I’m currently reading William May’s, “Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family is Built,” and I must note that I’m pretty stupid as regards the Theology of the Body, although I read a bunch of it and continually struggle to understand ever more.
Today’s challenge is in a couple of phrases that May seems to like to repeat a lot:
Men give in a receiving sort of way.
Women receive in a giving sort of way.
Can anyone explain these to me? Thanks!
As Catholics, we are taught that the human person is a body-soul mix. It’s always both, or it’s not a person. It’s not a soul living in a body, but the two are thoroughly enmeshed.
For this reason, what we do with our bodies matters. And so the things that we do with our bodies have spiritual implications. This is why sexual sins are always grave matter. This is also why we do things like genuflecting, kneeling, sitting, and standing at Mass. Posture has significance. Your body has meaning.
A book I read on prayer recently suggested that if you have a hard time praying, make yourself sit in front of a tabernacle or the exposed Eucharist for periods of time. Prayer will follow. If you have a hard time submitting yourself to the Lord, try putting yourself into a submissive position, like kneeling or laying prostrate. Your bodily position will have an affect on your emotional and spiritual state.
Which brings me to my Pondering of the Day…
If we intentionally smile when we are mad, sad, or feeling bad… Can we make ourselves feel better?
Worth trying, I think. 🙂
As long as I am reading into things…. 🙂
Proverbs 16:30
He who winks his eye is plotting
trickery;
he who compresses his lips has
mischief ready.
This shows how we are able to lie with our bodies. It brought to mind for me teachings from the Theology of the Body almost immediately, especially when you are speaking of conjugal union between two people who are not married. For in that act, your body is saying to your partner, “everything I have is yours.” If you are not married, this is not true. And, whether you are married or not, if you are contracepting, you are still making a lie of this in that you are withholding your fertility from your partner. You are saying, in essence, “You can have all of me…except this.” So, in the very act in which we are to make ourselves vulnerable and open completely to the other person, we are holding back. We are not making a gift of ourselves, but rather a leasing of ourselves, with stipulations and conditions. Which would you rather have? The free and complete gift, or the conditional lease?
I know that I’m messed up in many ways, but particularly in the area of love. I frequently think and feel that I have no value, sometimes even that I am not quite a person. Spiritually sick, I know. I’m working on it, but I’m not really sure how to go about getting better. For me, my worth and my loveableness (is that a word? well, it is now!) are entirely wrapped up in how useful I am to others. I have been so deeply mired in the culture of death that wrong-thinking follows me everywhere and colors all of my interactions, as I suspect it does for many people, if they really critically look at how they relate with others. But sadly, most people do not think and do not really examine their actions and thoughts except on a superficial level.
Don’t think that I am exempt from this! Ha! But, I want to work on going deeper than just superficial things to really attack the heart of the matter. I don’t want to be sick, but I suppose that I can’t keep my head in the sand when it comes to my sins and the various ways in which I just don’t get it.
It is pretty much safe to say that I am messed up, topically, on anything that has to do with the Theology of the Body. It’s very hard to give a gift of yourself when you don’t think that your self is anything worth giving. If I am nothing important, than giving me to someone else isn’t that great of a gift.
Okay, that’s definitely a work in progress, and one that is just beginning at that. On to love, since that topic is intermeshed in the whole Theology of the Body topic. Obviously, I need a lot of help to learn what it means to truly love another person as God loves. Sure, I’ve had experience with the warm fuzzies, and with wanting good things for others, but to truly love as God loves, it needs to go beyond that.
Truly, thanks be to God, for He is helping me with this. It has long been the case, (or at least nearly as long as I’ve been Catholic, so about a year and a half or so) that I’ve felt that God has given me a specific person to teach me what it means to love another. I didn’t want to like this person, much less love him. I would have been perfectly happy to avoid this person and interact with him on a need-only basis. Nothing against the person at all, but I was uncomfortable in his presence and a little frightened of him — for no reason — and had made up my mind to minimize interaction.
Well, we all know what happens when we tell God our plans. I think He’s still laughing at me.
So, God made it so that I came to love this person. He is my example and my lesson. It isn’t just that by watching how he interacts with people that I learn what it is like to give of yourself to others, even though he is a good example in his own actions as far as I can tell. But it is more that God has so put him on my heart, that I can’t help but learn, despite how messed up I am. Believe me when I say that I can objectify anyone and take anyone for granted and be as mean and self-centered as anyone else. Except with this person.
And, because I am just that sick, I tried. That’s right, I’ve tried to see if I could think bad things or fantasize inappropriately or something like this. Not that I particularly wanted to sin, or to invite temptation or anything — that wasn’t my intention — but I didn’t know what this was and I wanted, I suppose, to probe the depths of my sickness and see just how sick I was. “Am I **this** bad??” But no. Yes, with other people, there is no end to my imagination. But with this person, I cannot go there. I try to think of these things, and the thought just slips away from me like a greased bubble. What an awesome grace that is! Truly! I wish I had that for everyone! I was concerned, too, for a while that I had some sort of sick obsession or fixation, but this has absolutely nothing to do with romantic love and doesn’t have a selfish aspect to it that I can tell. It doesn’t have anything to do with what I can “get” from the relationship. I am just thrilled with the fact that he exists. And how wonderful it is to know that even through death, there is the possibility of seeing that person again in Heaven. Assuming that I make that Purgatory cut-off.
For this person, I always want what is good for him, even if that is not what is also good for me. I have true concern for him and he is the only person that I automatically pray for every day. Not that there aren’t other people that I pray for every day, because I do have several people that I pray for on a daily basis. The difference is, for this person, it’s not something that I think about. I can’t help but pray for him daily. It’s not a burden or a box to check or an afterthought or a list or anything like that, but a concern to make sure that God knows to take care of this person. I am constantly bringing him before the Lord in prayer. God probably laughs at me for that, too. 🙂
Truly, Thank You, Lord, for this. If I am paying attention, I can try to catch myself in my interactions with others and substitute this other person to see if my actions and thoughts are truly loving. If I would react differently, then I know that I am being less than truly loving, and that I need to adjust what it is that I am doing.
So, what prompts me to write all of this today? Not really for the sake of telling you all this. Actually, it is quite embarrassing to me. I think people will take it the wrong way, or think that I do have some weird, disordered attachment. So, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t say anything. But, this morning, I think I was taught another lesson, and if I am to relate that to you, then I needed to give you some background. Sorry it took so long, but that’s the way I roll. 🙂
Not too long ago, I was in a conversation with a group of people, and the topic eventually came around to this person. Nothing was said which was bad, and everyone there truly liked and cared for this person, but for some reason it was unsettling to me. I didn’t really have anything to contribute to the conversation, and was mostly listening, and maybe, somehow that was worse. Like I was hearing things I didn’t need to hear. Again, not that I was hearing dark secrets or anything like that, but just — I don’t know — personal things that either should come from him directly, or not at all. It was a passing feeling that I managed to brush off. Feelings come and go, and I know that the people there loved him as well, so it must just be that I was being silly, because it was all benign.
Then, this morning on the way to Mass, I was recalling this conversation, and for whatever reason, I just felt heartsick about it and felt like I should apologize to him. For exactly what, I wasn’t sure, but it felt a little bit like…a violation, perhaps. Ooh, just typing that sounds so harsh. And it wasn’t like that. Don’t think anything bad about the people in the conversation. I think it has much less to do with them, because their comments really were benign, and more to do with the fact that God is using (again) this person in this situation to teach me a lesson about love.
It has been said that if you truly love a person, then you have an infinite desire to know everything about that person. I know that is true for me, but this felt like the wrong way to go about getting information. Again, completely benign, but it cut that person out of it. If love is to have a relationship with another person, than some information should come out of interaction with that person directly. Kind of like if I decide to have a relationship with a particular saint, and I research the saint and talk to people about that saint, but never actually engage that saint in conversation or pray to him or her. There’s something wrong with that interaction. Not that the research or the conversation about the saint was bad, but that there was something lacking. An absence of intimacy. Or a detachment which shouldn’t be there.
A lesson to me that a person is not a thing to be loved, but a person to be loved — which is a particular lesson for me. Let me say again, how truly glad I am that I God gave me this person, and that He is using him in this way. Please, Lord, bless him and keep him in Your love.
“In this regard Wojtyla notes that an experience of values that comes about through feelings must always be subordinated to the truth.” (61)
How true is this? Certainly, feelings can color our experiences to a great degree and even sway our preferences and our decisions. However, our feelings are fleeting and change based on a whole slew of factors, some of which are of no more weight than whether or not I’ve had something to eat in the past several hours. And that’s not a good basis for decision-making. Truth, if it is indeed truth, cannot change. One of my favorite arguments to bring up when people start complaining that this or that is “behind the times” in the Catholic church. For example, if it is wrong to kill children in the womb because their life is just as sacred as those people who have already been born, then it could not be the case that all of a sudden it becomes okay to kill them just because society has deemed this not just a tolerable thing, but actually a preference to the “imposition” of an unwanted pregnancy. So too with many other things do we have to really think about what it is that we are deciding and make choices based on what we know and not on what we feel.
“Feelings are intentionally directed to values, but to rely solely on feelings to lead means to surrender self-determination.” (65)
At the moment, this speaks to me as representative of taking the easy way out. It is always so much easier for me to make a decision or a choice based on some arbitrary value, rather than on any trait of actual substance. An example here would be choosing — oh, say a car — based on how cute it looks or what color it is, rather than on something more important like fuel economy. A lot of this, particularly for me is a combination of mental laziness, coupled with the sense that I am too busy to do the necessary research, or that the choice isn’t that big of a deal. It becomes very easy to fall into a pattern of non-thinking in this manner, and have it extend into all aspects of my life, so that I’m not even making informed, carefully thought out decisions at the voting polls or in my day-to-day interactions with other people.
“In their proper place feelings greatly enrich the human person.” (65)
Not to say that feelings are not important! When rooted in an environment of truth, feelings enhance our experiences and help us to communicate and have empathy with others. They can help knit us together as the Body of Christ in our compassion and understanding.
I found this article linked from Ironic Catholic’s blog:
ROME (Reuters) – An Italian couple who were caught having sex in a church confessional box while morning Mass was being said have repented and made peace with the local bishop.
The couple, in their early 30s, were detained by police earlier this month after they had made love in the confessional box in the cathedral in northern Cesena. They were cautioned for obscene acts in public and disturbing a religious function.Their lawyer said they had been drinking all night and realised they had gone too far.
The lawyer told the area’s local newspaper on Wednesday the couple met with the local bishop on Tuesday night, asked for his forgiveness and that he had given it.
Last week the bishop celebrated a “Mass of reparation” in the cathedral where the confessional box incident took place to make up for the sacrilege.
Okay, now calling all canon lawyers, etc., who may come across my blog — kindly pick this apart for me, the almost-still-a-neophyte Catholic and explain all the ways in which this was wrong, and in what ways might it be in very poor taste, but not technically wrong.
I suppose first, we should determine whether the act itself was a sin. Was this a married couple or not? Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that they are married.
During Mass. Obviously, really poor timing. I mean, it’s great to give yourself to your partner and renew with your bodies the vows that you made at your wedding, but how does that compare to actually taking the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ into oneself? If people (including me sometimes, eh) really got it, what was taking place during the Mass, they would be lining up for miles, prostrating themselves in front of the Lord and going out into the world and shouting from the rooftops that they received the Creator of the Universe into their very person. I have heard of other things (most notably, confession) taking place during Mass, so other things can kind of be there, but Reconciliation is another sacrament, which is to say another encounter with Jesus. Sex with your spouse — not a sacrament.
Point two: the article states that the couple had been drinking all night. I think that an inordinate consumption of alcoholic beverages is a sin, and more to the point, how can you truly make a sincere gift of yourself if you are plastered out of your gourd? I would think that that would interfere with your will, and cheapen the encounter to a pleasure-only experience.
Point three: we are not really loving our neighbor, are we? I mean, it might be fine and all for a married couple to have sex, but there is a huge ICK factor for the people who need to use that room following them. I would hope that they were quiet, but there is the possibility that they, um, disturbed people attending Mass. Again, not loving your neighbor there.
What does this say about people’s understanding of the Theology of the Body?
Okay, I’ve given up the first three points that crossed my mind. Now, it’s your turn!
“If the body is not humble, it will obscure not only the true love between man and woman but also that between man and God.” (42) This, I think, speaks again to the fact that if we do not have self-control, self-mastery over our selves and our will, then we are not going to be able to make an authentic, free gift of ourselves to an other. Only in a sincere gift of self, are we fully realized. So, in a way, if I wish to be free, truly free, then I must self-impose limits and truly discern the Lord’s will and conform my own will to His. Not for His benefit. But for mine. How very hard that is to remember, especially when there are so many things that I want, and try to convince myself that I need. Things will never do it for me, but they are so very attractive, sometimes it’s hard to see beyond the packaging and realize that it’s only a momentary distraction from that which is most important: my relationship with God. And not only in things of the world as in material goods do I need to be wary of forming an inordinate attachment, but also the very real danger in my own case of seeing myself as a thing or a commodity. If I do not see myself as having any value, what does that say about any attempt that I make to make of myself a gift for another? An empty gesture?
“The proper object of the will is the good as perceived under the light of reason.” (51)
“…the great philosophers have only one word to say and spend their whole life saying it.” (53) I wonder if this is related to the idea that priests have only one homily, which they will preach over and over…. 🙂
I’m currently reading “Crossing the Threshold of Love: A New Vision of Marriage in the Light of John Paul II’s Anthropology” by Mary Shivanandan. Since it’s a library book, I’ll post my notes here. 🙂 Whatever catches my eye…. 🙂
“…the ‘culture of contraception’ alienates man from woman. Each begins to treat the other as an object, leading to a breakdown of the communion of persons of the husband and wife and the rejection of the child.” (xxii)
“Truth, he [Karol Wojtyla] asserts, ‘can only be enhanced from a confrontation with experience’ (LR, 10).” (4) If it is true, then it is always true, and if it is actually true, than that truth cannot change. It will be true for all times, and not just true for a past generation, but no longer applicable in modern times. You cannot at the same time hold that the Church promotes truth, and that the Church is hopelessly “stuck in the past” when it comes to matters of contraception, sexuality and relationships between the genders. The Church’s teachings are either true or they are not. And one either accepts that or s/he does not.
“‘Perfectionism’ — the philosophical concept that a man’s actions form his character….” (7) “In this whole process of accepting and rejecting the people and objects he meets, Adam is revealed to himself constantly and ‘reveals in himself the love that works through him’.” (7) A great parallel of the concept of the grace that works through us, as everything begins as God’s initiative; and the participation we need to show in response to that gift of grace.
Okay, now that’s just unfair! 🙂 God knows that I like listening to pop music, including some things which are not very healthy for me to be listening to. But now, He has gone and inserted His message into them. What do they say? “God will find you where you are”? Apparently. But, there’s got to be something really wrong with me if Akon is teaching me a lesson. Seriously.
But, I am (oddly enough) an American culture major, so I like to examine these things. I’ll give you the lyrics — I don’t think there’s anything really profane in there — and then try to dissect out of that what I think God is trying to tell me.
What You Got
by Colby O’Donis (featuring Akon)
Konvict, Konvict
Oooh Oooh Oooh Oooh
Oooh Oooh Oooh Oooh
(Verse 1:) Colby O’Donis
I peeped you on the phone
Just showin’ off ya stones
And notice that that pinky ring is right enough baby
I know you’re not alone
But I could just be wrong
The way them fellas houndin’ and sizin’ you up baby
(Hook:)
And I like the way you take advantage of every man you love
I see, I seem to know your game girl
But I don’t mind if ya come and play ya thug just don’t talk too much
I see, I see it so you don’t have to say a word
Yeah those guys wanna come treat ya right
Cause you’re sweeter than apple pie
Everything that you want you got
Girl you know that you need to stop
Most beautiful thing in sight
Always takin’ on the spotlight
Always in the club lookin hot
Girl you know that you need to stop
(Chorus:)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Girl you know that you need to stop
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Girl you know that you need to stop
(Verse 2:) Colby O’Donis
Girl I can tell you want something to love
That’s why you hold on to everything that pass you by
Can’t resist girl one can’t lie
Now tell if you are here for me
Or everybody watchin’ you shake from left to right
The way you move got me hypnotized
(Hook:)
The way you take advantage of every man you love
I see, I seem to know your game girl
But I don’t mind if ya come and play ya thug just don’t talk too much
I see, I see it so you don’t have to say a word
Yeah those guys wanna come treat ya right
Cause you’re sweeter than apple pie
Everything that you want you got
Girl you know that you need to stop
Most beautiful thing in sight
Always takin’ on the spotlight
Always in the club lookin hot
Girl you know that you need to stop
(Chorus:)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Girl you know that you need to stop
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Oooh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Oooh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Oooh)
Girl you know that you need to stop
(Verse 3:) Akon
Our eyes away from you girl when you get on the floor and do what you do
And errbody wanna come back to that bod and kind of remind myself I’m like you
Be sure that type drive a man crazy and snatch him away from his lady
No matter how hard the man hold back he’ll end up callin’ you baby
And they never really know what to do once you expose that thang you do
Ya had him crawlin’ on hands and knees and ya find a way to get him out that cheese
And why ya thinkin’ that you the only dude she off in the mall livin’ off of you
Lettin’ errbody know she got you but now you feel like a fool
(Hook:)
Yeah those guys wanna come treat ya right
Cause you’re sweeter than apple pie
Everything that you want you got
Girl you know that you need to stop
Most beautiful thing in sight
Always takin’ on the spotlight
Always in the club lookin hot
Girl you know that you need to stop
(Chorus:)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Girl you know that you need to stop
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Always talkin’ bout what you got (Eh)
Girl you know that you need to stop
Okay, so first, it is talking about this girl who seems very sweet, but who uses men to get what she wants. While I don’t think that I am quite as bad, perhaps, as is portrayed in this song, I can certainly see, especially when looking at my past history, how I have been irresponsible in this regard, and even a little manipulative. I had quickly found growing up that you can just look at a boy in a certain way, and smile at him, or even tease him and challenge him, and typically you will get whatever it is that you are after. Sort of like an art form, you have to do it to the extent that it produces results, but you have to be very careful not to go too far, or to do this too much, or the boy in question (along with others around you) will catch on to the fact that this is about use. And you wouldn’t want to be labeled as one who uses others.
While I do try to (and have in the past, even when I did more frequently act in this manner) respect people and not use them for my own ends, this kind of behavior, when positively reinforced with getting what you want (reward) is very addictive. You tend to fall into this pattern of relating with other people, which is extremely unhealthy. This is a sick culture, and I’ll be the first to admit that most of my failings as regards loving others comes from a very deformed view of myself, who I am, what relationships are supposed to be like, and what it means to really love.
Basically, I need to be whapped upside the head with the Theology of the Body on a daily basis. But, I’m working on it.
Lesson 1: Stop flirting to get what you want. Be authentic and direct and do not see another person as an object or as a means to your own ends. People are not tools. People have unique dignity and should never be seen as useful.
“Always talkin’ ’bout what you got.” Everyone who knows me knows that I like to talk a lot. I am an oversharer. 🙂 What’s my basic problem here? I am looking for love and approval. And if you are going to reject me, I’d rather that you have all the information about me up front, so that you can reject me sooner rather than later — before I get a chance to be really attached, because that would hurt more. Several fundamental problems here.
First, I should be concerned primarily with what God thinks, and not so much with what others think, although I have to love my neighbors.
Second, I need to trust and know that God loves me regardless, and that I am his precious daughter. Too often, I think that I have no value, am worthless, or that I haven’t done enough to make people love me. That’s not how relationships are supposed to work.
Third, I think in here is a caution to not be so self-absorbed. I should pay attention to me, to the extent that I can evaluate how well I am responding to what Christ did to me on the cross; however, I should be more concerned day to day with trying to die to self and live to pour myself out to others. For it is in a gift of self to others that I am truly alive and happy. It is what I am made for. And if I am not making of myself a gift to others, what am I doing? Swimming in the sea of the culture of death, most likely. Time to stop playing in the sea and head for home. If you never get out of the water, you will eventually drown. And I’d rather have eternal life, thank you.
Lesson 2: Live the way God has made you to live.
“Always in the club looking hot. Girl, you know that you need to stop.” Ah, perhaps a shorter one, but basically goes back to the Theology of the Body and a proper idea of one’s worth, versus what the culture will tell you is the measure of your worth.
Lesson 3: I have to learn that my value does not come from how good (or bad) I look. Physical attractiveness will both come and go, but it is your interior person that matters to God. How does my heart look? Do I resemble His Son? That’s the question to ask. Not, “does my butt look fat in these jeans?”
“The most beautiful thing in sight.” Another shorter thing here, but in this way of mistreating people for their usefulness, I think, is another danger in that you can easily come to think that you are better than others, because you can get your way. Ooh, what a dangerous thing to play with — pride.
Lesson 4: Be humble and authentic. Live with integrity in all that you do.
It’s very interesting the way I have been seeing God everwhere lately. I can only hope and pray that I will be able to live my life in a manner pleasing to Him. And I should have known by the opening words of the song, what it would have in store for me.
“Konvict. Konvict.”
And God has certainly convicted me through it. Let’s see how well I respond….
Earlier today, one of our nurses came up to me and mentioned that an insurance company denied a patient a PET scan because they only approve so many PET scans per year, and this particular patient (not one of mine) was not on their list. Nevermind if it’s a medically necessary study, or the fact that the patient hasn’t had one before. “We gave a PET scan to “Frank,” so “Bill” will be unable to have one.” What kind of policy is that? Assuming that you are an insurance company and you have 100 patients and you only approve 5 PET scans a year, how do you determine who gets one? Alphabetically? Certainly they do not have the kind of information to be able to know who is worse off from a medical perspective, especially if a PET can tell you about the extent of the disease, and that’s precisely what they are limiting.
But then, she said the best thing of all. Apparently the insurance representative told her that it was okay to deny the authorization for the PET scan, since, “The pancreas is an experimental organ anyway.”
Really? Huh. And here I thought that God had been making people with pancreases since Adam and Eve. Apparently not. Since when did people start becoming equipped with a pancreas?
So, they are saying that God is experimenting with the human body?? (Obviously, they cannot be arguing from a Darwinian model, since random mutation and evolutionary processes can hardly qualify as an “experiment.” You kinda need sentience for that, in order to evaluate results.)
What? To see if people with pancreases sinned less than people without pancreases? But, God is all-knowing. He doesn’t need to conduct experiments. If we are truly free-willed, then the presence or absence of a pancreas (assuming that a pancreas affects the decisions that we make, morally speaking) would have to have no affect on our decisions, or then God would be skewing things either in His favor, or out of His favor, as it comes to our choosing to be obedient or not.
So what type of experiment could God be running that He wouldn’t know the answer to already, and that wouldn’t influence our will?
And more to the point, how is it that this insurance company is privy to God’s experiments? If they have some sort of direct pipe to know His mind on things — I want in on that! It would save me a lot of grief if I already knew the correct answer/response to things, instead of trying to discern on my own, because I *know* that *my* thinking is flawed.
But okay, let’s examine this pancreas issue for just a moment. My vote is that the pancreas would increase our tendency to sin. Why do I say this? Well, if your blood sugar is either too high or too low, then you are more prone to mood swings, and behaving poorly because your emotions may be erratic and you are irritable. This of course supposes that the previous system (in the non-pancreas people) worked perfectly.
Of course, the other option is that the pancreas is *not* an experimental organ, and is an integral part of God’s design for the body.
Paroxysm of Giggles / Critical Mass 