Chastity
a. Chastity as a Virtue (CCC 2347 and ST Q 151)

Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man
in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is
expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to
another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. [CCC 2337])

The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.

The integrity of the person

The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity
ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double
life nor duplicity in speech. (CCC 2338).
Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The
alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them
and becomes unhappy. [Cf. Sir 1:22] "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free
choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere
external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses
forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for
himself the means suited to this end." [GS 17] [1767]
Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the
means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an asceticism adapted to the situations that confront him,
obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through
chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into
multiplicity." [St. Augustine, Conf. 10, 29, 40: PL 32, 796] [CCC 2340]
The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the
passions and appetites of the senses with reason. [CCC 2341]

Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It
presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life. [Cf. Titus 2:1-6] The effort required can be more intense in
certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence. [CCC 2342]
Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin.
"Man... day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and
accomplishes moral good by stages of growth." [FC 34] [CCC 2343]
Chastity represents an eminently personal task; it also involves a cultural effort, for there is "an
interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of society." [GS 25 # 1] Chastity
presupposes respect for the rights of the person, in particular the right to receive information and an education
that respect the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life. [CCC 2343]
Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort. [Cf. Gal 5:22] The
Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ. [Cf. 1 Jn
3:3] [CCC 2345]

The integrality of the gift of self

Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity appears as a school of the gift of the
person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self. Chastity leads him who practices it to become a witness to his
neighbor of God's fidelity and loving kindness. [CCC 2346]
The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who
has chosen us as his friends, [Cf. Jn 15:15] who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his
divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality. [CCC 2347]
Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one's neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of
the same or opposite sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion.

b. Chastity in all Status of Life (CCC 2348-2350)

All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has "put on Christ," [Gal 3:27] the model for all
chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the
moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity. (CCC 2348)
"People should cultivate [chastity] in the way that is suited to their state of life. Some profess virginity
or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a
remarkable manner. Others live in the way prescribed for all by the moral law, whether they are married or
single." [CDF, Persona humana 11] Married people are called to live conjugal chastity; others practice chastity
in continence: [CCC 2349]
 There are three forms of the virtue of chastity: the first is that of spouses, the second that of widows, and
the third that of virgins. We do not praise any one of them to the exclusion of the others.... This is what makes
for the richness of the discipline of the Church. [St. Ambrose, De viduis 4, 23: PL 16, 255A]
Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of
testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from
God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help
each other grow in chastity. [CCC 2350]

Reading Materials

THE TRUTH AND MEANING OF HUMAN SEXUALITY:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/documents/rc_pc_family_doc_08121995_human-
sexuality_en.html
Catholic Parents' Guide to Formation in Human Sexuality: https://waterloocatholics.org/catholic-parents-guide-to-
formation-in-human-sexuality
Theology of the Body:
https://www.gbdioc.org/images/stories/Education/Schools/TheologyoftheBodyContent082916Draft.pdf
Marital Sexuality: https://www.foryourmarriage.org/marital-sexuality/
Chastity and Human Sexuality Education Within the Family:
https://www.catholichawaii.org/media/401121/guidelines-for-chastity-and-human-sex-ed-w-family-september-
draft-2014-2-.pdf

Video Materials
Sexuality Explained EP 1 - Understanding Sexuality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k47AiatNvoM
What is HUMAN SEXUALITY? What does HUMAN SEXUALITY mean? HUMAN SEXUALITY meaning &
explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-yLWHmkZUQ
HUMAN SEXUALITY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_D5Rv8renQ
How To Know Yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lTbWQ8zD3w&t=148s
Sexuality Explained EP 3 - Coming Out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyiVwUvla6o

Write below what you understand from your reading and watching about remote preparation in getting
married.
 Respondio
TRANSFER: Transfer Task
Now that you are done with this module. Try to capture and analyze the scenario.
One of the prevailing problems of the society right now is early or teenage pregnancy.
Teenager at present only recognizes the need of their body. They never look and consider the
consequences of their acts. For this reason, you are required to design a personal future
marriage preparation and plans so that you will have a successful marriage in the future. You
are to present this personal future marriage preparation and plans to your parents in order to
make them assured that you have plans for your life and to the VP for Religious Education of
UST for approval and imprimatur. Your presentation will be evaluated by group of Theology
professors designated by the Director of CREED. The evaluation will be based on creativity,
persuasiveness, and coherence to the teachings the Church. You have to post it in your
facebook timeline and share it as many as you can.
Skills Below Standard Just Meets the Adequately Meets Exemplary
(70-74%) Standard Standard (91-99%)
(75-80%) (81-90%)

Creativity The personal future The personal future The personal future The personal future
marriage marriage marriage marriage
preparation and preparation and preparation and preparation and
plans does not plans only an plans demonstrates plans totally
demonstrate the attempt to the socio-cultural, demonstrates the
socio-cultural, demonstrate the political, economic socio-cultural,
political, economic socio-cultural, realities and needs political, economic
realities and needs political, economic of the student, realities and needs
of the student, realities and needs family, others and of the student,
family, others and of the student, the society as a family, others and
the society as a family, others and whole. the society as a
whole. the society as a whole.
whole.
Persuasiveness The personal future The personal future The personal future The personal future
marriage marriage marriage marriage
preparation and preparation and preparation and preparation and
plans does not plans only an plans demonstrates plans absolutely
persuade or capture attempt to persuade persuasively the persuasive in
the socio-cultural, the socio-cultural, socio-cultural, demonstrating the
political, economic political, economic political, economic socio-cultural,
realities and needs realities and needs realities and needs political, economic
 of the student, of the student, of the student, realities and needs
family, others and family, others and family, others and of the student,
the society as a the society as a the society as a family, others and
whole. whole. whole. the society as a
whole.
scope The scope of the The scope of the The scope of the The scope of the
personal future personal future personal future personal future
marriage marriage marriage marriage
preparation and preparation and preparation and preparation and
plans are not plans only attempts plans plans are totally
comprehensive for to the socio-cultural, comprehensively comprehensive to
the socio-cultural, political, economic respond to the the socio-cultural,
political, economic realities and needs socio-cultural, political, economic
realities and needs of the student, political, economic realities and needs
of the student, family, others and realities and needs of the student,
family, others and the society as a of the student, family, others and
the society as a whole. It is not family, others and the society as a
whole. It is not coherent to the the society as a whole. It is not
coherent to the social teachings of whole. It is not coherent to the
social teachings of the Church. coherent to the social teachings of
the Church. social teachings of the Church.
the Church.

At the end of this lesson go back to ARG (Explore) and answer the third
column. Compare your answer to your previous answer.
Your understanding of the mystical truths about God will be increased as
you study the lessons and perform the activities in this module.
 Closure

Learning Skills Easy, I get Well, more

examples
OMG, I
It still need
please help

1. I can discern the concept of

Human Sexuality, love and
responsibility.
2. I can design my personal future
marriage preparation and plans
Let’s find out how much you have learned about this topic. Think and give the answers to
the questions by encircling the best answer from each question.
1. St. John Paul II writes in his book Theology of the Body this compelling statement,
“consciousness reveals man (Adam) as the one who possesses the faculty of
___________.”
a. Reason
b. Volitive
c. Will
d. Conscience

2. Adam has the a faculty which allows him to choose. What faculty is this?
a. Cognitive Faculty
b. Volitive Faculty
c. Intransitive Faculty
d. Nonnutritive Faculty.

3. Adam’s cry of wonder in Gen 2:18 “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” is
indeed an exclamation of love and______________?
a. Dominion
b. Consummation
c. Reunion
d. Communion

4. According to Pope John Paul II, ____________ has clouded our vision and our
comprehension of the true value of other persons.
a. Charity
b. Love
c. Sin
d. Grace

5. Karol Józef Wojtyła (born May 18, 1920, Wadowice, Poland—died April 2, 2005, Vatican City;
beatified May 1, 2011; canonized April 27, 2014; feast day October 22), also known as
Pope___________________.

a. Francis
b. John Paul II
c. Benedict
d. John XXIII
CLOSING PRAYER

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of

the Holy Spirit. Amen.

May God the Father bless us.

May God the Son heal us.
May God the Holy Spirit enlighten us, and give
us
eyes To see with, ears to hear with,
hands to do the work of God with, feet to walk
with,
a mouth to preach the word of salvation with,
and the angel of peace to watch over us and
lead us at last, by our Lord’s gift, for the
Kingdom.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen..
 References:

REFERENCES:

Catechism for Filipino Catholics (1997).

Catechism for the Catholic Church. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (2011). http://rokreligiouseducation.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/50667YOUCATPgsp_00000007751.pdf
Do Catechism of the Catholic Church
Faith Seeking Understanding. https://fsubelmonte.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/7/1/19715887/fsu1.pdf
Ott, L. (1974). Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Tan Books and Pub, Inc. USA.