We
have already seen that Our Lord wants us to love and think about Him
both before, during and after the marital act. There
are many pious examples in Holy Scripture and the lives of the
Patriarchs, Prophets and Saints that we can learn from in this
regard. Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary, however, never had
marital relations. So the holiest example of a marriage that includes
natural marital relations is the marriage of the Blessed Virgin
Mary’s parents: St. Joachim and St. Anna. They were chosen by God
to be the parents of our Lord’s Mother.
Concerning their
married life, Joachim and Anna certainly engaged in natural marital
relations. But does any faithful Catholic believe that these two
Saints would either make use of unnatural sexual acts or advise
anyone in any situation whatsoever to do so? Certainly not! The very
idea is incompatible not only with the holiness of Saints, but with
the ordinary holiness required by Christ of every married couple. All
married persons are of course required by God to refrain from every
kind of mortal sin, including sexual sins. We are all called to
imitate the Saints, even the least worthy among us.
In
truth, The Mother of God also reveals to us in The
Revelations of St. Bridget
that Her holy parents Anna and Joachim: “would
rather have died than to come together in carnal love; lust
was dead in them.
I assure you that when they did come together, it
was because of divine
love
and because of the angel’s message [that revealed that they would
be the parents of the holy Mother of God],
not out
of carnal desire,
but against their will and
out of a holy love for God.
In this way, my flesh was put together by their seed and
through divine love.”
(St.
Bridget’s Revelations,
Book 1, Chapter 9)
The act of
supreme yearning and surrender to the divine will has been expressed
in beautiful theological precision by Anne Catherine Emmerich in her
vision of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Mary was conceived in a
moment of ecstasy between Anne and Joachim—an ecstasy surpassing
any physiological sign, an ecstasy without lust, an ecstasy without
sin.
“I
saw Joachim and Anne embrace each other in ecstasy. They were
surrounded by hosts of angels, some floating over them carrying a
luminous tower like that which we see in pictures of the Litany of
Loretto. The tower vanished between Joachim and Anne, both of whom
were encompassed by brilliant light and glory. At the same moment,
the heavens above them opened, and I saw the joy of the Most Holy
Trinity and of the angels over the Conception of Mary. Both Joachim
and Anne were in a supernatural state. I learned that, at the moment
at which they embraced and the light shone around them, the
Immaculate Conception of Mary was accomplished. I was also told that
Mary was conceived just as conception would have been effected, were
it not for the fall of man.” (The Life of Jesus Christ and
Biblical Revelations of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, Volume
One, pp. 137–138)
Since Anna and
Joachim’s marriage was so holy, pious spouses should also pray to
these two holy Saints in Heaven to protect them from sinning in the
marital act. When one reads these words about these most holy parents
of Our Lady, and see how they despised the carnal and sensual love of
the flesh and of the world, one can clearly see the great power
chastity has in drawing down blessings from God. If God would have
noticed any kind of sensuality in St. Anna and St. Joachim, they
would never have become the parents of Our Lady. In truth, it was not
fitting that the vessel of grace and the real Ark of the Covenant in
which the Word of God made flesh dwelt, should be conceived in any
other way than with a perfect and pure will, and without any shameful
lust, just like it would have been for all parents in the Garden of
Eden before the original sin of Adam and Eve.
Although
a normal couple will not be spared from feeling any lust or
concupiscence as it happened to Anna and Joachim through a special
and divine grace, this should in no way hinder them from loving and
desiring God during the procreative act. The Love of God should thus
be the primary motive of the marital act along with the love of and
desire to beget children for a couple rather than desiring or lusting
after their own spouse. Most couples however choose to think about
themselves or their spouse in an inordinate way and consequently to
love themselves or their spouse during the procreative act. Anna and
Joachim, however, clearly chose the best part, that is, loving,
thinking about, and desiring to please God. If we think about
pleasing God during the act of marriage and in our daily life, then
our love will be directed towards Him – which is the best part.
God’s love never dies! so it’s clearly a great mistake to seek
love from a fleshly object that will rot and be eaten by worms in the
grave, rather than seeking it from God, who lives and reigns forever
and ever! Husbands and wives should thus love their own, their spouse
and their children’s souls, instead of their own and other peoples
bodies that will rot and be eaten by worms
in the grave.
This is an advice to those couples who wish to be perfect, as Anna
and Joachim were perfect, and for those who wish to be united with
God through love.
St.
Francis de Sales,
Introduction to the Devout Life,
Part 3, Chapter 38, Instructions
For Married Persons:
“Matrimony is a great Sacrament, but I speak in Christ, and in the
Church... Would to God that his most beloved Son were invited to all
marriages, as he was to that of Cana; then the wine of consolations
and benedictions would never be wanting; for the reason why there is
commonly a scarcity of it at the beginning is, because Adonis [the
god of beauty and desire] is invited instead of Jesus Christ, and
Venus [the goddess whose functions encompassed love, beauty, sex,
fertility and prosperity] instead of his blessed Mother. He that
would have his lambs fair and spotted as Jacob’s were, must, like
him, set fair rods of divers colors before the sheep when they meet
to couple; and he that would have a happy success in marriage ought
in his espousals to represent to himself the sanctity and dignity of
this sacrament. But, alas! instead of this there are a thousand
disorders committed in diversions, feasting, and immodest discourse;
it is not surprising, then, that the success of marriages should not
correspond. Above all things, I exhort married people to that mutual
love which the Holy Ghost so much recommends in the Scripture. O you
that are married! I tell you not to love each other with a natural
love, for it is thus that the turtles love; nor do I say, love one
another with a human love, for the heathens do this; but I say to
you, after the great Apostle, "Husbands, love your wives, as
Christ also loved the Church." [Ephesians 5:25] And you, wives,
love your husbands, as the Church loveth her Saviour. It was God that
brought Eve to our first father, Adam, and gave her him in marriage;
it is also God, O my friends! who, with his invisible hand, has tied
the knot of the holy bond of your marriage, and given you to one
another; why do you not, then, cherish each other with a holy,
sacred, and divine love?
“...
But while I exhort you to advance more and more in this mutual love,
which you owe one another, beware lest it degenerate into any kind of
jealousy; for it often happens, that as the worm is bred in the apple
which is the most delicate and ripe, so jealousy grows in that love
of married people which is the most ardent and affectionate, of
which, nevertheless, it spoils and corrupts the substance, breeding,
by insensible degrees, strifes, dissensions, and divorces. But
jealousy is never seen where the friendship is reciprocally grounded
on solid virtue: it is, therefore, an infallible mark that the love
is in some degree sensual and gross, and has met with a virtue
imperfect, inconstant, and subject to distrust. Jealousy is an absurd
means of proving the sincerity of friendship. It may, indeed, be a
sign of the greatness of the friendship, but never of its goodness,
purity, and perfection; since the perfection of friendship
presupposes an assurance of the virtue of those whom we love, and
jealousy presupposes a doubt of it.
“If
you desire, O husbands! that your wives should be faithful to you,
give them a lesson by your example. "How," says St. Gregory
Nazianzen, "can you exact purity of your wives, when you
yourselves live in impurity? How can you require of them that which
you give them not? Do you wish them to be chaste? behave yourselves
chastely towards them: and, as St. Paul says, ‘let every man know
how to possess his vessel in sanctification.’ But if, on the
contrary, you yourselves teach them not to be virtuous, it is not
surprising if you are disgraced by their perdition. But you, O wives!
whose honor is inseparably joined with purity and modesty, be zealous
to preserve this your glory, and suffer no kind of loose behavior to
tarnish the whiteness of your reputation."
“...
Ladies formerly, as well as now, were accustomed to wear ear-rings of
pearl, for the pleasure... But for my part, as I know that the great
friend of God, Isaac, sent ear-rings, as the first earnest of his
love, to the chaste Rebecca, I believe that this mysterious ornament
signifies that the first part which a husband should take possession
of in his wife, and which his wife should faithfully keep for him, is
her ears; in order that no other language or noise should enter there
but only the sweet and amiable music of chaste and pure words, which
are the oriental pearls of the gospel; for we must always remember
that souls are poisoned by the ear, as the body is by the mouth.”
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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