For a person to
be Saved, the word of God teaches that one must love his God with
“his whole heart, and with his
whole soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind”
(Luke 10:27). If any person fails to do this, that is, if he chooses
to love something more than he loves God, whatever it may be or
however small it may be, he will not be Saved. Consequently, it is of
the greatest importance that all people who desires their salvation
must do everything in their power to acquire and foster the love of
God in their own hearts, soul, mind and body, by loving Him very
deeply and at all times, and by praying to Him for help in loving Him
worthily. Indeed, if a person can grow a deep love and attachment for
their husband or wife or their children and have a fervent desire for
them constantly, then, likewise, a person should have no problem in
growing an even greater love and longing for God in his own heart, if
he only so wish and desire: “For to Christians this rule of life is
given, that we should love the Lord Our God with all the heart, with
all the soul, and with all the mind, and our neighbor as ourselves…
God alone, to find whom is the happiest life, must be worshiped in
perfect purity and chastity… in chaste and faithful obedience, not
to gratify passion, but for the propagation of offspring, and for
domestic society.” (St. Augustine, On the Morals of the Catholic
Church, Chapter 30, Section 62, A.D. 388)
Jesus Christ in
the Revelations of St. Bridget gives us a perfect description of how
good spouses in the spiritual marriage are to love and desire God
above all else.
The
Son of God speaks to St. Bridget: “For that reason, I wish to
turn to the spiritual marriage, the kind that is appropriate for God
to have with a chaste soul and chaste body. There are seven good
things in it opposed to the evils mentioned above: First, there is no
desire for beauty of form or bodily beauty or lustful sights, but
only for the sight and love of God. Second, there is no
desire to possess anything else than what is needed to survive, and
just the necessities with nothing in excess. Third, they avoid vain
and frivolous talk. Fourth, they do not care about seeing friends or
relatives, but I am their love
and desire. Fifth, they desire to keep the humility
inwardly in their conscience and outwardly in the way they dress.
Sixth, they never have any will of leading lustful lives.
Seventh, they beget sons and
daughters for their God through their good behavior and
good example and through the preaching of spiritual words.
“They
preserve their faith undefiled when they stand outside the doors of
my church where they give me their consent and I give them mine. They
go up to my altar when they enjoy the spiritual delight of my Body
and Blood in which delight they wish
to be of one heart and one body and one will with me,
and I, true God and man, mighty in heaven and on earth, shall be as
the third with
them and will fill their hearts. The worldly spouses begin
their marriage in lustful desires like brute beasts, and even worse
than brute beasts! But these
spiritual spouses begin in love and fear of God and do not bother to
please anyone but me. The evil spirit fills and incites
those in the worldly marriage to carnal lust where there is nothing
but unclean stench, but those in
the spiritual marriage are filled with my Spirit and inflamed with
the fire of my love that will never fail them.” (St.
Bridget’s Revelations,
Book 1, Chapter 26)
In contrast to
the seven good fruits of the holy marriage described by Jesus Christ
above, this is how Our Lord describes the seven evil fruits of the
evil and worldly marriage:
“But
people in this age are joined in marriage for seven [evil] reasons:
First, because of facial beauty. Second, because of wealth. Third,
because of the despicable pleasure and indecent joy they get out of
their impure intercourse. Fourth, because of feasts with friends and
uncontrolled gluttony. Fifth, because of vanity in clothing and
eating, in joking and entertainment and games and other vanities.
Sixth, for the sake of procreating children but not to raise them for
the honor of God or good works but for worldly riches and honor.
Seventh, they come together for the sake of lust and they are like
brute beasts in their lustful desires. … Such a married
couple will never see my face
unless they repent.
For
there is no sin so heavy or grave that penitence and repentance does
not wash it away.”
(St.
Bridget’s Revelations,
Book 1, Chapter 26)
In truth, only
the ungodly or idolatrous couple would want to join in marriage to
gratify carnal pleasures and evil desires or be working so selfishly
in pleasing only themselves rather than pleasing God, who created
them and even died for them. God must always come first! and He is
always present in Spirit in every action, deed or move we will ever
make. Let’s get this saving concept imprinted on our minds: “I am
one God in three Persons, and one in Divinity with the Father and the
Holy Spirit. Just as it is impossible for the Father to be separated
from the Son and the Holy Spirit to be separated from them both, and
as it is impossible for warmth to be separated from fire, so
it is impossible for these spiritual spouses to be separated from me;
I am always as the third with them. Once my body was
ravaged and died in torments, but it will never more be hurt or die.
Likewise, those who are
incorporated into me with a true faith and a perfect will shall never
die away from me; for wherever they stand or sit or walk, I am always
as the third with them.” (St.
Bridget’s Revelations, Book 1,
Chapter 26)
Jesus infallibly
over and over again demands of us that we are to love Him even more
than we love ourselves, our wife or even our children.
Matthew
10:37-39 “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not
worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not
worthy of me. And he
that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me.
He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his
life for me, shall find it.”
Haydock
Commentary adds: “Ver. 39. But if he continues moderately
happy as to temporal concerns till death, and places his affections
on them, he hath found life here, but shall lose it in the next
world. But he that shall, for the sake of Christ, deprive himself of
the pleasures of this life, shall receive the reward of a hundred
fold in the next.”
And
in St. Bridget’s Revelations, Our Lord spoke these words describing
how Adam and Eve’s love for God was perfect before the fall,
saying: “but
I alone was all their good and pleasure and perfect delight.”
(The
Revelations of St. Bridget,
Book 1, Chapter 26)
The meaning of
the above words, “but
I alone was all their good and pleasure and perfect delight,”
isn’t that a person can’t delight in or feel pleasure in/from God
anymore after the fall, but rather that before the fall, God was the
only delight and pleasure man ever felt and desired. Before the fall,
man did all in God and for God, and no selfish love existed as it
does now. After the fall, however, God had to compete for man’s
love with human concupiscence and fleshly lusts. God is a jealous God
(Exodus 20:5), and He wants us to love and desire Him above
everything else. So to love God during all times, even during
intercourse, is an advice to those couples who wish to be perfect, as
Adam and Eve were perfect, and for those who ardently longs and
desires to be united with God through love.
St.
Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 3,
Chapter 39, Of The Sanctity Of
The Marriage Bed:
“Now,
excess in eating consists not only in eating too much, but also in
the time and manner of eating. It is surprising, dear Philothea [to
whom the book was written], that honey, which is so proper and
wholesome a food for bees, may, nevertheless, become so hurtful to
them as sometimes to make them sick: for in the spring, when they eat
too much of it, being overcharged with it in the forepart of their
head and wings, they become sick, and frequently die. In like manner,
nuptial commerce... is, nevertheless, in certain cases dangerous to
those that exercise it; for it frequently debilitates the soul with
venial sin, as in cases of mere and simple excess; and
sometimes it kills it effectually by mortal sin, as when the order
appointed for the procreation of children is violated and perverted;
in which case according as one departs more or less from it, the sins
are more or less abominable, but always mortal: for the procreation
of children being the principal end of marriage one may never
lawfully depart from the order which that end requires;
though, on account of some accident or circumstance, it cannot at
that time be brought about, as it happens when barrenness... prevents
generation.
“In
these occurrences corporal commerce may still be just... provided the
rules of generation be followed: no accident whatsoever being able to
prejudice the law which the principal end of marriage has imposed.
Certainly the infamous and the execrable action of Onan in his
marriage was detestable in the sight of God, as the holy text of the
38th chapter of Genesis testifies: for although certain heretics of
our days, much more blamable than the Cynics, of whom St. Jerome
speaks in his commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, have been
pleased to say it was the perverse intention only of that wicked man
which displeased God, the Scripture positively asserts the contrary,
and assures us that the act itself which he committed was detestable
and abominable in the sight of God.
“It
is a certain mark of a base and abject spirit to think of eating
before meal time, and, still more, to amuse ourselves afterwards with
the pleasure which we took in eating, keeping it alive in our words
and imagination, and delighting in the recollection of the sensual
satisfaction we had in swallowing down those morsels; as men do who
before dinner have their minds fixed on the spit, and after dinner on
the dishes; men worthy to be "scullions" of a kitchen,
"who," as St. Paul says, "make a god of their belly."
Persons of honor never think of eating but at sitting down at table,
and after dinner wash their hands and their mouth, that they may
neither retain the taste nor the scent of what they have been eating.
“The
elephant, although a gross beast, is yet the most decent and most
sensible of any other upon earth. I will give you a specimen of his
chastity: although he never changes his female, and hath so tender a
love for her whom he hath chosen, yet he never couples with her but
at the end of every three years, and then only for the space of five
days, but so privately that he is never seen in the act. On the sixth
day afterwards, when he makes his appearance, the first thing he does
is to go directly to some river, where he washes his body entirely,
being unwilling to return to the herd till he is quite purified. May
not these modest dispositions in such an animal serve as lessons to
married people, not to keep their affections engaged in those sensual
and carnal pleasures which, according to their vocation, they have
exercised; but when they are past to wash their heart and affection,
and purify themselves from them as soon as possible, that afterwards,
with freedom of mind, they may practice other actions more pure and
elevated.
“In
his advice consists the perfect practice of that excellent doctrine
of St. Paul to the Corinthians. "The time is short," said
he; "it remaineth that they who have wives be as though they
have none." For, according to St. Gregory, that man has a wife
as if he had none, who takes corporal satisfaction with her in such a
manner as not to be diverted from spiritual exercises. Now, what is
said of the husband is understood reciprocally of the wife. "Let
those that use the world," says the same apostle, "be as
though they used it not." Let every one, then, use this world
according to his calling, but in such manner that, not engaging his
affection in it, he may be as free and ready to serve God as if he
used it not. "It is the great evil of man," says St.
Augustine, "to desire to enjoy the things which he should only
use." We should enjoy spiritual things, and only use corporal,
of which when the use is turned into enjoyment, our rational soul is
also changed into a brutish and beastly soul. I think I have said all
that I would say to make myself understood, without saying that which
I would not say.”
Indeed,
the Holy Scripture makes it clear that when Christians, the children
and offspring of God, are reborn in the Spirit, and serve Our Lord in
the newness of the Spirit, we cannot allow our passions and sensual
selfishness to rule our hearts and lives: “For when we were in the
flesh, the passions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our
members, to bring forth fruit unto death. But
now we are loosed from the law of death, wherein we were detained; so
that we should serve in newness of spirit...” (Romans 7:5-6)
For those who want to read and learn a lot more on sexual ethics, I can recommend the following interesting and informative article that is absolutely packed with quotes from the popes, saints and fathers of the Church:
Sexual Pleasure, the Various Sexual Acts, and Procreation
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