The Human Person: Sexuality, Marriage and the Family

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The Human Person: Sexuality, Marriage, & the Family

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By Liza C. Manalo, MD, MSc.1

THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

Rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1700).

God, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in His own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek Him,

to know Him, to love Him with all his strength. (CCC, prologue I.1.)

Dignity of Man

Man is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists, it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold

him in existence.

Man cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrustshimself to his Creator. (Vatican Council II, GS 19 1).

The Trinity and the Divine Family

God in His deepest mystery, is not a solitude but a family, since He has in Himself fatherhood, sonship

and the essence of the family which is love (John Paul II, 1979).

1. God is familynot like a family

2. Highest mystery of faith: Trinity, the Divine Family

3. Earthly families are like the Trinity

4. Reveals essence of family = love

Mans creation and vocation

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he

created them.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. . . (Genesis 1:2628).Man & Womans Vocation to Love and Communion

"God is love, and in Himself, He lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in His own image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman

the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of loveand communion.

Familiaris consortio 11 Humanity images God in the family. [God] willed man and woman to be the prime community of persons, source of every other

community, and, at the same time, to be a sign of that interpersonal communion of love which

constitutes the mystical, intimate life of God, One in Three. - John Paul II (Letter to Families, 6;Christifideles laici, 52).

1Bioethics Lecturer and Palliative Care Consultant, Department of Community and Family Medicine, FEU-NRMF

Medical Center, Fairview, Quezon City, Philippines


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Three Levels of LOVE

Agape, philia and eros refer to three levels of love - which could correspond to mans spirit, soul andbody.

The third- which speaks of the highest level of love - is agape.

This is the love of God imparted to us by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). This word has primary reference in marriage to the union of the spirit of one with that of the other. It is a self-giving love - the love of Calvarys cross.Agapan (agape)

Means, "to value, to have a concern for, to delight in and to be faithful to" In reference to the love that should exist between a husband and wife, this would mean that

o each partner should value the other as of infinite worth;o they should have a concern for each other;o they should delight and rejoice in each other;o and they should be faithful to one another.

TWO SHALL BECOME ONE

God made man alone first; and it is significant to note that He Who considered everything Hecreated up to the first half of the sixth day as "good", (note the repetition of "God saw that it was

good" sixtimes in Genesis 1:4-26), now states that it is "not good"for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18).

As the poet John Milton (17thc.) said, "Loneliness was the first thing which Gods eye named notgood".

God then proceeds to make the woman, to be Adams wife and helper. After this is done, He nowlooks at His creation and uses the superlative "very good"to describe what He now sees (Gen.1:31).

A married couple made all that difference to Gods creation!Purpose of marriage

(1) Companionship

God wanted Adam and Eve to live in constant recognition of their need of each other, and togetherrecognize their dependence upon Him. Each of them was to live for the other, and both were to live

for God.

God intended them to be spiritually strong through such a fellowship.(2) Procreation of Children and Establishment of a home

In Genesis 1:28, we see Gods first words to this newly-married couple:o They were to be fruitful.

The procreation of children and the establishment of a home was another reason why Godinstituted marriage.

The sexual function was created by God primarily for this purpose. The Bible places great emphasis on the home as a center of Divine worship and service. The ordering of a home under the headship of God is a thing that brings much glory to Him. God gives couples children not only to gladden their hearts but also that couples might bring the

children up in His fear, so that the children can be faithful witnesses to Him in their generation.

This is stressed again and again in the Scriptures (Psa. 78:5-7).


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To build a home that glorifies God and testifies to His faithfulness and His care is the calling of everyChristian married couple.

The establishment of a home that glorifies God is undoubtedly one of the prime purposes ofmarriage.

(3) Sexual fulfilment

The command to be fruitful (in Genesis 1:28) carried with it the implication that Adam and Eve wereto have sexual union.

Marriage is the God-ordained means by which man and woman can find complete fulfilment of theirsexual desires.

Sexual fulfilment in marriage involves far more than just physical satisfaction and pleasure. If that was all there was to it, then man would be no better than an animal. The physical aspect of sex is not despised in the Bible. Sex as created by God is sacred and pure. The sexual union of husband and wife must always be the symbolic climax and expression of a far

deeper union that already exists between them in their inner selves.

It should be the physical expression of the agape-love that they have for one another. The marriage-bed must be a sacred altar on which the husband and the wife, through sexual union,

express their desire to give themselves in sacrificial service, each for the other, in every department

of their life together.

Symbolism of Marriage

One of the most glorious revelations of Scripture is that the husband-wife relationship is symbolic ofthe relationship that exists between Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:22-23).

CONTRACEPTION: A Lie in the Language of Love

Excerpted from Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments and First Comes Love

by Scott Hann

Married love is a reflection of Gods love If married love is a sacramental sign of God's love for His people-as both Old & New Testaments of

the Bible testify-then the act itself must accurately reflect that love.

It must be faithful, monogamous, indissoluble, and fruitful. This is the foundation of all traditional Christian sexual morality, though it will surely come as a

surprise to many Christians today.

History of Artificial Contraceptives

Until 1930, Christian churches-without exception-condemned contraception in the strongest terms. The Protestant reformers Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and all the rest went so far as

to call it "murder.

The anti-contraception laws-which were on the books in many states in the U.S. until the1960s-were largely the work of evangelical Protestant legislators.

At present, only the Catholic Church continues to oppose RH bills promoting contraception.


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Contraception: A Lie in the Language of Love

Pope John Paul II has rightly called contraception "a lie in the language of love: Sex, according to Catholic faith, should be an oath in action, a complete gift of self, an embrace in

which a man and a woman hold nothing back from one another.

The Marriage Covenant

Marriage is a covenant, involving an exchange of persons. Every covenant has an act whereby the covenant is enacted and renewed; and the marital act (sex)

is a covenant act.

When the marriage covenant is renewed, God uses it to give new life. (Kippley,Sex and the MarriageCovenant)

Life-giving Love in Marriage

The marital act (sex) demonstrates the powerful life-giving love of the covenant in a unique way. All the other covenants show Gods love and transmit Gods love, but it is only in the marital

covenant that the love is so real and powerful that it communicates life. (Kippley, Sex and the

Marriage Covenant)

Contraception: A Lie in the Language of Love

The innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid,through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself

totally to the other.

This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truthof conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality (Familiaris Consortio 32).

Sex and Christian Morals

Sex, for a Christian, is a gift of an entire life, and so it belongs only in a lifelong, exclusive marriage. Sex, for a Christian, is a covenant exchange, an exchange of persons: "I am yours, and you are mine." Marriage is what makes sex sacramental and covenantal. The total gift of self rules out the possibility of divorce, adultery, premarital sex, and contraception. For contracepting couples do hold something back, and it's perhaps the single greatest power two

human beings can possess: their fertility, the ability to co-create with God a new life, body and soul,

destined for eternity.

The sexual act says in its ecstasy: "I give you everything." But contraception renders thatcommunication untrue.

For sex is a sign, a sacramental sign. The marital act (sex) is the act that consummates the sacrament of marriage. And a sacrament is a channel of divine grace, which is the very life of God. So when people mess with the "sign" of sex, we're not just changing the way we talk about love;

we're ceasing to love.

Sexual union is an oath in action

The root of the word "sacrament" is the Latin word for "oath." When married couples make love,they place themselves under solemn oath: to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

truth. (So help me, God.)


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And what is the truth we tell under the oath sign of marriage? We say that God is one, and God is aTrinity.

Nuptial Love as a Sign of the Trinity

When God made man, male and female, the first command He gave them was to be fruitful andmultiply.

This was to image God- Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three in one, the Divine Family. So when two become one in the covenant of marriage, the one they become is so real that nine

months later they might have to give it a name!

The child embodies their covenant oneness. The two become one flesh, and soon they are joined by a third; yet they remain one family. (Kippley,

Sex and the Marriage Covenant)

Human Love: a Sign of Gods own Life

By God's design, marriage is the only relationship that reveals the life-giving power of love. Human love, with its fruitfulness, vividly manifests God's own being and inner life. Marriage is a sign of Gods Life here on earth Marriage is a sacramental sign of the Trinitarian life we hope to share forever in heaven: "In the joys

of their love and family life [God] gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the

Lamb" (CCC, n. 1642; see also Rev 19:9).

All that is the truth the married couple tell with their bodies in the sexual act without contraception.

Teachings of the Church Magisterium

Marriage: Ends & Obligations

The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves andthe transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated. ..

The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity andfecundity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2363).

Fecundity: An End of Marriage

Fecundity is a good, a gift, and an end of marriage. By giving life, spouses participate in the creativepower and fatherhood of God (CCC 2398).

It is necessary that each and every marriage act remain orderedper se to the procreation of humanlife. (Humanae vitae 11)

Regulation of Procreation

For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity

with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood.

Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality. (CCC 2368)Responsible Parenthood

The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood.


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Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the useof infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. (Humanae vitae 16)

Contraception: an intrinsic evil

Every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in thedevelopment of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render

procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil (Humanae vitae 14).

Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptablemeans (for example, direct sterilization or contraception) (CCC 2399).

The Church affirms that the illicitness of contraception is an infallible doctrine. The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, i.e., of every marital act

intentionally rendered unfruitful.

This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. (Vademecum for Confessors, 1997)Contraception

Gravely opposed to marital chastity Contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the

reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony)

Harms true love Denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life (Vademecum for Confessors,

1997).

Direct abortion is gravely contrary to the moral law

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men mustcarry it out in a manner worthy of themselves.

Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception. Abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. (Gaudium et Spes 51 3)REFERENCES:

Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994). http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM. Poonen Z. (1971). Sex, Love and Marriage: The Christian Approach. Available at:

http://www.cfcindia.com/web/books/zac/sex_love_and_marriage.html.

Barber M. (2011). John Paul II on the Trinity as the Model for the Family. Available at:http://publiccontent01.jpcatholic.com/June+2011+Webcast+Handout.pdf. Accessed January 28,

2013.

Hann S. (2004). Swear to God: The Promise and Power of the Sacraments. Available at:http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Catholic/2004/08/A-Lie-In-The-Language-Of-Love.aspx#. Accessed

January 28, 2013.

Hann S, Hann K. (1993). Marriage, Contraception and Sex. In Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey toCatholicism. Available at:http://iamacatholicbyheart.blogspot.com/2012/08/contraception-marriage-and-sex-from.html.

Accessed January 28, 2013.

Jamison T (2006). John Kippley's Covenant Theology of Sex. In: Homiletic and Pastoral Review.Available at: http://www.nfpandmore.org/fa_jameson.shtml. Accessed January 28, 2013.

Catholic Answers (2004). Birth Control. Available at: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/birth-control.Accessed January 28, 2013.

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The Human Person: Sexuality, Marriage and the Family