Free Love True Love

Free Love, True Love

Free Love True Love
Rediscovering Love & Intimacy in John Paul II’s
TheoLogy of the Body
FR. JoeL o. JASoN
Nihil Obstat: Most Rev. Bernardino C. Cortez, D.D. Auxiliary Bishop of Manila Im
primatur: + Gaudencio Cardinal B. Rosales, D.D. Archbishop of Manila Free Love,
True Love: Rediscovering Love and Intimacy in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body
by Fr. Joel O. Jason © December 2007 2nd Printing April 2008 ISBN: 978-971-93992-0
-9 Philippine Copyright by Fr. Joel O. Jason San Carlos Seminary, Edsa, Guadalup
e Viejo, 1200 Makati City, Philippines Tel. No. (63 2) 8958855 Fax (63 2) 890 95
63 e-mail: frajoel@mydestiny.net, frajoel1969@yahoo.com For information and inqu
iries, pls. contact: Ministry for Family and Life Archdiocese of Manila LAYFORCE
: San Carlos Pastoral Formation Complex, EDSA, Guadalupe, Makati City, Philippin
es (63 2) 8906187; 8958855 loc 306 telfax: (63 2) 8960584 email: familyandlifemi
nistry@yahoo.com Requests for information should be addressed to: SHEPHERD’S VOICE
PuBLICATIONS, INC. #60 Chicago St., Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines 1109 Tel. N
o. (632) 411-7874 to 77 e-mail: sale@shepherdsvoice.com.ph All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, except for brief quotations, with
out the prior permission of the publisher. Cover Design by Rey P. de Guzman Layo
ut by Sem. Ser Allan G. Bodoraya
This book is dedicated to my late father, Panfilo and my mother, Ligaya, the Jas
on, Collins and Trance families the seminarians at San Carlos Seminary Auntie Mo
lly and Betty all my co-workers at the Ministry for Family and Life of the Archd
iocese of Manila
FREE LOVE, TRUE LOVE
CoNTeNTS
Foreword by Cardinal Gaudencio B. Rosales, D.D. . . . . . . . . . . i Introducti
on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
ii Laying the Foundation: A New Ethos of Love and Sexuality . . . . . . . . . .
. 1 Two: The Great Sacrament: A Marriage Made in Heaven . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . 13 Three: The Original Experiences of Man and Woman 23 The Experience of
Original Solitude . . . . . . . . . . 25 The Experience of Original unity . . .
. . . . . . . . . 27 The Experience of Original Nakedness . . . . . . . . 32 Fo
ur: The Rediscovery of Love and Chastity . . . . . . . . 37 Five: The Redemption
of Sexuality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Six: The Humanness of Love and
Sexuality . . . . . . . 57 Seven: The Life-Giving and Love-Giving Signifi
cance of Sexuality . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . 67 Eight: With This Body, I Thee Wed:
The Significance of the Body . . .
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . 73 One: Concluding Words . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Foreword
E
ven before he assumed the papacy, Pope John Paul II had already pondered importa
nt themes concerning human sexuality and these reflections were eventua
lly published in his book, Love and Responsibility. Given his keen in
terest on the topic, it is probably not surprising that in the early
years of his pontificate, he devoted several general
audiences to presenting and outlining his Theology of the Body. From 1979 to 19
84, in about 130 talks delivered to crowds gathered for the Wednesday general au
dience at St. Peter’s Square, Pope John Paul II addressed several important issues
about human sexuality. In the process, he highlighted the Church’s teaching that
human beings, in their embodiment,
i
Foreword
reflect the image of God and that the human body
is indispensable to one’s vocation to love. In this book, Fr. Jason presents
, in a clear and lively manner, the key points of Pope John Paul II’s theology of
the body. He combines his firm grasp of the
late pontiff’s thoughts on human sexuality with his stories and his own experi
ences of ministering to couples and families. The result is, thus, a work that s
peaks to men and women of today, a work that addresses many of their important c
oncerns about love and intimacy. We live in a world where there seems to be a st
rong tendency to “commodify” human beings, that is, to see men and women — and their b
odies — as commodities. It is hoped that through Fr. Jason’s engaging presentation o
f Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body, readers will rediscover and recover th
e true sense of their worth as embodied persons, and thus, be able to love — freel
y and truly.
+ gAUdeNCIo B. CARdINAL RoSALeS Archbishop of Manila 21 November 2007 Presentati
on of the Blessed Virgin Mary
ii
Introduction
F
ather, have you ever experienced how it is to be in love?” This is the one questio
n people never miss throwing at me every time I give talks, preach at retreats o
r lead recollections. And I’ve heard that asked of me in varying tones and context
s. Sometimes in pity. (Ouch!) Sometimes seductively. (Hmmm….) But most of the time
just out of plain curiosity. There is nothing really wrong with that question.
But innocent though it may be, it carries with it certain assumptions. First, it
implies that priests become priests because we don’t have any interest in love. O
r if we do, our hearts have stopped loving the day the bishop laid hands on us a
t ordination. This also suggests that
iii
Introduction
priests choose celibacy because love doesn’t attract us at all. (This celibacy iss
ue is important to discuss but that will be the topic of another book.) Secondly
, since love is supposed to be the territory of “non-priests” and “non-celibates,” they
must know everything there is to know about love and sexuality. I agree... but t
hen again, do they really? Let’s do a word association exercise. I will mention wo
rds at random and all you have to do is to remember, write down or draw if you w
ant, whatever it is that immediately comes to your mind. No censorship, no editi
ng. Ready? What comes to your mind when you hear these words: Man? Woman? Male?
Female? Sex? Sexuality? Body? Love? I’ve done this often to countless numbers of p
eople and I always get more or less the same reaction on their faces. Dumb quest
ion. Why do you even ask? But when I ask them for feedback, I receive more or le
ss the same confusion and difficulty at identification.
“Is there a difference between man and male, woman and female?” “Aren’t they just inter
changeable words?” As for sex, sexuality and body, I get either a malicious or emb
arrassed smile or a dismissive, “Never mind. I wasn’t able to write anything,” which a
ctually means, “What I wrote down is not fit for
public consumption.”
iv
And as for love, it’s always the ever sublime, “Love is blind.” The words enumerated a
bove are simple and commonplace. We use them every day when we talk of
love and sexuality. But why the difficulty at
identification and differentiation? Let me share with you an anecdo
te that I hope won’t scandalize you. (Remember, to the pure, everything is pure bu
t to the impure, nothing is pure. See Titus 1:15.) An American missionary priest
working in a province in the Philippines presided at a wedding. He wanted to de
liver his homily in the vernacular, in this case in Tagalog. He wanted to stress
the importance of prayer in married life but he couldn’t remember the Tagalog equ
ivalent. He passed by a group of men who were drinking by the roadside and polit
ely asked one of them, “Ano sa Tagalog ang prayer?”1 The man, a little intoxicated a
nd quite surprised by the question, could not remember and could only mutter rep
eatedly, “Kuwan, kuwan.”2 So the priest went ahead thinking that prayer is kuwan in
Tagalog.
1 2
“What is prayer in Tagalog?” “kuwan” – 1. Tagalog word used to designate something indeter
minate. May be translated as “it” or “something like.” 2. In street parlance could also
mean the sex act.
v
Introduction
So came the homily. The priest looked intently at the couple and plainly said in
his perfect Tagalog: “Upang magtagal ang inyong relasyon, kailangan magkuwan kayo
palagi.”3 The couple looked embarrassed. The priest continued, “Sa umaga pagkagisin
g, mag-kuwan. Bago kumain, mag-kuwan. Bago matulog, mag-kuwan.”4 The bride remarke
d in embarrassment, “Father, mamamatay kami diyan sa pinagagawa niyo.” 5 The priest
responded with greater emphasis, “Bago mamatay, mag-kuwan pa rin!”6 The priest was s
incere and he meant well. He did not want to sound scandalous or to raise confus
ion and embarrassment. He simply didn’t know what he was saying. But more importan
tly, he didn’t know what he was saying because he learned the meaning of his words
from a drunken bystander in the streets. Could it be that we also learned the m
eaning of the words we enumerated above “from a drunken bystander in the streets”?
3
4
5 6
He wanted to say, “If you want your marriage to last, pray always.” What he actually
said in Tagalog was “If you want your marriage to last, do it always.” He wanted to
say, “First thing in the morning, pray. Before eating, pray; before retiring at n
ight, pray.” What he actually said was, “First thing in the morning, do it. Before e
ating, do it; before retiring at night, do it.” “Father, if we do what you say, we w
ill die.” He wanted to say, “Before dying, all the more, don’t forget to pray.” What he
actually said in Tagalog, “Before you die, do it still.”
vi
No wonder we are confused. No wonder we smile with malice and embarras
sment. No wonder we define love like it was taken straight from a
slum book. For the late Pope John Paul II, an important question we could ask ou
rselves is, “What does it mean to be a man? To be a woman?” “What does it mean that I
am created male or female?” “Why do I have a body and why is the male body different
from the female body?” These are not dumb questions. The way we understand the me
aning of these words determines the very meaning of our existence as persons cal
led to love and be loved. And we do not derive our response to these questions f
rom a drunken bystander. No. We take them from the words of Jesus as revealed in
Sacred Scriptures. We get them from the God who is Love, from the God who becam
e a man, from the God who took on a body and a human heart and loved humanity wi
th that heart and that body. That’s why John Paul II speaks of a Theology of the B
ody. Theology (from theo – God; logos – science) simply means the study of God. In o
ur bodies, in being male and female, God has inscribed His plan for man and woma
n and their call to be one flesh in marriage. The Theology of the Body is a seri
es of 129 talks delivered by Pope John Paul II from 1979 to 1984 during his week
ly Wednesday General Audiences in Rome. In 2006, it was compiled into a book ent
itled
vii
Introduction
Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, translated and edited fro
m the original Polish by Michael Waldstein. Quotations from the Holy Father will
be taken from this work. The Pope’s Theology of the Body is a voluminous work of
theology. I will not be presenting an academic treatment of the whole Theology o
f the Body here. (That will be the subject of another book.) This readerfriendly
and popular presentation of the Pope’s thoughts will simply be a revisiting of lo
ve and human sexuality inspired by the truths presented by the Holy Father’s
deep reflections on the words of Christ and the Gen
esis creation accounts as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures. My first
serious encounter with the Pope’s Theology of the Body was in 199
9 when I was asked to take graduate studies in Rome. Right there and then I knew
I was holding in my hands a gold mine. The truths that spoke through the pages
just resonated in my heart. I pray it will do the same in yours. Fr. Joel O. Jas
on, SThL 16 October 2007 29th anniversary of John Paul II’s election to the papacy
viii
oNe
Laying the Foundations: A New Ethos of Love and Sexuality
“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, you will
never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) “You blind Pharisee! First clean
se the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be clean.” (M
atthew 23:26)
couple was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. They went to a priest fri
end to renew their vows. Edified by their fidelity
to each other, the priest asked the man, “All these years, did separation ever en
ter your mind?” The man replied, “Separation? Never. Murder? Many times.” Imagine push
ing that anecdote further.
1
The priest asks, “So why didn’t you murder your wife?” “Oh, if only I could!” the man repl
ies. “Why couldn’t you?” the priest insists. The man replies, “Hello? Haven’t you heard of
prison?” That’s an imaginary anecdote but the message is real. There are men who, i
f not for the possibility of prison, would have murdered their wives long ago an
d vice-versa. There are men who, if not for the fear of sexually transmitted dis
ease, would have long ago patronized prostitutes. I know of a religious priest w
ho remains “chaste” for totally unchaste reasons. Friends, it’s not only about what th
e law (ethic) says. It is about what the heart (ethos) desires. When we hear the
word moral or morality, what comes immediately into mind is a set of rules and
norms that obligates a person to action or inaction. But while rules and norms a
re indispensable in regulating moral behavior, there is more to moral living tha
n just the cold set of laws to follow. In fact, it can happen that behaviors tha
t are actually immoral in character can hide behind the veil of “legality” if one is
clever enough to play around the letter of the law. The new Catechism of the Ca
tholic Church promulgated in the pontificate of John
Paul II, introduced its section on Christian morality with the line:
2
Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do
not return to your former base condition by sinning…. Never forget that you have b
een rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom
of God. (CCC § 1691, italics mine) The Need for a New ethos for Sexuality “Recogniz
e your dignity,” says the moral section of the Catechism. Laws by themselves do no
t and cannot change human hearts. It is the reorientation of one’s set of values i
n one’s heart that brings about genuine conversion. How sterile morality will beco
me when it is reduced to a set of rules and laws to follow! Moral action is more
than simply following laws. It’s about recognizing our dignity. It’s about pursuing
actions with the consciousness that one does this or that particular action bec
ause it promotes authentic human good. This is what John Paul II means with the “n
ew ethos” of morality. Ethics refers to the external rules and norms that are mean
t to safeguard the ethos of morality. Ethos refers to one’s inner world of values —
what attracts and repulses man. Ethos is recognizing man’s dignity not only from t
he force of external law
3
(ethics) but from the interior attraction of the heart. John Paul II puts it suc
cinctly: The new ethos is a “living morality,” in which we realize the very meaning
of our humanity.7 Look at the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 57). It’s nothing else
but an invitation to discover the new ethos of morality. Paraphrasing the Sermon
on the Mount, Jesus, in effect, is saying, “You have heard the commandment and wh
at it externally obligates you, ‘Thou shall not commit adultery.’ But now I tell you
what it internally commands you, ‘He who looks lustfully at a woman has already c
ommitted adultery with her in his heart’”( Matthew 5:27-28). Simply put, Jesus is sa
ying, “You have heard the ethic, but now I give you the ethos.” He who truly loves h
is wife has no need of the commandment, “Thou shall not commit adultery,” because th
ere is no desire in his heart to commit it. He does not experience it as a comma
nd. This is what the Bible describes as freedom from the law (see Romans 7).
7
John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, Michael Wal
dstein, trans., (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 24:3), p 227. For the sake of
brevity, subsequent citations from the book shall henceforth be rendered “TOB” for T
heology of the Body, followed by the date the Pope delivered the address.
4
St. Paul in his letter to the Romans is not proposing anomy or the absence of la
ws (from the Greek a – without; nomos – law). He is proposing autonomy, i.e., the in
ternalization of the law within oneself (auto – self; nomos – law). John Paul II cal
ls it the ethos of redemption. It is where the objective norms (ethics) become o
ne with subjective desires of one’s heart (ethos). When ethos and ethics become on
e, we understand that human freedom is not liberation from any external constrai
nt that calls us to do good but liberation from the internal constraint that pre
vents us from choosing the good. Author and lay theologian Christopher West put
it so insightfully, “True freedom is not liberty to indulge our compulsions, but l
iberation from our compulsion to indulge.” We need not fear the commandments of Ch
rist. They do not rob us of our joy. Rather, they make true joy possible. Jesus
assured His disciples, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love…I ha
ve told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete” (John
15:10-11). The words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount are not words of conde
mnation. They are rather words of invitation for us to embrace and recognize our
dignity.
5
“I’m only human, Born to Make Mistakes” Cecilia has known of her husband’s womanizing ev
en early on in their marriage. The guy also has three children with two other wo
men. “What are you doing about this?” I inquired. “Father, as long as he comes home to
me and my family, it’s OK,” she replied. Before I even managed a word, she quickly
added with calm resignation, “What can you do? It’s normal nowadays right?” In a way,
that’s true. It has become normal nowadays. Why, you can even be elected president
of the country in spite of this. But then again, is it really normal… or just fac
tual? It’s factual that men abuse their women. It is almost everyday news stuff. B
ut it is not normal. That babies are left in garbage cans by their own mothers i
s factual but not normal. What am I saying here? Normal is a special kind of wor
d. It comes from the root word norm. What is a norm? It is an ethical, moral sta
ndard. It refers to how things are intended to be. Therefore, we must be careful
not to automatically “normalize” what is factual. Not everything that is factual is
normal. Terence J. Keegan, O.P. said, “Christian moral behavior is distinctive pr
ecisely because it is Christian, i.e., what one does follows upon what one is (a
gere sequitur esse, i.e., action follows being). How we talk
6
about what a Christian does will therefore depend on how we talk about what a Ch
ristian is.” The Need for an Adequate Vision of Man This is why John Paul II calls
our attention to the three states of man (humanity). Original Man (see Matthew
19:3-9), Historical Man (see Matthew 5:27-28) and Eschatological Man (see Matthe
w 22:23-33). For the sake of simplicity and clarity, let us call the three state
s our Origin, our Present and our Destiny. Our Origin refers to man and woman pr
ior to Original Sin, living out God’s plan for marriage “in the beginning.” Our Presen
t refers to our fallen state, affected by sin but redeemed by Christ. Our Destin
y refers to our vocation, what we are called to be in the Resurrection. Our orig
in refers to what is actually normal or normative. As the saying goes, “I’m only hum
an, born to make mistakes.” Yes, our present is marked by sin but the echo of our
origin remains in the human heart and still is operative. We are affected by sin
but I dare say not infected by it. To be affected is to be weakened, to be stal
led by something. To be infected means to be corrupted at the very root as to be
helpless in the face of it. The original (from origin) experiences of
the first man and woman, John Paul II insists, “are always at the
root of every human experience” (TOB, Dec. 12, 1979). Sin has not
7
totally destroyed God’s original plan. This means if we keep our origin in sight,
there is a power available to us in Christ that will enable us to rise above our
present state. And to the measure that we keep our origins in sight will decide
how we will be able to reach our destiny. This is the same origin Jesus appeale
d to when He responded, “In the beginning, it was not so” (Matthew 19:8), as a corre
ction to the Pharisees who have normalized lust and divorce in the man and woman
relationship. We are not presenting an unrealistic ideal here. This doesn’t mean
that the man who keeps his origin in sight will not fall. He will. But to paraph
rase what one sneaker ad says, “If he falls down seven times, he will stand up eig
ht.” It’s different with the man who has normalized his present. He is already falle
n at the very beginning. And he has no desire to stand up. I remember an insight
ful anecdote that lay evangelist Bo Sanchez once shared. There was an elephant i
n a zoo named Jumbo who became an attraction to people. His foot was tied to a s
imple rope yet for some reason he never attempted to break free from it. The car
etaker revealed a bit of history about the elephant. When he was still a tiny ba
by, little Jumbo pulled and pulled against the rope, to no avail. The rope was s
trong enough to hold him
8
captive. Finally, after countless tries, the baby elephant became resigned to hi
s fate. All effort was useless. Now Jumbo is big and strong. But while he could
easily break free from the rope with a snap like all other elephants of his size
and strength, he doesn’t. He has normalized his “weakness” and forfeited his identity
as a strong and mighty animal. He was not bound externally. He was bound intern
ally — in the mind, in the heart. Experts call that condition a learned helplessne
ss. I’d like to call it the little Jumbo syndrome. And even people can be affected
by this. That is why the Catechism encourages us, “Christians, recognize your dig
nity.” In Christ, we have great power and dignity in being human. That’s the reason
why we need an adequate vision of man. By “adequate” here, I don’t mean the minimalist
“that will do” mentality. On the contrary, adequate means an understanding and inte
rpretation of man in what is essentially human. It
is a reflection on man in his concrete and integral totality, b
ased on that which, in the rich reality of the human person, is most characteris
tically human and thus worthy of man. An adequate vision of man frees us from th
e despair of normalizing our fallen state and enables us to have confiden
ce in our origin. Unless we do this, we have lo
st the battle even before it has begun. We will
9
forever be in chains, fastened by flimsy ropes. We
will be nothing but Little Jumbos. The Need for an Adequate Vision of the Bo
dy Man is not only body. Neither is he only spirit. Man is not a spirit trapped
inside a body. Neither is he a body invaded by an alien spirit. An adequate visi
on of the body recognizes man in the totality of his being, i.e., a unity of bod
y and spirit. The Catechism § 365 teaches us, “The unity of soul and body is so prof
ound…. Spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their uni
on forms a single nature.” For John Paul II, “The body, in fact, and only the body,
is capable of making visible what is invisible…. It has been created to transfer i
nto the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, an
d thus be the sign of it” (TOB, Feb. 20, 1980). The body therefore is not a mere i
nstrument that is incidental and has nothing to do with the interiority of the p
erson. It is called to make visible the invisible reality of the human soul. Thi
s is important because the way we understand who the human person is will decide
the way we understand what love and sex is. Look at the human person as a pure
spirit, and you fall into hyper-spiritualization, a repression of anything and e
verything sexual.
10
Look at the human person as a pure matter and you succumb to hyper-sexualization
, characterized by excess and indulgence. But see the human person in the unity
of body and spirit and we discover the beauty of sublimation. Sublimation comes
from the word sublime, something that is sacred, holy. Sex is sacred and holy be
cause it is a sacrament of something far greater than itself. What does it symbo
lize? That brings us to our next chapter.
11
12
TWo
The Great Sacrament: A Marriage Made in Heaven
“God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love
, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.”
(Catechism of the Catholic Church § 221)
Y
ears ago, I was blessing the house of a friend. Their family was very religious.
At every corner was a religious painting or image. There was even a mini chapel
where they do their family devotions. When I entered to bless the masters’ bedroo
m, right beside the couple’s bed was a table converted into a mini altar, with a b
ig Bible and the image of the Sacred Heart of whom the wife was a devotee.
13
I have a confession to make. (I hope they’re not reading this.) With a half-smile
on my lips, I blessed the bedroom with a not-so-holy thought running through my
mind. I wonder how they manage to do the marital act with Jesus looking nearby.
Then I continued on with the Lord’s Prayer… If you are smiling and thinking the same
naughty thought with me, welcome to our fallen world where we say, “Here is my se
x life and there is my spirituality and never the twain shall meet.” We have taken
God out of our bedrooms. But Scripture says, “God is love and he who abides in lo
ve abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). If God is not there, then
what is it that is happening in our bedrooms? How often have we heard it said, “Wh
y can’t the Pope just speak on religious matters?” Friend, the Church speaks passion
ately about sex precisely because sex is a religious matter. Can I say something
bold here? God does not blush at the sight of a husband and wife in the marital
act. He will not look away — unless something else, someone else or something dif
ferent is actually happening in the marital bed. When God said in Genesis, “Be fer
tile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it“(Genesis 1:28),
He was practically telling Adam and Eve to have sex. But not just sex
the way our fallen world knows it.
14
Let’s get Physical I cannot forget a line from the 2002
film Frida which depicted the life of the surrealist painter Frida Kahlo pla
yed by Salma Hayek. Painter Diego Rivera, Frida’s lover who eventually became her
husband, was a womanizer. Frida caught him in bed with one of his nude models an
d she confronted him. He retorted, “What’s the matter with you? It’s just a fuck. I gi
ve more meaning to a handshake.” That last line still rings in my ears. The proble
m with our world is not that it overvalues sex. It undervalues it. We are totall
y clueless. No wonder a handshake gets more serious treatment. If Diego’s remark i
s any indication of how the world appreciates sex, then sex is nothing but recre
ation, a stress buster after a day’s work, a contact sport, a physical activity. W
hy do we understand sex this way? Here’s my theory: because we learned about sex f
rom a “drunken bystander in the street.” Now here’s a proposal. How about hearing from
the One who invented it? Let’s get Metaphysical God is love. He is love not only
because He loves us but more precisely because His inner life is a life of love
and communion between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
15
The quote from the Catechism above calls it an eternal exchange of love and we a
re called to participate in that eternal exchange. If we look at the beginning a
nd end of the Bible, we will discover that both books speak of a marriage. Genes
is speaks of the marriage of Adam and Eve (Genesis 1 and 2). The Book of Revelat
ion speaks of another marriage — the marriage of the New Adam and the New Eve, i.e
., Christ the Bridegroom’s marriage to His bride the Church (see Revelation 19). T
he marriage of the new Adam and the new Eve describes the end of history when al
l of humanity will have been united with Christ. Quite plainly, God’s eternal plan
is to marry us. The prophets foretold, “On that day, says the Lord, she shall cal
l me ‘My husband,’ and never again ‘my Baal.’… I will espouse you
in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2:18-22). A
nd to make that plan clear, visible and so plain to us, He created humanity male
and female so that in the difference but complementarity between masculinity an
d femininity, we will be moved into a communion and establish that one flesh uni
ty. “For this reason,” the Bible says, “a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis
2:24). This is what sex, or the one flesh unity in marriage, witnesses to. That’s
why the Bible describes marriage
16
as “a great mystery.” St. Paul, speaking of marriage, quotes Genesis and adds, “‘For thi
s reason, a man shall leave father and mother and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a
great mystery, and I mean in reference to Christ and the Church” (Ephesians 5:31-
32). Sex, that one flesh unity spoken of in the first marriag
e in Genesis 2:24 is a sacrament on earth of the heavenly one flesh unity which
all humanity is called to. That is why sex is not just any kind of act. It is a
special kind of act. In fact, it is the only act in marriage we call marital. We
do not call dishwashing or cleaning house marital. Even a handshake is not call
ed marital. There are many things couples do together in marriage but only sex i
s properly called the marital act. Why? Because God intended it to be an icon, a
sacrament of the heavenly marriage which all of us are called to. It goes beyon
d the physical. It is metaphysical. No wonder lovers speak of heaven as a place
on earth. Whenever couples celebrate their one
flesh unity in free, total, faithful and fruitful love, they proclaim
in their body the heavenly one flesh unity that aw
aits all of us. That’s why John Paul II speaks of a “language of the body.” The body s
peaks a language. It becomes prophetic i.e., proclaiming a truth. Not only is it
prophetic, the Pope even calls it liturgical (see TOB, July 4, 1984). What is l
iturgy? An act of worship!
17
But just as we can speak the truth with our bodies, we can also speak lies with
it. Look at the kiss of Judas. It is the same with the sexual act and our bodies
. Honesty, not prohibition, is the essence of the Christian sexual ethic. And so
we must continuously discern between false and true prophets — that what is sacre
d does not become sacrilege, what is true does not become a lie, what is liturgi
cal does not become blasphemous. Remember the story I began this chapter with? I
f I did the house blessing now, the half-smile will not be there. The naughty th
ought will be not be there too. In their place will be the conviction: “This is ho
ly ground. God should have a place in every bedroom.” Just a word of caution here.
John Paul II speaks of a “limit of the analogy” (see TOB, Sept. 29, 1982) regarding
the earthly one-flesh unity and the heavenly one-flesh unity. We must not confu
se the analogy. We should look at sex in terms of heaven and not heaven in terms
of sex. Sex in marriage reveals something about God and His eternal plan to mar
ry us. It is not God who reveals something about sex. Therefore, we must not thi
nk of heaven as an eternal sexual encounter. Heaven remains “transcendent” says John
Paul II. St. Paul in his epistle could only describe it as ”eye has not seen, and
ear has not heard… what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9
). We must not confuse the symbol and the symbolized. When we do so, we turn the
icon into an idol.
18
When an Icon Turns into an Idol Johnny has always wanted to join a cruise but he
couldn’t afford it. By a stroke of luck, he won an economy ticket for
a cruise at a company raffle. So off he went. Every
meal time, he would ease his hunger with the coffee and biscuits offered for fre
e at the entrance of the grand buffet hall. How he longed to use the fine
silver and feast lavishly with the rest of the
cruise passengers. But he eventually got used to his crackers and biscuits; af
ter all, they tasted good. At the end of the cruise, a passenger who often saw h
im with his frugal meal remarked, “I’m impressed by your self-control. Are you on a
diet?” A little embarrassed, he admitted nonetheless, “Oh no, mine was just an econo
my ticket.” Shaking his head, the man volunteered, “Didn’t you know the buffet meal is
included in an economy ticket?” Just like Johnny’s story, the one flesh unity in se
x is a foretaste of the heavenly one flesh unity we are called to. We are actual
ly called to partake in the “buffet table” and not be content with the crackers and
biscuits, palatable as they can be. Have you ever wondered why the Bible gives a
stern warning against sexual sinners? Paul’s letter to the Galatians is very plai
n, “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurit
y… drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you… that those
19
who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21; see al
so Ephesians 5:5-7). It is not because sex is bad. No. God made sexual desire an
d it is good. The warning is for those who have made an idol out of the icon. Wh
en we do this, we are saying we don’t want the real thing — what it symbolizes. We a
re content with the symbol. If sexual desire is to be an icon pointing us to yea
rn for heaven, we forfeit our place in heaven because we have confined
the satisfaction of our yearnings to its earthly
symbol. Remember what Jesus told the Sadducees: “At the resurrection they neither
marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven“(Matthew 22:30;
see also Luke 20:34-36). Why? Because we are now in the heavenly marriage where
Christ is the Groom and all of us are His bride. The symbol ceases to be becaus
e we are now face to face with what is symbolized. In heaven, faith will no long
er be needed because we are already face to face with the object of our faith. H
ope, too, will no longer be of use because that which we hope for
is fulfilled. St. Paul in Corinth wrote, “So faith
, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthian
s 13). Only love will remain, because in heaven, we will revel in that eternal m
arriage where Christ “may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28; see also Colossians 3
:11).
20
G.K. Chesterton was known to have said once these words to the effect, “Every man
who knocks at the door of a brothel is actually looking for God.” Think of the gir
l who shops compulsively for shoes despite having 300 pairs already. She is actu
ally looking for something money cannot buy. Think of the bulimic guy who gorges
on food, induces vomiting, so he can eat again. He is actually longing for the “b
read that will nourish him unto life eternal” (see John 6). Remember the woman who
has had seven husbands (see John 4)? She was actually looking for the love
that truly satisfies. How can we avoid making an idol out of the icon? Goin
g back to the plan of God might help. Let’s travel back in time…
21
22
ThRee
The Original Experiences of Man and Woman
“If you want to know what lies on the road up ahead, ask those who are on their wa
y back.” (Anonymous)
friend of mine sent me an anonymous anecdote entitled “Things Mama Taught Me.” Let m
e share with you some lines from it. Mom taught me about... ANTICIPATION. “Just wa
it ‘til your father gets home.” Mom taught me about... RECEIVING. “You’re going to get i
t when we get home.” Mom taught me about... GENETICS. “You’re just like your father.” Mo
m taught me... to meet a CHALLENGE.
23
“What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you. Don’t talk back at me.” Mom tau
ght me... the WISDOM OF AGE. “When you get to be my age, you will understand.” And m
y all time favorite... JuSTICE. “One day you will have kids, and I hope they turn
out just lke you, then you’ll see what it’s like.” You can’t miss the writer’s wit and sen
se of humor. Neither can you miss the clever sarcasm and subtle resentment of th
e young against traditional values and parental authority that he poked fun at.
It can be difficult at times to look back
at what was in the beginning. Sometimes we assume that everything that
is past is no longer valid and that which is present is what counts. The late bi
shop Fulton Sheen calls this assumption the “chronological arrogance of the modern
age.” But as we saw in Chapter 1, going back to our Origin is not simply a sentim
ental trip back to the years gone by. Our Origin brings us back to what actually
is normative or normal, what is expressive of God’s original plan. In speaking of
the original experiences of man, the Pope begins the reflection
with the words of Christ Himself in His dialogue with the Pharis
ees who questioned Him about divorce. Jesus, in His reply, brought them back to
our origin when He said, “Because of the hardness of
24
your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it w
as not so” (Matthew 19:8). What can we learn from the beginning? Read on… The eXPeRI
eNCe oF oRIgINAL SoLITUde “Man… is the only creature on earth that God willed for it
s own sake.” (Gaudium et Spes § 24) All By Myself After the creation of the world an
d everything in it, God created man from the dust of the earth. Then we read
that crucial divine affirmation. God Himself observed, “It is not good
that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit
for him” (Genesis 2:18). So God created all the animals to
accompany Adam but none proved “suitable for him” (Genesis 2:20). The man was still
lonely because there was nobody to love. This is the first
experience of original solitude. Note that the man was not really phys
ically alone. He was surrounded by countless creatures. But man was “alone” because
he alone was a person in the visible world. After naming all the animals, all he
discovered was what he was not. Note here that the word used for man in Genesis
2:18 is the Hebrew adam, meaning, humanity. This tells us something. Original s
olitude is not only a sentimental experience of loneliness by a man without a wo
man.
25
Original solitude is humanity’s realization of his dignity and superiority among t
he rest of the animals. In the words of the Pope, man (humanity) “gains the consci
ousness of his own superiority, that is, that he cannot be put on a par with any
other species of living beings on the earth” (TOB, Oct. 10, 1979). Humanity is al
l by himself. This is from the beginning. This is what is normal. This makes us
wonder why, in our present world, we hug trees and outlaw cruelty to animals but
legalize the killing of human infants and the elderly. It’s something to think ab
out… To Love SoMeBody Because humanity alone is created in God’s image (see Genesis
1:26), humanity alone is called to a special relationship with God.
This is the first meaning of original solitude. In h
is “solitude” in the world, man discovers not only who he is but also whose he is. M
an apart from his Creator will be a lonely creature. There is something in man t
hat man alone cannot fulfill. No wonder the saints proclai
m, “Our hearts are restless unless they rest in Thee” (St. Augustine). Th
is explains why earthly marriage is an icon of the heavenly marriage to which al
l of us are called. Man is called to love not only somebody but also, and more s
o, Somebody.
26
To Love Somebody… Not Some Body There is a second meaning to that solitude spoken
of in Genesis 2:18. Indeed Adam, the male, was also lonely because Eve was not y
et there. He could have happily mingled with the rest of the animals in the gard
en. He could have found warmth and companionship with the kangaroos and the elep
hants. But he was still lonely. Why? Adam was not only looking for a body. Any
body would not suffice. Adam was looking for
somebody, a person just like him. This explains his joyful outburst after a fut
ile search. At the sight of Eve, Adam exclaimed, “This at last is bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).
In the plan of God, that somebody was not just any body, nor was it just anybod
y; it was somebody who was Adam’s perfect complement — bodily, psychologically, spir
itually. Adam was a “body among bodies” prior to the appearance of Eve but there is
something different and awe-inspiring with a person’s body. A person’s body reveals
a spiritual reality — personhood (see TOB, Oct. 24, 1979). That’s why Adam would not
settle for just any body. It had to be a body that reflects
personhood. This brings us to the second original experience. The eXPeRIeNC
e oF oRIgINAL UNITy Sometime, somewhere, I read this story. There was this husba
nd who was very quiet. While the wife treasured
27
conversations, he treasured reading the papers. One time, the man left a note on
the bed saying, “Wake me up at 5 a.m. Thanks!” The wife was furious but the man was
already asleep. The next morning the husband woke up… at 10 a.m. Angry that his w
ife didn’t wake him up, he turned to her but saw a note on the bed board saying “Hon
ey, wake up. It’s 5 a.m.” Men and women are different — in many ways. In our fallen wo
rld, this difference is the subject of many jokes on the “war of the sexes.” But in
the beginning, it was not so. In the beginning, the recognition of the differenc
e and complementarity between man and woman afforded an experience of original u
nity. The Bible says, “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother an
d be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Genesis
2:24). Put it this way. If I have a sandwich and you also have the same one, w
ould I bother sharing with you what I have? Probably not. But if I have a sandwi
ch and you have a drink, I would probably share with you my sandwich in the hope
that you would share your drink with me. The recognition of our “difference” paves
the way for our “communion.” Similarly, the recognition of the physical difference b
ut complementarity between
28
male and female becomes the vehicle for establishing the communion
of the one flesh unity spoken of in Genesis 2:24. A
s we have seen before, the body expresses spiritual realities. The physical diff
erence and complementarity between male and female made them realize that they a
re called for communion, to be a gift for one another. Man exists, “with someone” an
d “for someone” (see TOB, Jan. 9, 1980). John Paul II calls this the discovery of th
e nuptial meaning of the body: “the power to express love and by this love, become
a gift for the other” (see TOB Jan. 16, 1980). Were it not for that physical diff
erence and complementarity, the two would have been content in their own individ
ual worlds. John Paul II says, “Man becomes the image of God not only through his
own humanity, but also through the communion of persons, which man and woman for
m right from the beginning” (TOB, Nov. 14, 1979). Just as God is a communion of Fa
ther, Son and Holy Spirit, man and woman image that communion here on earth. If
there is one thing that two male bodies cannot do, it is to
be truly united in one flesh. At best they could o
nly be beside one another but not united in one flesh. It is the
same with two female bodies. The body as male and female plays a cru
cial role here. It is not incidental in the marriage analogy. Consider the anato
my of the marital act. The male
29
“initiates” the gift of self, the female “accepts” the gift. If our bodies speak theolog
y, isn’t that what God’s gift of Himself is all about too? God initiates the gift of
salvation. But that gift is not forced. Humanity has to accept that gift. That’s
why Christ is the Groom and we are His bride. Take away the male and female and
you take away also the image of Bridegroom and the bride. Without forgetting the
“limits of the analogy” (see p. 18), the earthly union of the sexes (made possible
by physical difference but complementarity between male and female), is a sacram
ent on earth of the heavenly one flesh unity all of us are
called to in the end times. Original unity points to the ul
timate unity with God who is our destiny. The Bone of Contention An aged couple,
both 60 years old, was walking along the beach. The husband stumbled upon an an
cient bottle and released the proverbial genie inside. In gratitude, the genie o
ffered to grant the man three wishes. The cunning and greedy husband wished for
a fleet of cars and real estate and, voila, he got
them. Then he asked for a truckload of money, and there it was.
30
(By this time, the genie was already irritated by his selfishness and
materialism.) Then he asked for a wife 40 years younger than him and, alas... he
became a hundred years old! The Genesis story of the woman created from the rib
of man (see Genesis 2:21-22) has always been the bone of many contentions. Some
interpret it as symbolic of the natural superiority of the male species over th
e female and thus explains the perpetual “disunity” between man and woman. This is a
gross misreading of the text. The creation from the rib signifie
s that “woman is created… based on the same humanity” (TOB,
Nov. 7, 1979). The “image of the rib,” taken from the side of man, means that only w
oman can and should stand side by side with man because she too is God’s image and
likeness. Furthermore, the deep sleep spoken of in Genesis 2:21 is tardemah in
Hebrew. Tardemah can be likened to being in a general anesthesia, a state induce
d so that the physician can work without disturbance on the patient. Similarly,
when Adam awoke and found Eve, it signifies that he had nothing
to do with the creation of the woman. That is why
it was God who “brought her to the man” (see Genesis 2:22). The woman is wholly God’s
creation and shares the same humanity and dignity as God’s image.
31
The eXPeRIeNCe oF oRIgINAL NAKedNeSS “The man and his wife were both naked, yet th
ey felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25). The original experience of nakedness free from s
hame is the key to understanding God’s intention for the man and woman relationshi
p. But this is difficult in our times because of
extreme exaggerations we have fallen into. One culture covers the woman from he
ad to toe because she is a temptress. The other extreme virtually strips her nak
ed and exposes her every erogenous zone. But in the beginning it was not so. The
Naked Truth about Nakedness “The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt
no shame” (Genesis 2:25). Why were Adam and Eve free from shame? Because they did
not experience the other’s look as a threat to their nakedness. In all naturalness
, they experienced real intimacy as intome-see. In her nakedness, Adam saw Eve a
s a person expressed through a body and not simply a body of a person and vice v
ersa. Therefore, there was no compulsion to lust and to use the other. In the wo
rds of the Holy Father, “they see and know each other… with all the peace of the int
erior gaze” (TOB, Jan. 2, 1980). This is sexual desire in the purity of its origin
s. It is no less exciting and definitely more
meaningful
32
because it does not reduce the other to a thing for one’s sexual pleasure. Why is
it that couples do not feel the need to cover themselves in front of each other?
Because the spouse has no intention to objectify the other. At least that’s what
we expect to be happening. Later on, we will see that even in marriage, it could
be otherwise. With the entrance of sin, the first
couple “realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig
leaves together and made loincloths for themselves”(Genesis 3:7). When si
n entered the picture, they covered themselves and felt shame in their nakedness
(see Genesis 3:810). When we allow lust to enter the picture, the other’s look be
comes a threat to one’s nakedness. The desire to bless the other becomes a desire
to grab and to possess, to gratify oneself. Sexual desire is corrupted. Notice t
hat Eve covered herself from her husband Adam and vice versa. Lust can distort l
ove even within marriage. The Naked Truth about Shame So the solution to recover
ing nakedness free from shame is to throw away all our clothes, right? Well, it’s
not that simple. Recovering it requires a progressive transformation of the hear
t and covering up is a necessary step in that direction. Shame as an experience
is not altogether negative.
33
The instinct to cover up or the need to put on clothes can play a positive funct
ion in our present world. Why do we cover ourselves almost automatically when we
are exposed to a stranger? It’s not because our bodies are bad or shameful. On th
e contrary, it’s because it’s beautiful, so beautiful as to be sacred. We only veil
that which we consider sacred. That’s why we veil the Blessed Sacrament. We secure
our private journals from the prying eyes of others. We veil our bedrooms becau
se what goes on in there is private and sacred. Because the echo of nakedness wi
thout shame remains in us, we remember our innate dignity. Shame as covering up
is not prudery. It serves as a form of natural fear or self-defense against the
possibility of being treated as a sexual object by an anonymous third party (see
Love and Responsibility p. 179). At the same time, it is an instinctive express
ion of our positive desire to be treated as persons and not as objects. John Pau
l II calls this instinct positive shame. Positive shame is actually synonymous w
ith the value of modesty. The Shameless Truth about Shamelessness Nakedness with
out shame (Genesis 2:25) is not the same as shamelessness (see Love and Responsi
bility, p. 186 ff). Shamelessness is actually a distortion of nakedness without
shame. Shamelessness is the irresponsible baring of the human body and exposing
it to the
34
possibility of being treated as an object. The nakedness of shamelessness is the
willful reduction of the person to his or her body parts. Shamelessness is impr
udently exposing the naked human body to the “degradation of the lustful look.” This
is the philosophy behind all forms of immodesty, exhibitionism, voyeurism, lewd
ness and pornography. Here, the human person becomes nothing more than a commodi
ty for another’s sexual pleasure. No, the problem with pornography is not that it
shows too much of the human person. The problem with pornography is that it show
s too little of the greatness of the human person and of the body.
35
The Rediscovery of Love and Chastity
36
FoUR
“God created man in His own image and likeness; calling him to existence through l
ove, He called him at the same time for love.” John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio §
11 Man “cannot fully find himself except through the sincere gift of himself.”(Gaudi
um et Spes §24)
L
et me share with you some of my “love encounters.”
A Love to Lust a Lifetime I was once counseling a young husband. He had been mar
ried for three years and he was having intimacy problems with his wife. “Do you lo
ve your wife?” I asked. “Yes Father,” he mumbled. “So what’s the real problem?” I inquired.
In anger, the guy blurted out, “I’m frustrated sexually. My wife is not good in bed.
Why can’t she be like my ex?”
37
That man is frustrated because he goes into the sexual encounter not intending t
o seek the good of his wife. His primary goal is his orgasm. A Love to Last a Li
fetime I was talking to a young couple wanting to learn Natural Family Planning.
In one of the sharing sessions, the husband good-humoredly but honestly shared
that during their honeymoon night, his bride felt a little shy and inhibited. Sh
e was a virgin and saved herself for marriage. “So did you get frustrated?” I asked
innocently. Almost surprised by my question, he said, “Of course not, Father, I lo
ve my wife. “ That man went into that encounter not looking for his orgasm. If at
all, it was only secondary. He went into that encounter to seek the good of his
bride. Pope John Paul II has a term for it. He calls this “selfdonation, the since
re gift of oneself.” Looking back at my encounter with those “lovers,” I discovered a
nugget of wisdom. I’m going to sound like a sex guru here but I’ll say it anyway. Go
od sex does not necessarily lead to love. Any man, or woman for that matter, can
visit a paid sex worker and have the best sex he has ever had, but no relations
hip is necessarily built. In most cases, one doesn’t even bother asking for the ot
her’s name.
38
I recall a story of a woman named Sarah in the book of Tobit. She was a very bea
utiful woman. Men desired her beauty. But for some reason, all her husbands woul
d die on the wedding night. Seven men had already suffered the same fate in the
bridal chamber (see Tobit 7:11). Without probing into an investigation on why al
l the men die, could this be Scriptures’ way of telling us that a loveless sexual
encounter is as good as a lifeless sexual encounter? No wonder all seven men die
d. But Tobiah was different. He was a decent man. He wanted not only the beauty
but the person of Sarah. His prayer during the wedding night gives us a clue int
o his real intentions. “Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine not because o
f lust, but for a noble purpose. Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allo
w us to live together to a happy old age” (Tobit 8:8, italics mine). They did grow
old happy together. A love-filled sexual encounter is a
life-giving sexual encounter. Now if good sex does not necessarily lead to
love, love always leads to “good” sex (i.e., “not-alwaystechnically-good-but-qualitati
vely-getting-there”). In the case of guy #2 above, genuine love made up for shy an
d inhibited sex. And as a matter of fact, genuine love can even make up for some
times absent sex. Read on…
39
I Wanna Know What Love Is I read the story of Wawel and Mila Mercado in a major
daily. I’ve actually met them once. Back in 1997, their lives changed
forever when an amniotic fluid embolism in the brain a
fter Mila gave birth to their only daughter, Therese, left her forever paralyzed
and unable to speak. The damage to her brain also caused Mila to lose much of h
er motor functions. She has to be fed and cared for by two caregivers. Wawel was
devastated but not frustrated. He still takes Mila out in public and even bring
s her to join fun runs — with Wawel pushing Mila on her wheelchair. They actually
won a 2nd place medal once. A line in the newspaper article struck me. Wawel sai
d, “I’ve never felt ashamed to take Mila out in public.” What he said next struck me m
ore. “I tried my best at first for us to live as
husband and wife, but I found it so unhealthy,” he said. “By its very nat
ure, romantic love is conditional. It expects something back in return. We have
had no sex life since Mila became mentally handicapped.” Despite all that, Wawel r
emained passionate about his wife. What a contrast to Guy #1 who’s frustrated at h
is wife because she doesn’t perform like his ex. Behold the difference between tru
e love and its counterfeit. Genuine love longs not only for the good that the ot
her can give. Guy #1 wanted something from
40
his wife and the wife could not give it according to his specifications.
So his “love” drifted somewhere else. Genuine love long
s to promote the other’s good. And promoting the other’s good brings the greatest of
fulfillment. I once read a definition of love
which I paraphrased. Love is when the other’s good, well-being and con
cerns become as important and, if need be, more important than my own good, well
-being and concerns. True lovers are not masochists; they also take pleasure in
the good that the other brings. But that’s only secondary. ultimately, the pleasur
e of a genuine lover does not consist in the presence of pleasant feelings or se
nsations. It can even persist in their absence. A genuine lover’s pleasure is simp
ly the good of his beloved. John Paul II goes on to say that authentic love does
not say, “I long for you as a good” but rather ,“I long for your good” (Love and Respon
sibility, pp 83-84). When a “Man” Loves a Woman What is marriage? Marriage is when a
man loses his “bachelors” and a woman earns hers “masters.” Joke. It’s typical of the fal
len world to measure manhood in the capacity of the male to stay on top (no pun
intended), to dominate. In some cultures, manhood is achieved
when a boy makes his first “hunt” in the forest. In the econom
ic world, a man
41
must “make a killing” in the business world because it’s a dog eat dog world out there
, a rat race. Sadly, the same violent mentality pervades our understanding of se
x and the male-female relationship. Listen to our sexual vocabulary and the vulg
ar designations given to the male sex organ: a “weapon,” a “rod,” a “tool.” When a guy fanci
es a girl, he says, “I want to bang her.” I know of some fathers who initiated their
sons into “manhood” by their first sexual conquest. It is no coinci
dence that most curse words are also words associated to the sexual act. (I need
not put them here otherwise my work might get censored!) Love is self-donation
and the sincere gift of oneself. But why do we have these “violent” and dominating i
mages for sex and the man-woman relationship and consider them normal? I’d like to
volunteer an explanation. It is part of the symptoms of our “little Jumbo syndrom
e” (see p. 9). Love without the Spines Have you ever seen a porcupine? Porcupines
are rodents with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, which defend them from preda
tors. In some species, the whole body is covered by as much as 30,000 spines tha
t are poisonous. There is only one area where the porcupine is vulnerable becaus
e of the absence of spines — the genital area.
42
This says a lot. The porcupine cannot “love” with its violent spines. The porcupine
can only love with its non-violent side. It can only “love” when it is vulnerable. I
f this is true with porcupines, all the more is it true with humans. Our culture’s
idea of a man is one who conquers, one who dominates. This is why we cannot und
erstand St. Paul and his letter to the Ephesians. In that epistle, he wrote some
thing that may make women label him as a male chauvinist. He said, “Wives should b
e subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord…. As the church is subordinate to C
hrist, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything” (Ephesians
5:22-24). If we interpret this call to submission with the world’s vision of man a
s one who conquers and dominates, then women are right in condemning St. Paul. B
ut what is the meaning of that submission? Author Christopher West in his book T
heology of the Body for Beginners (p. 84) explains the meaning of that submissio
n. Wives are to put themselves under (sub) the mission of their husbands. And wh
at is that mission? It is given in the next verse: “Husbands, love your wives as C
hrist loved the Church” (v. 25). And how did Christ love the Church? He died for h
er. Paul, in effect, is saying, “Husbands, be ready to die for your wives. Wives,
allow your husbands to die for you.” Counterfeit men would kill just to satisfy th
eir lust. Real men would rather die than to satisfy their lust.
43
When Jesus was presented to the angry mob bloodied after being scourged, Pilate
declared, “Behold, the man” (John 19:5). unknowingly, Pilate presented to us God’s vis
ion of what a man should be. For the biblical man, love is self-donation for the
sake of the other. Lust, on the contrary, is self-indulgence at the expense of
another. “Four” This Reason… The Bible speaks of a love that drives man to become one
flesh with his wife: “For this reason, a man shall
leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). We can identify four qu
alities of this love which are characteristic of the love of Christ. Here I once
more refer to Christopher West’s Theology of the Body for Beginners (p 91). First
, Christ’s love is free. John 10:18 says, “No one takes my life from me; I lay it do
wn of my own accord.” Second, it is total — until the end. “He loved them to the last,”
says John 13:1. Third, it is faithful. Jesus said, “I am with you always till the
end of the world” (Matthew 28:20). And, lastly, it is fruitful. “I came that they ma
y have life” (John 10:10). If human love is to mirror the love of Christ, it has t
o be free, total, faithful and fruitful.
44
Any couple who remembers their wedding day will easily recognize that the free,
total, faithful and fruitful love of Christ is the very vow they committed to in
marriage. Standing at the altar before God, the priest asks the bride and the g
room, “Do you come here freely (free) and without reservation (total) to give your
selves to each other in marriage? Do you promise to be faithful until death? Do
you promise to receive the children (fruitful) which God may give you in this ma
rriage?” To all of these the bride and groom say “I do.” The free, total, faithful and
fruitful love of Christ is what the body is called to proclaim in the sexual en
counter. With their bodies, husband and wife actualize the meaning of their word
s, “I take you as my wife/as my husband ” (see TOB, Jan. 5, 1983). The marital act i
s a renewal of the meaning of the vows of marriage. This is why
the sexual act is fittingly called the marital act. It’s
not only something that men and women do; it’s something that married people do — p
eople committed in free, total, faithful and fruitful love. These four qualities
stand as the key to interpreting the honesty of all our sexual expressions. Let’s
Wait a While… Before We go Too Far I once presented this free, total, faithful an
d fruitful love paradigm to a group of young adults. After the presentation, one
guy approached me. He wasn’t
45
confrontational but he wanted to know how this concept stood with his desire to “g
o all the way” with his girlfriend. “I can’t wait, Father. Why do I have to?” he asked. “I
f you cannot wait,” I replied, “what does that say about your freedom? If you cannot
say ‘no’ are you really free? If you cannot say ‘no’ to sex, you are not having sex, se
x is having you. Even within marriage itself, there are times when couples must
say ‘no’ to themselves and to others. But that doesn’t make them any less loving. In f
act, it makes them more.” The young guy countered, “Well, you said love is total. Se
x is the fullest expression of love, right?” I said, “Are you telling me she is the
person you want to spend the rest of your life with?” “I’m only 17, Father,” he reasoned
, “nobody is talking about marriage here. We just met three months ago.” “Precisely, y
ou have your life ahead of you,” I continued. “You don’t even know if you’ll still be to
gether next year, or next month. So what are you doing thinking about an act whi
ch is the ‘fullest’ expression of love, which has a lifetime of consequences?” “But I’m no
t seeing anyone else. At least I’m faithful,” he replied. “For now, yes, but after her
, what (or who)? Do you know that right now you are telling me that you find
nothing wrong in sex between people who just
46
met three months ago? What does that say about your capacity for faithfulness?” “Wel
l it’s different once you’re married,” he retorted. “Don’t you see the contradiction?” I ask
ed. “Right now you’re telling me that you find nothing
wrong in having sex with someone who is not your wife or who you’re not even co
nsidering to be your wife. What makes you think that will change once you are ma
rried?” Honesty, not prohibition, is the essence of the Christian sexual ethic. To
Chase or to Be Chaste Chastity comes from the Latin castigare, that is, “to casti
gate or to tame.” We need to tame our passions and instincts not because they are
bad but because, left to themselves, they can bring us in the direction we do no
t want to go. Eating, for example, is good but without temperance, we can fall i
nto unhealthy eating habits that may eventually ruin our health. The sexual inst
inct is good, but of itself, it has the tendency to reduce the other for my sexu
al satisfaction. True love cannot grow without the virtue of chastity. But what
is chastity? A man came home vowing to be renewed after his Life in the Spirit S
eminar. On the road, he saw his
47
former drinking buddies. He prayed hard, “Lord, cover my eyes.” He passed right by t
hem. A few meters after, he saw his former gambling buddies. Summoning strength,
he prayed once again, “Lord, cover my eyes.” He passed right by them. Then at the e
nd of the road, he saw a very beautiful woman. Without second thoughts, he praye
d, “Lord, cover Your eyes.” Chastity is not just “covering our eyes“ or “looking away.” I’m n
t saying that we can imprudently look at what can be occasions of temptations. Y
es, “looking away” has a legitimate value. The Book of Sirach teaches, “Avert your eye
s from a comely woman; gaze not upon the beauty of another’s wife” (Sirach 9:8). It’s
what we classically call custody of the eyes or avoiding the possible occasions
of temptation. But that is not yet true chastity. John Paul II calls that a “negat
ive chastity.” We need to mature from that. Otherwise, we will forever be looking
away, looking at the ground or looking at women’s foreheads instead of their eyes
(and not to mention looking at pornography when no one is looking). True chastit
y (“positive chastity”) requires the transformation of the heart so that one may rea
ch the point when one can actually look and not be easily swayed by the tendency
to reduce the other into body parts. This is what John Paul II means when he sa
id that chastity “frees love from the utilitarian attitude” after a “sustained long te
rm integration of sexual
48
values with the value of the person” (see Love and Responsibility, pp. 170-71). Co
ntinuing on, John Paul II writes that emotions, feelings and physical attraction
s constitute the “raw materials for love”(pp. 146 ff) but may not necessarily mature
into love. If not oriented properly, they may even grow into its direct opposit
e — use. The opposite of love is not hate but use. A man who knows how to say all
the right words and how to push the right buttons doesn’t hate the women he entice
s. He is using them. Chastity is that virtue that integrates the raw materials o
f love with the dignity of the person. That’s why chaste love is always faithful a
nd exclusive: its object is the person who is “unique and unrepeatable.” When love r
eaches the person, it is forever. Lust, on the contrary, has the qualities of a
person as its object. And because qualities are repeatable and are found in vary
ing degrees in many other persons, it’s always drifting and unfaithful. The
battlefield of love and lust is in our hearts.
Chastity is not about loving less. It is about loving more. We should not fall
into the mistake of calling lust as love. unless we discover this, we will forev
er be on a chase, missing out on what one chastity writer called the real thrill
of the chaste.
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50
FIVe
“The one who lives...‘according to the flesh’… ceases to be capable of this freedom for
which ‘Christ has set us free’; he also ceases to be suitable for the true gift of s
elf…” (Pope John Paul II)
The Redemption of Sexuality
O
ne of the first books I read in the seminary
was something I chose, not because I liked it, but because I was intrigued by t
he title. It was called Being Sexual and Celibate by Keith Clark. I wondered how
one could be sexual and, at the same time, celibate. I finished
reading the book but I don’t think I really understood the messa
ge. Today I am a professor in the same seminary. I teach Moral Theology, Social
Doctrines, Theological Virtues, Bioethics, and Sexuality and Integrity.
51
I always get teased about that last course. Some even ask what we need that for
in the seminary. But I understand the teasing and the curiosity. When we hear th
e word sexuality, we immediately equate it with sexology. Let’s make some
clarifications. Sexology is all about the science of se
x, the Big “O” and locating the G-spot. Well, I am not a sexologist and the only g-s
pot I know and propose to locate is the spot that god has to have in human sexua
lity. That’s why it is taught in seminaries — and everywhere else, I believe. A Radi
cal Understanding of Sexuality Warning: I am going to make
a radical definition of sexuality here. “Radical” comes fro
m the Latin radix meaning “root.” So I will look at sexuality based on its Latin roo
ts. See why it is radical? Sex comes from the Latin secare. It means “to divide, t
o separate.” This is why we separate the sexes according to male and female. But s
ecare also means “to cut, to wound, to sever.” Fittingly, human sexuality can be und
erstood as one’s willingness to be cut, to be wounded, to sacrifice
for the sake of one’s beloved. Now this is not JP II. This is
JOJ (those are my initials if you don’t know). Could this be one of the reasons wh
y, in God’s covenant with Israel, the wounded genital (i.e., circumcision) was the
symbol of the covenant?
52
Remember the terms of the covenant: “I will be your God, and you will be my people”
(Exodus 6:7)? Could God be also telling His people, “If you want to be my people,
you have to love as I love — with a love that is sacrificial?” The “w
ounded” genital therefore, would be for the male, the physical reminder of
his readiness to be wounded for his beloved. For women, the onset of womanhood
is signaled by the shedding of blood (menstruation). Besides the biological and
medical reason, could this be understood also as the physical symbol reminding a
woman that love will hurt at times? That to love genuinely will sometimes entai
l, figuratively and literally, the shedding of
one’s blood? If we understand sexuality this way, being sexual would cease
to be confined to the level of genital
activity. That’s why Jesus is very much a sexual person. That is why we speak of
being sexual and celibate. Not all of us are called to be genital in our loving
but all of us are called always to be sexual in our acts of loving — genital or ot
herwise. Close encounters of the “Sexual” Kind I was in an immersion seminar on the
Theology of the Body in Quarryville, Pennsylvania, uSA. A Franciscan brother who
lives in the Bronx in New York shared this story. I took the liberty of changin
g some details. He was driving and it was raining hard and so
53
he stopped by the side of the street. From nowhere, a woman jumped into his car.
She was beautiful, wet, scantily clad and smiling at him. He knew right there a
nd then what she was doing for a living. He smiled back, reached to the back of
his truck and handed the woman a jacket. He said, “You’re wet. You’ll need this. I’m Bro
. Charles.” “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know…” The woman wanted to leave. “It’s OK. You d
know. Here’s an orange. And keep the jacket,” said the brother. Touched by the gest
ure, the woman said, “You’re a kind man,” and, after a rather long pause, she added, “Yo
u know, I would do you for free.” We all laughed when we heard the punch line. Exc
ept that it wasn’t a punch line of a joke. It was a real story. I don’t Know how to
Love him John Paul II spoke of the so-called “masters of suspicion” (see TOB, Oct. 2
9, 1980). These are people afflicted with the little Jumbo syndrom
e. They are suspicious that a pure encounter between man and woman
is possible. They cast suspicion on the capacity of the human heart to long for
and bestow love that goes beyond the physical. They are those where lust holds s
way in their hearts and so they project the same onto everyone else.
54
Why do we have the likes of Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code who think that the ma
n-Jesus is too good to be true? “Jesus must have something going on with the women
he encountered in the Gospels,” they suspect. They don’t know any better. Going bac
k to our story, I don’t think the woman with Bro. Charles was trying to be vulgar
or insulting. Maybe she was serious and sincere. Maybe she simply didn’t know any
better. Poisoned by her trade and the men who patronize her, maybe that was the
only thing she knew that men wanted from women. Maybe that was the only thing sh
e knew that women could offer men. In the Scriptures, there’s a similar story of a
woman named Mary of Magdala. She has “loved” countless men. She was a professional
in the trade. As a Broadway song about her goes, “I’ve had so many men before, in ve
ry many ways. He’s just one more.” But Jesus was different. He offered her something
unlike the others and He wanted something else from her. He was not “just one mor
e” man. After her encounter with Jesus, the pro — all of a sudden — was an amateur. Sh
e was singing a different tune: “I’ve been changed, yes really changed… I don’t know how
to love him.” Didn’t she really know how to love him, or was it the first
time that she encountered true love and was invited
to truly love?
55
Like Mary and the woman with Bro. Charles, their experiences of love have been t
he grabbing kind of love. Their later encounters with genuine lovers were a welc
ome invitation for them to love again, or maybe, for the first time.
56
SIX
Man is called “to be the authentic master of his own innermost impulses, like a wa
tchman who watches over a hidden spring, and… draw from all these impulses what is
fitting for ‘purity of heart.’” (Pope John Paul II)
The Humanness of Love and Sexuality
I
n the Genesis story of creation, a constant biblical refrain that accompanies ea
ch and every completed creative act of God is the affirmation, “God looked
at what He has created and it was good” (see Genesis 1:4, 10, 12
, 18, 21, 25). But after the sixth day was completed, after God created male and
female in his image and likeness, He looked at what He had created “and it was ve
ry good” (see Genesis 1:31). Creation was no longer just good. It was very good. S
ome argue that “very good” referred to all of creation and not exclusively to the ma
le and female.
57
Could be, but it’s unlikely. The first five days
had their own refrain: “Good.” Whether it was to all of creation or exclusively
to the male and female, no one can argue that it was only after the appearance
of male and female that creation was rendered “very good.” They must have something
uniquely theirs to make the world qualitatively better. They must be special. Th
ey are. They are human persons. They are alone (original solitude) in the world
as persons, as image of God. girls gone Wild One early morning I was browsing th
e internet and I stumbled upon this news article entitled “uK woman Sharon marries
Cindy.” “Another point for the same-sex union activists,” I said to myself. until I r
ead the rest of the article to discover that it was a different kind of same-sex
union. Cindy was a female… dolphin. I’m not making this up. Google it and you will
find the article complete with photos of British woman
Sharon Tendler in her white wedding gown, vowing, “This is not a perversion. I si
mply love her. I’m a onedolphin woman.” This could be the ultimate edition of Girls
Gone Wild. There are several things that humans share with the rest of the anima
l kingdom. One of them is the instinct of self-preservation. Like the animals, w
e feel
58
the need to eat in order to keep ourselves in existence. When life is threatened
, we naturally defend ourselves. We also have the instinct of self-propagation,
the longing to keep the human race in existence. But there is something we human
s uniquely have. It is the capacity for self-reflection and self-con
sciousness. Why do animals charge at their own image in the mirror? Bec
ause they do not recognize themselves. They simply see an image that they suppos
e to be another. It’s different with the human person. He has an inner world, a wo
rld of values by which he interprets the visible world and casts meaning upon it
. Because we have the power of self-reflection,
we regulate our instincts by reason, not by season. Take the instinct of s
elf-preservation. When it’s time for the animals to eat, they eat. You will never
see a dog giving up a bone for Lent. Animals don’t fast, not because they’re anti-re
ligion. They don’t fast simply because they don’t have the capacity to go beyond the
ir instincts. Only humans have the capacity to fast. When it’s time for the animal
s to mate, they do it. We don’t really call mating in the animal kingdom as sex. A
s we have seen in the preceding chapter, sex is a special kind of term. Mating i
n the animal kingdom is properly called copulation, because they “couple” in respons
e to an instinct. I don’t think animals consciously mate thinking, “What we are doin
g right now will have an adverse effect on the
59
demographic balance of our species,” or “We have to do this otherwise we will vanish
into extinction.” Mating in the human world (besides “sex”) is called sexual intercou
rse. Intercourse means communication. It is a communication of a sexual nature.
This gives sex its humanness, its human character. In the usual course of things
, only humans naturally unite face to face. (That’s why Natural Family Planning, t
he most scientifically accurate way of planning the
family, is most compatible to our human practice of sexuality beca
use the main character of NFP is shared responsibility and communication between
couples.) No wonder Scriptures call the marital act an act of knowledge. The ol
der versions of the Bible have Genesis 4:1 saying, “And Adam knew his wife Eve. An
d she had a son and bore Cain.” In the New Testament, older versions of the Bible
also have Mary saying, “How can this be since I do not know man?” (Luke 1:34). The m
arital act is not a response to an instinct. It is a response to a person. When
animals feel the instinct to mate, they mate. For us, humans, if it is not the o
pportune time, we wait. Or do we really? When Mammals Rule the World Want to hea
r some rap? Here’s a sample.
“You and me, baby, we ain’t nothin’ but mammals; So let’s do it like they do in Discover
y Channel.” 60
This is from a song by a group named Bloodhound Gang. If we’re looking for poster
boys of the little Jumbo syndrome, they’re it. They have
sold over five million records. Their songs could be in the iPods of y
our kids right now. Read the title of some of their other songs: A Lap Dance Is
Better When the Stripper Is Crying. Are you shocked? It gets worse: I Hope You D
ie, Kiss Me Where It Smells Funny, I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks, Scr
ewing You on the Beach at Night. Oh the wounds of our little Jumbo syndrome. The
y have gone very deep. If it’s true that “we ain’t nothin’ but mammals,” I’m not surprised t
hat women would rather marry a dolphin these days. There’s a great crisis of manho
od and womanhood in our times. As they say, “Girls rule, men drool.” But there is ho
pe in the transforming power of the Gospels. We need not fear the words of Jesus
against lust or adultery in the heart (see Matthew 5:27-28). John Paul II encou
rages, “Are we to fear the severity of these words or… have confiden
ce in their salvific… power?” (TOB, Oct. 8, 1980). Jesus will not call u
s to do something we are not capable of. His call reminds us of the “interior poss
ibilities” of the human heart. We are not “accused” or “condemned” by the words of Jesus.
We are rather “called.” We only have to get out of our “suspicions” on our capacities an
d believe and reclaim our humanity.
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I Want to Break Free One time my brother visited me with my nephews and niece. I
nstinctively, my little nephew ran across the room and headed to my guitar. With
much gusto he strummed it, or more like banged against the strings, and produce
d the noisiest heavy metal music I’ve heard in my life. He was very sincere, spont
aneous, free. But he was also noisy. When I take hold of that guitar, I can also
be sincere, spontaneous and free. But I don’t produce noise. I can play beautiful
music. What is the difference between my nephew’s spontaneity and mine? My nephew’s
is a reckless spontaneity. Mine is a disciplined spontaneity. Reckless spontane
ity is sincere but without direction. It is spontaneity without boundaries. It i
s energy spent for one’s own pleasure. That’s why it produces noise, chaos and pain
(in the ears). Disciplined spontaneity is just as sincere but purpose-driven. I
want to produce music and not just strum away at the strings. Disciplined sponta
neity is comfortable with boundaries. I had to endure years of learning
the chords. I had to train my fingers
coordination and rhythm despite initial pain and blisters. Disciplined spontane
ity is energy spent for another’s pleasure. My pleasure derives from the listening
pleasure of my hearers.
62
Reckless spontaneity degrades our passions (eros) to lust. Disciplined spontanei
ty elevates our passions (eros) into genuine love (agape). Pope Benedict XVI als
o developed this well in his latest encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love). T
he reason why we are “suspicious” of the words of the Gospel is because we fear that
God’s words will take away the spontaneity of our passions. That’s the farthest fro
m the truth. We think of God as a killjoy. If we open ourselves to the invitatio
n of the Gospel and believe in the interior possibilities of the human heart, we
will discover that God will not delete our passions. He will complete them. Jes
us assures us, “I have told you this (his commandments) so that my joy may be in y
ou and your joy may be complete”(John 15:11, emphasis added). When that
happens, we will finally let go of our
biscuits and crackers and feast on the buffet banquet available for us from the
very beginning (remember Johnny in p. 19?). When the Saints Come Knocking In If
I reach a checkpoint and see a sign saying, “Stop: Train Approaching,” am I free to
move forward? Yes, but maybe not for long, when I get run over and become a cor
pse. Sometimes we think we are free when we can barge in without meeting any res
istance. That is not
63
freedom, that is license. Could this explain why people behind the wheel
create their own traffic rules since they have their driver’s
license? License is doing what you want, whenever, wherever and with whomever. F
reedom is doing what one ought to do. Is a pilot free to ignore his coordinates?
Is the train free to break away from the railroad tracks? A pilot’s freedom is in
his coordinates. A train’s freedom is in its tracks. Freedom is the power to do w
hat one ought to do. In an undelivered address, John Paul II expounded on a sect
ion in The Song of Songs. It has something interesting to teach us about the exe
rcise of freedom in the area of human sexuality. Warning: the following image co
uld be sensitive. But then again, to the pure, everything is pure. To the impure
, nothing is pure (see Titus 1:15). The lover says to his beloved, “You are an enc
losed garden, my sister, my bride, an enclosed garden, a fountain sealed” (Songs 4
:12). The image of “a garden closed, a fountain sealed” speaks of the freedom inhere
nt in both the female and the male. Because she is “a garden closed, a fountain se
aled,” the biblical woman is one who is “a master of her own mystery” (TOB, p 568 ff).
Woman is not weak and gullible as our culture presents her to be. She holds the
key to her own mystery. She is not easily enticed,
64
swayed or duped by chocolates, romantic dinners and threats of abandonment or pe
er pressure. She keeps her mystery. She does not crave undue attention for “my hum
p, my hump, my hump.” Our culture calls it “girl power” or “confiden
ce in one’s body.” “Girls rule, men drool,” we often hear it said. But
for real men, a woman who flaunts what she has
looks more like she’s begging, craving, crying for attention. The biblical man is
one who respects a woman’s mystery. He doesn’t barge in or abuse his strength becau
se the woman holds the key. At most he could only “knock.” He joyfully waits. And he
does not frown if the garden remains closed. He has no secret agenda to get the
doors open beyond the woman’s wishes. He respects the “inviolability of her person” (
TOB, undelivered, p. 548ff). And because he respects “the inviolability of her per
son,” he will not take advantage even if the woman becomes careless with the key.
To the women reading this, if your boyfriend tells you that tired, old, cliché, ”If
you love me, you will do this,” he’s not the man you would want to stay with. Avoid
him like a plague. That guy has a little Jumbo syndrome (no pun intended).
65
66
SeVeN
The marital consent that “binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in
the two ‘becoming one flesh.’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church §1627)
The Life-Giving and Love-Giving Significance of Sexuality
H
ere are some figures regarding the state of world
populations taken from the most recent uN World Population Prospects 2006 Revisi
on report.*
1. In Europe as a whole, the percentage of the aged outnumbers the youth by 20.6
% vs 5% of the whole population. 2. In France, the ratio of the old against the
youth is 20.8% vs. 6.3%. 3. In Germany, it’s 25.1% vs. 4.4%. 4. In Italy, it’s 25.3%
vs. 4.6%. 5. In Asia, particularly in Japan, it is 26.4% vs. 4.5%.
67
*Source: http://esa.un.org/unpp/
All of the countries above have a negative population growth prospect in the per
iod 2005 to 2010 and their Total Fertility Rate is just a little over 1, which i
s way below the 2.1 accepted birth replacement rate. What can we learn from thes
e numbers? That the world is not really overpopulated. It is mis-populated. From
the data above, it is clear that in years to come, these countries whose birth
rate is way below the accepted replacement level will be in danger of collapse a
nd eventual extinction. There will simply be no more young people who will repla
ce the aging population. Fertility in these countries is no longer appreciated a
s a gift and a blessing. Many factors explain this: the culture of death promote
d by the contraceptive mentality; the misguided feminism that sees motherhood an
d pregnancy as a hindrance to women’s place in society; and the same-sex union adv
ocates that long to alter the natural character of marriage as the union of one
man and one woman open to the gift of parenthood. you’ve got Male… and Female In the
book of Genesis we read, “God created man in his image; in the divine image he cr
eated him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Have you ever wondered
why the Genesis author used “male” and “female”? He could have used “man” and “woman” or the
proper names Adam and Eve. Is this simply a
68
random linguistic choice or is there a theological point being raised? I believe
it is the latter. “Male” and “female” are special terms with specific meanings.
First of all, they point to the physical differe
nce which distinguishes one sex from another. When we fill up
application forms and see the item sex, we do not put “man” or
“woman.” We put either “male” or “female” to emphasize the physical sexual distinction. Why
is there a need to emphasize the physical sexual difference in Genesis 1:27? Th
e reason can be seen in the next verse. In Genesis 1:28, it reads, “God blessed
them, saying: ‘Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth a
nd subdue it.’” The physical sexual difference is emphasized to highlight the purpos
e of that difference — the ability to procreate. This is the life-giving or procre
ative significance of the marital act. The Primal Blessing Gen
esis 1:28 does not only emphasize the ability to procreate. It also emphasizes t
he blessing of fertility. “God blessed them… be fertile.” Fertility was the
first thing on earth that God Himself blessed. Fertility is p
art of the plan of God. It is not an unfortunate thing that God “overlooked” when he
created male and female. When a woman gets pregnant, it doesn’t mean “something wen
t wrong.” Something is right because it means your
69
body is functioning properly. What is “wrong” is how we used what is originally and
inherently right. Sin is not only about committing something wrong. Sin is also
using something that is inherently good and holy in a wrong way. Do the countrie
s above experience or value fertility as a blessing? Notice that these are count
ries and people who can well afford to take care and nourish new human lives. Th
e wounds of the culture of death have cut deep. We are not advocating mindless a
nd irresponsible procreation. That has never been the Church’s teaching. What the
Church teaches is “openness to the possibility of parenthood” (see Love and Responsi
bility, p. 227, also Humanae Vitae §12, §14 and Familiaris Consortio § 32). Openness t
o the possibility of parenthood means regulating the number of children in a way
that is not a direct attack on the gift of life. Natural Family Planning
(NFP), the most scientifically accurate way of regulat
ing the number of children, satisfies this. Contrac
eption cannot claim the same.8
There are many areas to cover to show how NFP is morally and essentially differe
nt and better than contraception. But that is not the main thrust of this book.
Perhaps that would be the subject of another book.
8
70
he’s Leaving home In Genesis 2:24 we read, “For this reason, a man shall leave fathe
r and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Now the “male” becomes “man” and “female” becomes “wife.” “Man” and “wife” are spec
ms. They connote relationship, fidelity and commitment. This
is the love-giving or unitive significance of the marital
act. The “male” becomes a “man” because only a man is capable of sacrifi
ce (“…a man shall leave father and mother…”). Only a man can b
e committed, faithful and true to his word (“…a man… clings to his wife…shall become
one flesh”). We never call an oath “a male’s word.” We
call it “a gentleman’s word.” “Man” expresses the need to complement maleness with manhoo
d. “Wife” expresses the need to complement femaleness with womanhood. In concrete te
rms, every “male” with a genital can become a father. But it takes a man to be a spi
ritual father. Every female can become a mother but only a dedicated wife can be
come a spiritual mother. St. Joseph is considered the patron saint of all father
s. We know that he was not the biological father of Jesus. But knowing
of his sacrifice for Mary and Jesus, he was more fath
er than any other biological father of his time.
71
This is the essence of the apostolic letter Redemptoris Custos, The Custodian of
the Redeemer (from the Latin redemptoris, meaning “redeemer” and custos, meaning “cus
todian”). John Paul II proposed that Joseph was specially chosen by God for a no l
ess important mission. Sometimes because of the scarcity of Joseph’s biblical appe
arances we think that he was called by God only to complet
e the figures of our Nativity sets. Joseph’s special v
ocation was to witness to the call to spiritual fatherhood. Joseph’s special vocat
ion was to witness to the call to spiritual fruitfulness.
72
eIghT
“It is the body itself that ‘speaks’; it speaks with its masculinity or femininity, it
speaks with the mysterious language of the personal gift.” (Pope John Paul II)
With This Body, I Thee Wed: The Significance of the Body
W
hen John Paul II became Pope, one of the significant changes he
made in the world famous Sistine Chapel is to have the fig
leaves, which some prudish cardinals ordered painted over
the private parts of Michelangelo’s nudes, removed. Afterwards he rededicated the
Sistine Chapel and called it the Shrine of the Theology of the Body. As we have
been developing throughout this book, the body is not only biology. It is a theo
logy. Man does not only have a body, he is a body. Everything man does with his
body involves a whole network
73
of meanings: physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual. Consequently, sex
is not only a matter of anatomy. It is a matter of theology. Brother-husband, S
ister-Wife As a young priest, I once was talking to a parishioner when his wife
arrived. The way he introduced his wife left a deep impression on me. “Father, mee
t my sisterwife,” he said. Both of them were members of a worldwide ecclesial comm
unity for wedded couples. “Sister-wife, brother-husband.” I wasn’t used to hearing tha
t until I discovered through John Paul II that it is very biblical. A quote from
the Song of Songs goes, “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you hav
e ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes…. How sweet is your love, my sist
er, my bride!” (Song 4:9-10). When we see “sister” and “brother” attached to “wife” and “husb
,” we see incest. But John Paul II, the mystic that he was, saw a “particular eloque
nce” in the sequence of the lover calling his beloved “sister” before calling her “bride”
(see TOB, undelivered, p. 558 ff). The term “sister” indicates deep friendship and k
inship. It indicates the recognition that the one before me shares the same huma
nity with me. We belong to the same father (in heaven) and I have nothing but
74
respect for her. It is unthinkable for one to consider “using” or “lusting” after his si
ster. “Bride” connotes someone for whom I am passionate, someone with whom I consumm
ate my love. Recognizing a woman as my “sister” before she is my “bride” eradicates the
possibility of my passion for her degenerating into lust. On the contrary, “sister”
propels my passion into the heights of genuine love (agape). Seeing one as siste
r enables a man to love the woman with what John Paul II calls “a disinterested te
nderness” (TOB, p. 566). Disinterested doesn’t mean he has no passionate interest in
his bride. It means he longs to promote her interests without
ulterior selfish motives. This recognition of the woman as sister must a
ccompany the recognition of the woman as bride. All these are true not only for
the man but also for the woman. Note that in Songs 8:4, the bride responds by ca
lling the bridegroom “my brother.” And this was so from the very beginning. How do w
e know? Isn’t this the same with the experience of Adam with his bride
Eve? How did he first acknowledge her? When he saw her
body, he recognized her as “bone of bones, and flesh of my
flesh” (Genesis 2:23). They share the same humanity. They both or
iginated from the same Creator. Adam beheld Eve with a “disinterested tenderness.” A
dam saw Eve as a person expressed through a body and not simply a body of a pers
on.
75
Only after that acknowledgment was Eve given to Adam as a bride, “and the two of t
hem shall become one flesh… man and wife” (see Genesis 2:24-25)
. I believe it’s important to recognize a woman as sister first and then
as bride because when the fires of passion ebb, the wom
an “ceases” to be a bride (in terms of passionate intensity) and she becomes a siste
r, a friend. I have never been married but I have enough common sense to underst
and what lay preacher Bo Sanchez wrote in his book: “I found out that in my marria
ge, my wife and I are sexual partners less than 1% of the time… but you’re supposed
to be friends 99% of the time”(How to Find Your One True Love, p. 76). When your w
ife’s waistline evolves from 24 inches to 42, the excitement of “bridehood” will wane.
When the knight in shining armor you married “shines” only because of baldness, the
embers of passion die out. Then he becomes a brother, a friend. “Sisterhood,” “brothe
rhood” brings stability to the fleeting nature of
“bridehood.” “My sister, my bride” is Scriptures’ way of telling us that the best prepara
tion for marriage is a chaste friendship. When one builds a house or any structu
re, one begins with the foundation, that part of the house which will and must l
ast. It’s the same in our relationships. If courtship and going steady are in
76
view of a possible preparation for marriage, then we have to build
on that which will outlive the fleeting nature
of passion. In our “hook-up” world, where dating is almost synonymous with sexual ex
perimentation, we have become sexual experts but relational idiots. “My sister,
my bride” is an invitation to take the first
step to making that great paradigm shift. A bride excites the emotions. A si
ster captures the heart. “You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride.”
77
78
Concluding Words
I
n one Catholic parochial school, two boys were brought to the
principal’s office suspected of stealing items from the school bookstore.
The guidance counselor, who also happened to be the Religion teacher of the boys
, was also called. Disappointed, the teacher said to the principal, “I can’t believe
it. They’re very good in my Religion class….” Then sounding defensive and wishing to
exonerate the boys, he added, “Just to prove to you, I’ll ask them a simple religion
question.”
79
Concluding Words
Then he turned to the boys and asked, “Where is God?” One of the boys turned to the
other and whispered, “We’re in big trouble. God is missing and they think we’re the on
es who took Him.” Poor boys, they felt accused of something they were not capable
of doing. If you saw yourself anywhere in this book, I hope you don’t feel accused
. Rather, I hope you feel challenged and called. The Christian life is positive
and the call of Jesus liberating. The message of the Gospel explained by the Hol
y Father’s Theology of the Body is indeed bold but it is not something we are not
capable of. Christ’s words on the Sermon on the Mount are not words of accusation
but invitation. Christ does not call us to something beyond our capacity. We onl
y need to restore confidence in our humanity
and the empowering invitation of the words of Christ and His Gospel. In
the Theology of the Body, a morally good action is not only one in which man pu
rsues something good. A morally good act is an act where man pursues something t
ruthfully good, and he pursues it in a truthful, honest and good way. A truly go
od moral act is one where there is an integration of purpose and action. The bod
y, in its actions, is indispensable in such integration. The most common error o
f our times lies
80
in our pursuance of the good in a false and evil way. The body is not a value-fr
ee, value-neutral reality that man disposes of instrumentally. Today, there is
a difficulty in grasping this. Perhaps owing
to the advancement of technology, by which man can utilize things for
his purpose with such ease, the body too is seen as a raw material, manipulable
according to man’s whims and caprices. In his Theology of the Body, John Paul is p
roposing that if men and women would resist this tendency, and recover once more
a true sense of their worth as embodied persons, as male and female, then they
would also be able to see more the beauty of their vocation to love in a new and
grander light. Perhaps, they would also discover that the Church is actually on
e with them all along in all the things their hearts hold dear. In just several
pages, I’ve attempted to share the glorious message of the Theology of the Body. I
must admit, I barely scratched the surface here and, in that light, I still fee
l I have not given justice to John Paul II’s message. Quite literally, a groundswe
ll of interest is currently brewing among theologians and lay people alike regar
ding this theology. Papal biographer George Weigel in his book on Pope John Paul
II, Witness to Hope, calls the Theology of the Body as “one of the boldest
reconfigurations of Catholic theology in centuri
es… a kind of theological time bomb set to go
81
Concluding Words
off with dramatic consequences… perhaps in the 21st century.” When that
bomb finally explodes, I hope to draw satisfaction from
the knowledge that this book would have contributed a little to set it off. So i
f your interest on the Theology of the Body was aroused (I’m getting very “bodily” in
my vocabulary now) in any way, please take hold of many other resources much mor
e comprehensive than what I’ve done here. Or, wait for my next book. (God help me.
) Now, let me end with how I started this book. What comes to your mind when you
hear the words man, woman, male, female, sex, sexuality, body, love? Don’t keep t
he answers to yourself. Share it. Live the theology of your body.
82
Some Theology of the Body Resources John Paul II. Man and Woman He Created Them:
A Theology of the Body, Michael Waldstein, trans., Boston, MA: Pauline Books an
d Media, 2006. Wojtyla, Karol. Love and Responsibility, H.T. Willets, trans., Sa
n Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993. West, Christopher. Theology of the Body for B
eginners: A Basic Introduction to Pope John Paul II’s Sexual Revolution, Pennsylva
nia: Ascension Press, 2004. West, Christopher. Theology of the Body Explained: A
Commentary on John Paul II’s “Gospel of the Body,” Boston, MA: Pauline Books and Medi
a, 2003.
83
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To Gaudencio Cardinal B. Rosales, D.D., the Father of the Archdiocese of Manila,
for his solicitous support and encouragement. To Fr. Regie Malicdem, private se
cretary to the Archbishop of Manila, for the patience and accommodation of my ma
ny requests. To Fr. Ramil R. Marcos, my friend and classmate, for the editing wo
rk and the inspiration. To Ms. Maricor de Villa and Ms. Bernadette Abrera, for t
he additional editing work for the second printing of this book. To Auntie Molly
and Betty, for everything. To my staff at the Family Life Ministry: Rene, Lily,
Francis, Marilyn and all our vicariate coordinators and coworkers in the archdi
ocese. To Sem. Ser Allan G. Bodoraya, for his talent, creativity and generosity
and for the new layout. To Ms. Virgie Dinglasa, for the follow up of the many do
cumentary requirements.
84
To my library staff: Kuya Pete Diaz, Jr., Rey Cruz, Cesar Aguillon and Arniel Ve
lasco. It would be nice to know how this work has helped you in any way. Please
send your comments to: Rev. Fr. Joel O. Jason San Carlos Seminary EDSA, Guadalup
e Viejo, Makati City 1200, Philippines (63 2) 8958855; fax (63 2) 8909563 frajoe
l@mydestiny.net Ministry for Family and Life LAYFORCE, San Carlos Pastoral Forma
tion Complex EDSA, Guadalupe Viejo, Makati City 1200, Philippines (63 2) 8906187
; 8958855 loc 306 telefax: (63 2) 8960584 familyandlifeministry@yahoo.com
85

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