Sex, Premarital or Otherwise

I've been thinking about premarital sex.

A friend recently confessed that she has been struggling with the idea of it's sinfulness. She's been beating up on herself for a number of things, for quite a while. I'm worried that if she remains in her current circle of Christian thought, she could give up on the idea of Christianity completely. Or at least put it on hold. After all, how much self condemnation can a tender heart take before retreating?

And that would hurt the also tender heart of The One who loves her above all else.

Hear me friend: it's not what He wants.

I'm not going into a sermon on how the blood of Jesus washes all our sins away, past, present and future. Though that is true. I'm also not going to talk about how God judges our actions based on the condition of our hearts, and has sympathy for all of their aches and motives. Though that is also true.

Instead, I'm going to take on this one point: the "sinfulness" of premarital sex. (Desire is, after all, the focus of this blog.)

Here's my theory: I don't think that marriage is really at the heart of the issue. Don't get me wrong; I'm a big believer in the value and importance of sacraments. But our designer and creator does not desire that a document simply be issued by a priest or a justice of the peace, as a sort of sexual learner's permit. His will is not that you simply fill out the right paperwork and say the right responses at the proper time, then whoopee! On with the whoopee!

He wants instead for us to recognize the centrality of the act to our design. He wants us to engage in the fullness of our sexuality. And the fullness of anything can only take place and be complete in the context of love. Real love, which always has it's root in Him who is love.

All of us can look around and see countless marriages in which this is not the case. Which is terribly, terribly sad.

He wants to be in the act with us, to be the third strand in an eternal chord. He wants us to understand that our sexuality is one of the ways we are most sacred. It allows us to participate with Him in creating new life and new souls. He wants us to be one as the persons of the Trinity are one, and here on earth, sexual union in a sacred context brings us as close to that union as we can temporally achieve.

Peter Kreeft tells us that there will not be sex in heaven, because it won't be necessary. It will be superfluous. Our union then will be complete and whole. Full. Until then our unions will all be partial. But the sexual union, in the context of a sacred oneness with the other and with God Himself, is the closest we can get here and now.

Is some premarital sex sinful? I'm guessing yes. Are other cases of sex before marriage unitive in the sacred way that He intends sexuality to be? Undoubtedly.

So my advice to you, my sweet friend, is to stop worrying about sin, and start praying for the person who can enter into sexuality with our Lord as the third strand. Someone who will pray with you before, during, and after the acts of love take place.

Set your heart on achieving the fullness of what God has in store for you.

And above all, remember that He loves you, and there ain't nothin you can do about it.

I cried in church again yesterday

I cried in church again yesterday.

It's been awhile since I've done that. It used to happen all the time because the pain of my life was ubiquitous and my gratitude for God's love overwhelming.

Now the pain has shifted into new forms and combined with hope, and His love feels more like relationship than tidal wave.

I cried for another reason.

DiDi and I have been trying to find the parish that is meant for us to attend. Little towns and villages are clustered here like grapes, and we've been giving each Catholic church several visits to get a feel for what they are like.

Yesterday was the third visit to a lovely small church with a quaint seaside name in a beach town north of us. The service started at 10:30. We exited the building at 11:07, after 90% of the recessional stampede abated.

I called it the Drive Thru Mass.

It was Trinity Sunday. The homily lasted about 3 minutes.

He devoted 3 minutes to helping us understand the Trinity.

3 minutes.

There is only one way to address the majesty of the Trinity in that little time, so that's what he did. He said it was a mystery and that we should accept it as an article of our faith.

The lay reader must have been coached about speed as well, because the prayers of the people ended like this:

"Let-us-pause-for-a-moment-to-lift-up-our-own-needs-to-the-Father-Lord-hear-our-prayer."

No pause. No moment for reflection. (I'd intended to pray for the church and its congregation, but no time for that.)

DiDi and I looked at each other with grieved hearts and disbelief.

Words of the consecration prayers also ran together into a nearly incomprehensible stream.

But it was the Eucharistic hymn that finally broke me.

DiDi and I plan to enter RCIA once we find our home parish. Until we join the church officially, we honor its teaching about reception of the Eucharist and abstain, going up to simply receive a blessing from the priest when practical.

There is pain in that abstention. Hunger. Thirst. Longing.

We refrain from receiving out of respect and reverence for the incredible gift that it is. That He is. We do it as a way of honoring Him and His body, the church.

But it hurts.

And so sitting among a body who didn't seem to mind their shepherd rushing through the mass as if it were homework was an affront.

The Eucharistic hymn was "I am the Bread of Life":

I am the Bread of life,

He who comes to Me shall not hunger,

He who believes in Me shall not thirst.

No one can come to Me

Unless the Father draw him.

And I will raise him up,

And I will raise him up,

And I will raise him up on the last day.

The words broke my heart, wondering if this flock would try to lift Him up, when their last day came. I tried to sing but couldn't through the tears.

The Catholic church offers a treasury of gifts. It carries with it the fullness of relationship; understanding the role of Mother within the Holy family. It provides the richness of all the sacraments, with Eucharist as source and summit. It holds the deposit of faith transmitted from Peter.

And yet...

During concluding announcements, the priest looked at his watch and said to the congregation "See how good I am to you?" because the service had been so short. The body responded with a round of applause.

It was the Feast of the Holy Trinity, which fell on Father's Day. The priest stood in the person of Christ to offer His body and blood, poured out for us. Such richness. Such an opportunity for spiritual and intellectual and emotional feeding of God's people.

And yet the priest, our Father, thought that being good to us was getting us out the door in record time.

I repeat Moses' words from yesterday's reading:

"This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own." (Ex 34:9)

Lord, send us to a parish that loves you, respects you, and wants to worship and receive you. In the meantime, may every tear we cry be used for the restoration of your Church.

Contemplatio in action: the Trinity's fulcrum?

I love how praying the rosary opens the mind to to insights about our God.

Contemplatio in action.

Monday night's meditations on the joyful mysteries got me thinking about the Holy Trinity, and about the relationships the three persons have with us.

I often assign roles to them in my thoughts and prayers. For example, when anointing DiDi's forehead with oil, I make the sign of the cross, saying:

In the name of the Father who created you

the Son who redeems and saves you

and the Holy Spirit who comforts and guides you.

There they are in their neat little packages.

I continue the prayer by reminding DiDi that she is the daughter of the King, sister of Christ, and spouse of the Holy Spirit.

So in this "model" we have three distinct roles of Father, Brother, Spouse. Still pretty neat and tidy.

But keep going and the divisions get murky, confusing.

Given that the Father is both Christ's father and ours, Jesus becomes our sibling. But because baptism is a marital celebration, and reception of the Eucharist is consummation of the wedding feast, Jesus is also our husband.

So Jesus is not only sibling, but also spouse.

And it doesn't end there.

While contemplating the Nativity in the rosary, I thought about the opening verses in John's gospel:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be 4 through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; 5 the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Jesus was firstborn, and we were made through him. Without Him nothing came to be. He gave us life.

That's what fathers do. They give us life. We come into being through them.

So this means that Jesus, as the giver of life, is the father.

And that makes the Father really the grandfather.

Let's tally the roles we've got for the three persons so far:

The Father=father/grandfather

The Son=brother, husband/spouse, father

The Holy Spirit=husband/spouse

It is interesting that the roles of the Father and of the Spirit are essentially unchanged throughout the thought stream. They are who they are.

But in the Son, the roles vary. He takes on the roles held by both the Father and of the Spirit, while simultaneously maintaining His own.

I wonder if this is somehow the fulcrum around which the mystery of the Trinity spins?

Thank you mother

Thinking about Mary's relationships to the Trinity last night made me consider the power of her intercession in a new way. She not only asks her Son to do what she asks (ala the wedding at Cana), she also asks her husband, and her Father.

That's pretty powerful stuff.

Isaiah on the Trinity

I've been thinking about this passage from Isaiah (9:6):

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

I've seen or heard it countless times, but never before realized that it so clearly presents the Trinitity.

Awesome when that happens...

Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

--John Donne

Wisdom from Msgr. Gerry Krieg

On Wednesday night of this week my congregation was treated to the mind and heart of my priest's friend and mentor, Msgr. Gerry Krieg. I hope to become like him some day; that my whole being will be transformed by and into the love of Christ.

Here are some nuggets of his wisdom:

• Jesus didn't come to be a healer, to start a religion. He came to be a human.
• The Father's "let it be" results in creation. Jesus' "let it be" results in the cross.
• The Father creates out of nothing. The Son creates out of messes.
• The unity of Christians should be like the unity of the trinity; "may they be one as you and I are one."
• If we strive to see Jesus in one another, our creative power will be that much greater. (I need to ask him to speak more about this...)
• Msgr. once told my priest to stop referring to the Roman Catholic church as "Rome". He said, "It's Peter."

The good father prompts so many lines of thought...