love

Thoughts on Romantic Love, Sexuality and Matrimony

Written version of a talk given on April 30th, 2026, at St. Lawrence the Martyr Church, Toronto, Ontario.

Deacon Douglas McManaman

A significant problem today is that the vast majority of people see morality as a collection of do’s and don’ts: “I can’t do this, I can’t do that”. I believe that very early on in my teaching career I made the mistake of teaching morality like that, that is, issue centered, and so we looked at all those actions that the Church forbids. At the end of the semester, one student asked me: “Sir, what can we do?” I felt great frustration at the question, and after a bit of honest reflection, I realized that my anger would be better directed at myself, for his question revealed to me the mistake I’d made in focusing primarily on actions that were not permitted. My approach was fundamentally negative. 

But morality is about the good life, and the morally good life is the secret to happiness and emotional well-being. That’s the central insight of the School of Positive Psychology (Martin Seligman), a school of thought that goes all the way back to Aristotle, who said that happiness is activity in accordance with perfect virtue. And Catholic teaching on sexual ethics is not bad news at all; it is in fact really good news. It is not about restrictions primarily, but about freedom and the development of morally noble character.

Some Theology of Romantic Love

I’d like to begin with a few points about romantic love, what the Greeks called eros love. This typically refers to the experience of falling in love. Now this is an interesting experience, and I am quite convinced that the experience of “falling in love” has been misunderstood for centuries—once again, given a negative spin. I believe that Scott Peck’s treatment of romantic love in his book The Road Less Travelled is, although very insightful in so many ways, fundamentally negative.[1] I believe a more positive and theological approach is more helpful to couples. For this, I turn to Charles Williams and his analysis of romantic love in the writings of Dante.

First, allow me to distinguish between a false romantic love and genuine romantic love. False romantic love is really little more than the experience of being infatuated with another person, but genuine romantic love is something holy. We are all familiar with pseudo romantic love, and this involves a person who is fundamentally immature. Such a person is overcome by a passion for someone. He or she is obsessed, as it were, and cannot think of anything other than the person he or she is obsessed with. It is in fact a disordered love of self, the kind of love that amounts to: “I love you for what you do for me”.

We can compare this to a passionate love for certain foods. We might say I love pastries, or cake, or whatever. However, I love this pastry for what it does for me; it tastes good. But as Aquinas points out, we don’t destroy what we love, but we destroy food when we eat it. So, it’s not really the food that we love–otherwise we wouldn’t destroy it. It is ourselves that we love. And there’s nothing wrong with self-love per se. But it can become disordered, for object loved can become the center of our lives, in which case we become the center of our lives. 

Self-love becomes a serious problem when the object of this love is another human being: I love you for what you do for me; you make me feel good; you pay attention to me, you make me feel desirable, etc. When our love for a person is reduced to this kind of love, it is nothing more than a disordered love of self. For those who are psychologically immature, this is typically what their love amounts to. And this love is blind, and it is not long lasting. Eventually a person becomes disillusioned, for this pseudo romantic love was a passion that skewed the way he/she saw the world; it is as though they were under a spell of some kind. In some ways, it is like the seed in the parable of the Sower that falls on rocky ground and springs up quickly, but withers and dies as soon as the sun comes out, because it has no roots. This person loved religion because it was new and exciting, but it was rooted in the self, and so when life became difficult an account of that religious experience, the person moved on to something else. 

But genuine romantic love is a genuine love of the other in which the beloved is loved for his or her sake. This kind of love presupposes a person who is, to a certain degree at least, psychologically and morally mature. It is not a love that blinds, but is eye opening. it is a selfless love, a holy love that gives rise to the most important virtues, which are charity and humility. 

Charity is a theological virtue, it is the intimate love of God under the aspect of friendship, and humility involves a profound sense of one’s lowliness or littleness–but a joyful sense of one’s lowliness, because one sees oneself in the light of a reality that is larger than the self. The other with whom I am in love is not me, and this person is always more than what I currently know him or her to be. The lover begins to see the beloved as a mystery. That is why we feel our littleness next to this larger love. In other words, genuine romantic love is holy; it is an experience of the sacred. In many theological circles, romantic love has been misunderstood because it is a love that involves the sexual, but for centuries, we had a tendency to look upon the sexual as a kind of necessary evil, [2] something low or base, probably as a result of the influence of a dualism that regarded the body as kind of prison of the soul–the theologians of the Patristic era were very much under the influence of this school of thought. But genuine romantic love is an experience of the sacred, as I will try to explain. 

I am going to agree with Charles Williams, who interprets Dante’s work on Romantic love, and argue that in romantic love, the one who has fallen in love sees the beloved as God sees the beloved. But this can only happen if God gives the one who is in love (the lover) a sharing in the way He sees the beloved. And so, this is a grace; it is an illumination. And that is why in the experience of falling in love, the one in love is very much preoccupied with the beloved, thinks of the beloved a great deal more than he or she otherwise would. There is a sense in which the lover begins to see everything in light of the beloved. I believe the reason for this is that God himself loves each one of us as if there is only one of us, and a person in love has been given a partial sharing in that love for a particular person. St. Augustine writes:  

O You Omnipotent Good, you care for every one of us as if you care for him only, and so for all as if they were but one! [3] 

If God loves you as if you alone exist, then that means that everything in this universe exists for you, to serve you. It is as if God created the world and all its creatures to serve you and you alone. Now, I don’t see you like that, and you don’t see me like that, but God does. And if you and I could come to see that for only an instant, we’d be overcome with an unimaginable joy. 

Now, in genuine romantic love, God gives a person the grace of a partial sharing in that vision of the other with whom he has fallen in love, or with whom she has fallen in love, and that is the cause of the unique experience of being in love. And it is an extraordinarily joyful experience, because one is no longer the center of one’s life. One is now on the periphery, so to speak, or the circumference of a circle, and God is in the center. The lover has been displaced, which is a new experience. However, the beloved also occupies the center in a certain way. In other words, God calls the lover to himself through loving the beloved. The beloved does not compete with God, but the beloved is seen in God, as I will try to explain more fully. And that’s why the genuine experience of being in love begets charity and humility:

Dante writes of his love for Beatrice:

Let me say that whenever she appeared anywhere, the hope of her wondrous greeting emptied me of all enmity and kindled instead a flame of charity that inspired me to forgive whoever had offended me. My face was veiled in humility, and were someone to ask me anything just then, my only reply would have been “Love.” And when she was about to greet me, a spirit of Love, destroying all my other sensory spirits, would drive out my feeble spirits of sight, saying, “Go and honor your lady,” and then he’d take their place. Anyone wishing to know Love only had to look at the trembling in my eyes. And when her most gracious greeting reached me, it’s not that Love intervened to veil its unbearable beatitude from me, but rather, abundant sweetness made him such that my body, which was completely in his command, moved like some heavy, lifeless object. Thus it is manifestly apparent that my beatitude, which often filled me to overflowing, resided in her greeting.[4]

Now commenting on this text, Charles Williams writes: 

The sight of Beatrice filled him with the fire of charity and clothed him with humility; he became—and for a moment he knew it—an entire goodwill. Neither of these great virtues is gained by considering oneself; and the apparition of this glory, living and moving in Florence, precisely frees him from the consideration of himself. Love is greater than he: his soul was right when it exclaimed: ‘A stronger than I dominates me’ and trembled, and his brain was right when it said: ‘Behold your blessedness’, and even his flesh when it said: ‘O misery, how I shall be shaken’, … This love certainly does not exclude the physical reactions; his body, he says, was so oppressed by it, as by a surfeit of sweetness, that it felt heavy and lifeless; her greeting was too much for him; … [5] 

And so, in genuine romantic love, one sees the other as God sees the other–at least partially–, and one gives attention to the other in a way that approaches the way God gives you and me his attention, and of course you and I have God’s undivided attention at every instant of our lives–although he does not have our undivided attention at every moment.  

And so, we see the beloved in his or her perfection, in his or her glory, because God sees us “with rose colored glasses”, so to speak. He sees us not merely as we are today in all our imperfection and flaws, but as we are in our perfection, as He intends for us to be. He sees you and me in our completeness, for God is not subject to the passing of time and so He is not limited to the moment, to the here and now. 

Now, the beloved with whom you are in love does not at this time exist in that state of perfection. He or she has not achieved that glorified state, and so the experience of falling in love makes possible an experience of disappointment. The reality is that this person is imperfect, and we see their imperfection against the backdrop of that original divine vision. This is very much like the transfiguration. Peter, James, and John were taken up the mountain and Jesus was transfigured before them, appearing with Moses and Elijah. Peter said: “It is wonderful (kalon) for us to be here”. The Greek word used here is kalon, which is a word very hard to translate in English; it is from the Greek word kaleo, which means ‘attractive’, and it is used in the context of the philosophical discussion of art and the nature of beauty. What is beautiful ‘attracts’ or ‘draws’ us to itself. It is probably better translated as “It is beautiful for us to be here”. For Peter, James, and John, the transfiguration was an experience of divine beauty. And of course, Peter wants the experience to continue indefinitely: ‘Let us build three tents: one for you, for Moses, and for Elijah’. Then suddenly they were overshadowed by a cloud and a voice was heard: ‘This is my beloved Son. Listen to him’. They fell on their faces, and then Jesus touched them and told them to get up, do not be afraid, and they saw only Jesus. They were back to this non-glorious state of reality, so to speak. The transfiguration was an experience given to them to strengthen them for the coming passion and death of Christ. 

The experience of genuine romantic love is given as a preparation for the difficulties that lie ahead, so that both will be strengthened for the life of love to which they may be called; for love is difficult, love is sacrifice, it is a way of the cross. It is a constant dying and rising. The couple are called to face one another–which happens when they join their right hands–and direct their lives to helping one another achieve that perfection, that glory, that is beheld partially in the experience of falling in love.  

And the primary purpose of each of the spouses in the marriage is to help the other see himself or herself as God sees him or her. If I’ve been given a partial sharing in the way God sees my spouse, then I have to be sure never to forget that and love her in that light, help her to see herself as God sees her, to build her up on the basis of that insight, and to remain faithful to her until that end has been achieved. The knowledge and the memory of that initial romantic insight must be the guiding star that leads me to God and to her as she exists in God, that is, as God intends her to be.  

As I alluded to earlier, so many people are not morally and psychologically mature enough to handle the experience of romantic love without a great deal of excess and disorder. We see this especially among the young; for moral and psychological immaturity really have to do with a disordered or excessive love of self. It’s much like the experience of becoming famous overnight. Some young celebrities cannot properly handle the fame and attention without becoming cocky, overconfident, and delusional. Fame, like power, can destroy a person. True love is healing, but attention of a certain kind and degree can ruin a person. In heaven, we will see others as God sees them, and others will see us as God sees us, but this experience will not destroy us, because by that point, we will be purified of disordered love of self; life has a way of doing that to us. And we will see the good in each one in a way that we cannot conceive of at this point. We don’t see that now, but our task is to learn to see it, to look for it in others, to see others as God sees them, and that happens the more we take on the mind of Christ. And of course, that is why there is so much darkness in this world, because we don’t see others as God sees them. We tend not to see the other as a mystery, but, at our worst, as things to be used in some way for our own ends. This is how romantic love becomes corrupted and reduced to sexual exploitation. Without even realizing it, the person is loved merely for what he or she can provide sexually and emotionally. Once that wears out, the relationship is over. This is a failure to see the other as an inexhaustible mystery who is infinitely knowable.

Marriage as a Sharing in the Paschal Mystery

I want to shift gears now and say a word about marriage, in particular the Paschal Mystery of Christ, which is the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection; for it is this mystery that reveals the true nature of marriage. Consider the time when the Egyptians enslaved the Hebrew people and God called the Hebrews to leave Egypt with its pantheon of false gods and go to the land of Canaan. God called Moses to lead them out of Egypt, as He called Abraham to leave the land of Ur of the Chaldeans. A life of holiness always begins with God calling someone to leave the familiar and the comfortable. Now in Matrimony, two people are also called to leave behind the familiar and the comfortable, to leave behind a world closed in upon itself. 

The word “consecrate” means to make sacred, but for the Jews, sacred means “to be set apart”, which involves a kind of “leaving behind”. In marriage, the couple are consecrated, which means they are set apart, called to leave their comfortable world of independence and self-sufficiency, to be given over to another, to belong to one another, to belong to something larger than their own individual selves, namely, their marriage bond. The couple relinquish their individual lives; they are no longer two individuals with their own independent existence; rather, they have become one; their lives are directed towards one another. In giving themselves entirely to one another, irrevocably, exclusively, without knowing what lies ahead, they die to their own individual plans, they die to a life directed by the individual will. In doing so, they find life, for they have become larger, that is, a two in one flesh union. 

They choose to live a life that is not merely an image of the Paschal Mystery, but a life that is made possible by the Paschal Mystery, because matrimony is a sacrament, a sign that contains what it signifies, and what it signifies is the relationship between Christ and his Bride, the Church. Matrimony is a sharing in that Paschal Mystery. 

When Christ himself leaves this world of sin behind to go to the Father, immolated on the cross, the new Israel is born. Christ is indeed married; his Bride, his Mystical Body, the Church, is born as a result of that dying and leaving. Holy Matrimony is an icon of that mystery; divorce is a contradiction of that testimony, a counter witness. But in marriage, the two grow together through stages. There are moments of darkness and drab, difficulties, and there are glorious moments. Married life is a constant dying and rising. Married love is hesed, the Hebrew word for perpetual and steadfast love, the kind of love God has for Israel. Matrimony is a profoundly religious vocation precisely because it is a sharing in the Paschal Mystery. 

Romantic Love and Sexual Union

Love of its very nature is unitive, that is, it tends to union. No matter what kind of love we are talking about (philia, eros, storge, agape, etc), that love expresses itself in physical union of some sort. For example, friendship love, what the Greeks called philia, is often expressed by a handshake or a hug; storge, which is affection, is often expressed by a kiss. Conjugal love involves a complete and total giving of the self to another, and because it is a total giving of the self, it includes the giving of one’s body. And so, the natural expression of married love is the act of sexual intercourse in which the two become reproductively one organism. They become one body in the act of sexual union–and this is true even if the couple are unable to conceive a child. They still become reproductively one organism, for a male is reproductively incomplete, a female is reproductively incomplete, but in the act of sexual union, the two become reproductively complete.

Now, if genuine romantic love is holy in that it begins with a kind of divine illumination, and if marriage is a sharing in the Paschal Mystery, then the sexual act between husband and wife is holy. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologica that the sexual act between husband and wife merits an increase in divine grace. [6]  

Not only is love unitive, love is also effusive. It spreads beyond itself, seeks to communicate itself to others outside itself. Love is not self-contained, like an egg, but pours itself out, like an egg broken open. And so there is a twofold goodness to the sexual act: it is 1) an expression and celebration of the couple’s one flesh union, and 2) it is procreative (effusive, ordered to new life). 

These two human goods, conjugal love and human life, constitute the single good of marriage. As was mentioned above, romantic love begins with an insight into the glory of the beloved, which is followed by what might feel like a “return to reality”, so to speak, in which one beholds just how much the beloved falls short of that perfection. The purpose now is to help one another to achieve that perfection, that holiness. Dante speaks of the two virtues that the grace of romantic love gave rise to as he was greeted by Beatrice (charity and humility), and these are the two virtues needed to make it through married life; for it is through charity that one is committed to the salvation of the beloved, and humility is the virtue needed to persist–for the other sees me in all my imperfection, flaws, quirks and idiosyncrasies, and so this relationship requires a tremendous amount of humility and trust. 

But this mutual help is precisely the primary purpose of marriage. In 1930, Pope Pius XI wrote:  

This mutual inward moulding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof. [7]  

Hence, the sexual act is an expression of that conjugal love, that love of one’s spouse for his/her sake. The act of sexual union is a marital act (the act of marriage). If God calls a person to be married, he calls that person to participate in the Paschal Mystery in a particular way, to leave behind that world that is closed in on itself, the world in which you cater to your own individual needs and wants, and turn to another. One sees the other romantically, with the divine vision, but at the same time with the real vision of one another’s imperfections, and the two help one another towards achieving that eschatological perfection. He gives himself to her completely, totally, for her sake, for the sake of that perfection that he beholds, and she as well. Outside of that sacred union, the sexual act is abused and trivialized, and to abuse the sex act is to abuse a person.

Moreover, in baptism we are anointed priest, prophet, and king, and so the faithful exercise a genuine priesthood. The sexual act within marriage is a priestly act, a genuine exercise of that priesthood, in that the act of sexual union between husband and wife is an offering. Priesthood is about offering a sacrificial victim to God, and the married couple offer themselves to one another. This offering, however, is at the same time an offering to God, because this is how God has called the two to love Him, that is, by loving one another. And so, just as the ministerial priest offers to God bread and wine that he may change those substances into the substance of Christ, to return them to us as the Bread of Life, in the act of sexual union husband and wife offer their matter to God, so to speak (sperm and egg), and God receives what is offered and changes it, infuses into it a human soul, so that it becomes a person. What God does with that offering at that moment is out of our control; the couple can only hope that this offering will be completed in the conception of a child, but they do not exercise any dominion over it. That, of course, does not mean that the couple must intend to conceive a child every time they engage in the sexual act. 

Contraception and NFP

There is no doubt, one of the most difficult teachings in the area of sexuality and marriage has to do with contraceptive birth control. The Church is probably the only voice in the world today that teaches that contraception is morally wrong. There was and still is a great deal of controversy surrounding this issue. Personally, I’ve studied this issue for over 40 years now. The reason is that I was fascinated by it. When I first learned of this teaching, I thought it was simply ridiculous–akin to forbidding the taking of a Tylenol. But there were some very good professors who assured me that it was not as ridiculous as it might appear at first. So, I began to look into this moral issue. As a teacher, I was determined to find ways of making this teaching intelligible for my students and friends. So, I’m going to offer here what I regard as the best explanation I can provide as to why the Church’s teaching on this is in my mind correct and is rooted in the Holy Spirit, which guides the Church in her teachings on faith and morals, despite the sinfulness and imperfection of the hierarchy. 

Over the years I have, in the face of objections from students and couples in marriage prep, second guessed myself many times. But nobody yet has been able to explain to me how the use of contraception is morally justified, and I wish someone would, because it would make my life much easier. So far, however, it hasn’t happened. Furthermore, I always tell couples in marriage prep that we are not here to impose anything; rather, we propose this. Personally, I think the Church’s teaching on openness to life is really quite beautiful, and I am quite convinced that it really does promote and strengthen couples’ relationships. In fact, the divorce rate for couples who use NFP is under 4%, which is an interesting statistic. It is a statistic, however, and statistics have to be interpreted. What are the factors for this? It’s hard to say, but perhaps we can leave this to the end and attempt to offer some possible reasons for this. 

But Catholic teaching is that every marital act must be open to new life. But what does that mean? We can certainly tell you what it does not mean. It does not mean that every act of sexual union between a married couple must result in the conception of a child. That would be absurd; for that would mean that if a couple end up having four children, they can only engage in sexual intercourse four times in their married life. 

What else does it not mean? That every act of sexual union must be open to life does not mean that controlling birth is morally wrong. Couples must control birth; for no couple is obligated to have as many children as is physically possible. My mother grew up in the province of Quebec in the 30s and 40s, and that was common teaching in the Church at that time. My mother knew a lady who had fifteen children already, and if she was not pregnant the following year, she would receive a visit from the parish priest inquiring of her as to why that is the case. 

What it does mean, however, is the following: a couple engaging in sexual union must not intentionally or willingly sterilize the sexual act, by using a contraception: a condom, birth control pill, or any other contraceptive method. A couple can certainly control birth, choose not to have a child at this time for whatever good reason–and there are many good reasons–, but contraceptive methods of birth control involve intentionally closing the sexual act to new life as a means to some further end. But why not? What is so wrong with that? And, isn’t the couple doing the same thing when they use NFP and engage in periodic abstinence?

A couple that uses NFP is able to determine when ovulation will occur or is occurring. Ovulation only occurs once every cycle, and the ovum, when released, has 24 hours to be fertilized, otherwise it disintegrates. So, there is a relatively small window in which a woman can conceive a child. Before ovulation, there is the early non-fertile phase, and after ovulation, there is the late non-fertile phase (which lasts approximately 16 days), and so if a couple engage in sexual union during that time, for example in the late non-fertile phase, they will not conceive a child, because there is no ovum to fertilize (during the early non-fertile phase, however, cervical mucus can keep sperm alive up to about five days, so although there is no ovum to fertilize yet, conception can occur days later). 

A common objection is that couples who use this method, who abstain from sexual intercourse during ovulation and instead engage in the sexual act during a non-fertile phase, are also deliberately closing the act of intercourse to new life. What I’d like to try to show is that this is not necessarily the case. The couple who abstains from acts of sexual union during ovulation and instead engages in the sexual act during one of the two non-fertile phases of the female cycle is not intentionally closing the act to new life; rather, the woman’s fertility cycle is such that she cannot conceive during these two phases, so they don’t have to close the act to new life. 

But, why is this distinction so significant? This is where things become a bit abstract and difficult to explain. And I understand that many couples today just don’t see it, but my task is to continually find ways to better explain this as clearly and easily as possible. There are certainly medical differences between the two, for example, NFP has no adverse medical side effects, whereas the birth control pill has all sorts of risks involved, which every birth control pill package will list: the risk of permanent infertility, the risk of deep vein thrombosis, certain kinds of cancers, but I am not an expert in this area; one can find a great deal of information about this online. I limit myself to the moral question, that is, the moral difference between the two. And the difference is very subtle, perhaps too subtle for some people, but I will go over this regardless. 

If this is going to make any sense, we need to begin with a very important distinction. What is it that makes an action a morally significant act (either good or evil)? The answer is: the will. Without a will, one is not a moral agent. Now let’s imagine that you are a gun enthusiast and enjoy target shooting. You set up a target in your backyard out in the country and begin practicing. You have put in place all sorts of safety measures, but someone decided earlier in the day to sneak onto your large piece of property and hide among the trees in the backyard, in order to rob the house later on when you leave to run some errands. While practicing, you miss the target and you end up shooting the man hiding in the bushes. Of course, you didn’t know he was there. Are you guilty of homicide? The answer is no; you are not. You did not will or intend that this person cease to exist, that is, cease to live. Murder is an action that involves a will that this person no longer be (it is the adoption of a proposal that includes the death of a person). That is why animals, although they can kill, cannot commit homicide; they don’t have a will, but are governed by instinct.

However, imagine that you hire someone to kill your wife. You meet with this hitman and enter into a contract. You agree to pay him $20,000 for the murder. You meet again at a certain time, and you hand him $10,000 as a down payment–he’ll get the rest when he carries out the deed. He does so, shows you a picture. You pay him the remaining $10,000. Now, it turns out that your hitman is really an undercover police officer; the polaroid snapshot that she showed you is of your wife made up to look dead. You didn’t know this. No one was killed. The question now is: Are you a murderer? The answer is, yes, morally speaking. Although no one was killed, the act of handing over an envelope with the cash so that she will be killed is an act of murder, morally speaking. One adopted a proposal that included the death of the spouse.

You and I determine our moral identity, our moral character, by the moral choices that we make. If I choose to lie to you, I become a liar; If I choose steal money from your purse when you are not looking, then I become a thief; If I choose to kill, I become a killer. That’s my moral identity, my character, which is very different from personality–one can have a great personality, but morally bad character. Most psychopaths in fact have great personalities, but they are depraved characters.

What does this have to do with contraception? Let us compare the series of choices made by a couple who use contraception to a couple that uses NFP. We will assume that in both cases, the couple have a good reason to avoid conceiving a child and that their act of intercourse is intended to be a genuine expression of conjugal love. The contracepting couple 1) consider having sex (as a genuine expression of married love). They remember that they have a good reason to avoid conceiving a child, and so they 2) project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. At this point, they 3) choose to have sex, but they make a further choice in taking steps to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actual baby. Now, in choosing to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actual baby, they will or intend that this possible baby not become an actual baby. This is to act with a contra life will, a will that this possible baby not come to be. That is to act with contra life intent. 

It is important to emphasize here that contraception is not homicide (homicide involves willing that an actual living human being no longer be, or cease to be). However, what homicide and contraception have in common is a contra life intent, or a contra life will. If I kill someone without a contra life will, as in the scenario involving target practice, I have not necessarily done anything morally significant, certainly not murder. But if you kill someone with a contra life will, that act becomes an act of homicide. As we said, contraception is not homicide, because the will does not bear upon an actual human life, but only a possible human life. However, it is this contra life will or intention that makes killing immoral, so too it is this same contra life intention (or will) that makes contraception immoral. I positively will that this possible baby not become an actual baby. That describes a contra life intention or will, which is why it is fittingly called contraception (contra: “against”, the conception of new life). Although one is not willing that an actual baby not come to be, but a possible baby, nonetheless a possible baby is a basic intelligible human good, just as a possible friendship is a basic intelligible human good, an aspect of human flourishing. In other words, if I do something to willingly prevent a possible friendship between two people who do not yet know one another from becoming an actual friendship, I am willing contrary to the good of friendship, which is not yet an actuality.

This is not necessarily the case with Natural Family Planning, however. In the use of NFP, the couple becomes familiar with the female fertility cycle, they chart that cycle from month to month, and they choose to engage in sexual union during the non-fertile phases of that cycle, of which there are two. The NFP couple also consider having sex as a genuine expression of married love, and they too project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. But it is at this point that they choose differently, for they choose not to have sex. The couple abstains from the act of sexual union during the ovulation phase of the cycle, because there is a good reason to avoid conceiving a child. Choosing not to have sex does not involve preventing a possible baby from becoming an actual baby. The couple simply chooses not to cause a baby, and there is nothing contra-life about choosing not to cause a baby; we do it all the time every time we choose to go to work or watch TV, etc. The only time a baby becomes a real possibility is when the couple choose to have sex at a time when conception is a real possibility. This is a very subtle distinction, but it is significant. The couple have not taken steps to close the marital act to new life by wearing a condom or taking a progesterone/estrogen pill, for example. 

We should point out that not every device referred to as contraception is truly a contraceptive. For example, the IUD, the intrauterine device, is not a contraceptive, but an abortifacient; an IUD allows sperm and egg to meet, but it prevents implantation on the lining of the uterus. So human life has already been conceived, but it aborts its development. So too, the low dose birth control pill has three mechanisms: 1) it prevents ovulation. However, a woman on the pill can still ovulate as a result of stress factors; 2) the pill thickens cervical mucus so that no sperm can get through; but one sperm is all it takes to fertilize an ovum. If fertilization does occur, 3) implantation on the lining of the uterus will be very difficult, because the pill changes the uterine wall. At this point, the pill is no longer a contraception, but an abortifacient, because life has been conceived.

As for the less than 4% divorce rate for couples that use NFP, it may have something to do with the fact that the couple are willing to practice periodic abstinence, which is good for a relationship. It may also have something to do with the fact that the pill treats the woman’s fertility as a disease, as something to be protected from, while NFP fosters a certain reverence for a woman’s fertility. Instead of cancelling that fertility with artificial hormones, the couple choose to adjust their own behavior and live in accordance with the woman’s physiology. 

Also, a woman who is taking the birth control pill for medical reasons, to raise her estrogen level, for example, is not engaging in contraceptive behavior, but is choosing a medical course of action that has an undesirable side effect, namely infertility. Also, a woman who has had three c-sections and who chooses to have her tubes tied because a fourth c-section would be dangerous is not, I have argued elsewhere, engaging in contraception, any more than a surgeon removing an ectopic pregnancy is performing an abortion. 

Notes

1. He writes: “Of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that “falling in love” is love or at least one of the manifestations of love. It is a potent misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced in a very powerful fashion as an experience of love. When a person falls in love what he or she certainly feels is “I love him” or “I love her.” But two problems are immediately apparent. The first is that the experience of falling in love is specifically a sex-linked erotic experience. We do not fall in love with our children even though we may love them very deeply. We do not fall in love with our friends of the same sex—unless we are homosexually oriented—even though we may care for them greatly. We fall in love only when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated. The second problem is that the experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough. This is not to say that we invariably cease loving the person with whom we fell in love. But it is to say that the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes. The honeymoon always ends. The bloom of romance always fades.” The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. By M. Scott Peck, M.D. Touchstone Books. 1978. p. 84-90. 

2. See Derrick Sherwin Bailey. Sexual Relation in Christian Thought. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. pp. 19-102. 

3. Confessions, 3, 11. 19. (Tr. Albert C. Outler). “o tu bone omnipotens, qui sic curas unumquemque nostrum tamquam solum cures, et sic omnes tamquam singulos”.

4. Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text. Kindle Edition. p. 33.

5. Charles Williams, The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante, II. Kindle Edition. p. 18.

6. See S.T., Supplement, Question 41, a.4.

7. Casti Connubii, 24.

Thoughts on the Trastevere

I have a picture of the piazza di Santa Maria, which is in the heart of the Trastevere (Rome), on my computer. I am familiar with this piazza, I’ve been there a number of times. In fact, if one were to drop me off anywhere in Rome, I would be able to find my way there. I’ve been inside the Basilica di Santa Maria, in Trastevere, which is one of the most beautiful Churches in Rome. So when I gaze at this picture, I think back to the time I spent there. 

Each time I gaze at the picture, however, I notice a detail or two that I did not notice while there. There is so much about this small area that I was not explicitly aware of. I often gaze at the apartments surrounding the piazza; I was not aware of the number of apartments there are–in fact, I still don’t really know, I haven’t counted–, nor do I know who owns those apartments, whether they are rented out or not. I do not know the apartments from within, I’ve never been inside them, and I don’t know the occupants, what they do, where they came from, I don’t know the two restaurants on the street level, I’ve never eaten there, nor have I worked there, so I don’t know the employees or the owner, what it is like to work there every night, etc., I don’t know what kind of plants are in the pots, nor do I know anything about the architecture of those buildings, how they were designed, nor the kind of drywall used for the interior, I do not know the kinds of materials used on the outside of the apartments, I do not know about the wiring (the quality of wire used, nor how the building was and is now wired, whether or not it has changed, etc.), nor do I know anything about the plumbing (the kind of metal pipe used, the plans for the plumbing), etc. I have been inside the Church, but there is so much to know about the interior, such as the ceiling and when it was built, the art, who produced it and when, the floor of the Church, who designed it and when and under what circumstances; I do not know about the geological features below the ground on that small piazza. In short, there is so much about the history of that piazza that I am unaware of and will always be unaware of; there is a veritable cognitive inexhaustibility about that little place that I am, nevertheless, familiar with. I could spend more time there and if I did so, my understanding of it would gradually increase, especially if I had access to a historian, a geologist, an architect, and a carpenter perhaps. After a time, I would very likely not look at that piazza the same way again, just as we do not look at anything we come to know more fully the same way as we did initially. 

The world is like that; science is like that. In the 1950s, we had no idea that there was so much more to the cell than what we thought at the time, i.e., a membrane, a nucleus, protoplasm, etc. We now appreciate that the complexity of a cell far exceeds that of a computer. How much more is there to the physics of a simple water molecule than what most of us currently know about water? How much more is this true of human nature? Consider what cognitive psychology has discovered about the epistemic conditions that are behind the day to day judgments we make, almost entirely unaware of the influences that have shaped those judgments? I know what I know, but I tend not to be aware of how much I do not know and how much more there is to know about the very things I know. I can make myself aware of it to some degree as I have done here, but the details will always escape me, for if I understood the extent and the details, I would not be ignorant of them. I can only know my ignorance generally. 

The same is true of people. How much about these students before me do I not know? How much more is there to know about them? 

Now all these new pieces of information that are gradually acquired as my experience is enlarged are data, as it were, that become part of the limited set of data we already have, on the basis of which we draw our conclusions about the real. I come to a conclusion about the student in front of me (or any person, for that matter) or the city I’ve been to twice, etc., on the basis of the evidence I have up to this point, that is, the data, the theses that constitute the set I now possess. I draw a conclusion about this person, or about Italy, the Trastevere, the food, etc., on the basis of the data I have acquired. New data might corroborate a judgment, it might enrich it, but new data may also render my current set of data internally inconsistent, which in turn affects the plausibility of the data I have. In other words, some theses will have to be dropped, for their plausibility has been drastically reduced. I have to adjust, that is, accommodate the new data, throw out certain theses, etc. For example, I may learn that this student before me is actually abusive to her parent, or I may become aware that he has autism spectrum disorder, etc. Or, thinking back to the piazza di Santa Maria, I may say to myself: I’d love to live here in one of these apartments. But with further data, I may change my mind. I look at those apartments now and certain feelings of nostalgia arise, but after years of acquiring new data (perhaps as a result of living there), that may change. I may become completely indifferent to this place; I may never want to see it again. Sometimes ignorance is bliss; for if I am ignorant, I can imagine anything I want about this place, i.e., a life that is exhilarating, but in the end the product of my imagination is unreal. 

Think of growing up in a white, American, Catholic/Protestant world. The Sikh, the Hindu, the Muslim, etc., all come across as foreign. I don’t know what they believe, how they think, but they do dress differently, their symbols are different, they don’t eat the same kinds of foods. Initially at least, they appear as strange; they are an enigma. The usual course of action is to react defensively: I remind myself what it is we believe, that we see the world as it really is, that our way is right, it is the norm, and they are not part of that norm; I tend to think they should assimilate to our way of life, or way of dress and way of thinking, eating, etc. The unknown can give rise to fear. But as we come to know them, as we begin to live with them day in and day out, we begin to understand one another. Fear begins to subside, and they are not so foreign anymore; we realize that they are in many ways just like us. And they too looked at us as foreign, and they have or had the same defensive reaction. The world as they see it makes sense to them, it is right not just to them, but absolutely, and in their minds perhaps, we are the ones who have to assimilate. In other words, they can be just as dogmatic as we are. But this new encounter enriches us both with new information, and so it can enlarge our cognitive frame of mind. It is a real personal encounter that provides this new data, which may corroborate or render inconsistent the set of data we already possess and through which we see and interpret the real. 

This epistemic process involved in plausible reasoning takes place within the realm of theological science as well–how could it not? There is so much about my Sikh brother that I don’t know about, and there is so much about me he does not know about, and as Socrates pointed out, there is so much about me that I don’t know about, and as the Old Testament makes clear there is so much about God that I don’t know about; as a Christian, there is so much about Christ that I don’t know about. Indeed, I can say with St. Paul that Christ lives in me and I live in him, but how much more is there to know about him? The knowledge I refer to here is connaitre, the French verb for connatural knowledge, the kind we possess for those close to us. The more I love someone, the more I enter into a kind of union with that person, and the result is the more I know him. Do I really believe my love for Christ is adequate? And so isn’t the same epistemic process at work in my knowledge of Christ? Isn’t the same process at work in a Muslim’s knowledge of Allah or a Jew’s knowledge of G_d? And, could further data upset the applecart of my own set of data, my own limited cognitive framework? Of course it can and it will, in due time. My conclusions are tentative because they are not strictly deductive; they are a matter of coherence. They are maximally plausible on the basis of the theses I have at my disposal. But the plausibility of these theses may change with further data. We see this type of growth and development–sometimes revolutionary–throughout the history of the Church. If the 10th or 14th century Church were to look into a crystal ball and see the Church in the 21st century, with its expanded understanding of human rights, the right to freedom of speech, our post-Vatican II ecumenism or pastoral approach to human beings, our understanding of the separation of Church and state, perhaps the way people dress, etc., would she be scandalized?

Religion and Relationship

Reflection for the 3rd Sunday of Lent

Deacon Douglas McManaman

That Jesus is speaking to a Samaritan woman is quite radical; for Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. Pious Jews were known to take long detours rather than walk through Samaria. It was unheard of for a Jewish man to speak with a woman in public, especially a Samaritan woman, and the disciples marveled (ethaumasan) that Jesus was speaking to her. Moreover, that Jesus was asking her for a drink was also quite radical–he was willing to use her vessel from which to drink, which would have rendered him ritually unclean. Also, he did not condemn her, knowing that she was married five times and was currently living with a man who was not her husband, but he chose to relate to her anyways, to communicate and actually drink from her container. As we can see, Jesus was not very orthodox by Jewish standards. Relationship is more important than law–i.e., the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mk 2, 27). 

But what’s particularly interesting about this conversation with the Samaritan woman is the change that took place in her during the course of it. She goes from calling Jesus “Sir”, to calling him a prophet, to becoming a witness to the Samaritan villagers that he is the Messiah, and finally, the townspeople go from believing in him on the basis of her testimony to believing in him through their own personal experience of Jesus, professing him as Saviour of the world (Sir, prophet, Messiah, Saviour of the World). And this was all due to Jesus’ decision to enter into relationship with this woman, to do something contrary to religious custom, to actually communicate with her as a human being with inherent dignity. And this was typical of Jesus—after all, he entrusted the good news of the resurrection to Mary Magdalene, chose her to be the first person sent to deliver the good news of the resurrection to the rest of the disciples. His was a very unique and revolutionary way of seeing women. Incidentally, the woman at the well is venerated as Saint Photina. She was martyred under Nero, and her name means enlightened one or “shining”, which calls attention to her missionary work, bringing the light of the Gospel to those in Smyrna and Carthage. In the Eastern rite, she is venerated with the rare title “Equal to the Apostles” (Isapostolos). 

But most importantly, this gospel shows clearly that true religion is not primarily about law; it is about relationship first and foremost. Both words (religion and relationship) are from the Latin religare, which means “to bind fast”. Jesus desires to enter into relationship with this woman, to give her the living water of his own divinity, but he asks that she give him the water of her humanity. That is the exchange he offers each one of us: “I will give you my divinity if you give me your humanity”, to be divinized, deified (theosis), filled with the life of grace, sharers in the divine life. 

For every desire we have in our lives is ultimately a desire for God. Nothing in this world can satisfy the human heart, which is restless and is always in search of rest. The problem is that the human heart’s thirst is infinite, and nothing in this contingent universe can bring it rest, nothing except God alone. St. Augustine said it on the first page of his Confessions: “O Lord, you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You”. God became flesh so that we could make our way back to God in the Person of Christ. He is the living water that alone brings rest to the human heart. For most people, it takes a lifetime to finally learn this. 

I mentioned in a previous reflection that a patient I was visiting in the hospital told me about a certain person who owns a 165-million-dollar estate; this patient was utterly dismayed that someone would spend so much on himself. Later in the day I decided to do a “fact check”, and indeed he does own a 165-million-dollar estate, but that’s not all; he has three other estates in Florida, all three totaling 230 million, another property in Hawaii at 78 million, another in Washington for 23 million, and some apartments in New York City totaling 80 million. It is a strange phenomenon that the more wealth we acquire, the greater our desire for more. One would think that greater wealth would be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in desire, that one is gradually reaching the point at which one no longer feels the need for more, but it seems the opposite happens; the more wealth we acquire, the desire for more continues to increase, as if we are becoming poorer. It’s as if the heart rebels against us by desiring more, as if to tell us that we’re on the wrong track. 

St. Augustine says later on in the Confessions: “O You Omnipotent Good, You care for every one of us as if you care for him only, and so for all as if they were but one!” (3.11.19). This life is about coming to know that love intimately, not just in our heads, but knowing it by experience.

There’s a wonderful story of a San Francisco physician who had a friend do some house sitting for him while he was away on vacation. When he returned, he found his friend sitting on the stairs, staring out into space. As he approached him to see if he was ok, his friend stood up, screaming, and he began hitting the doctor with a tennis racquet. The doctor lost consciousness, but when he came to, his friend had a dagger; he tried to fight him off, but he was overpowered. He then saw a hallway filled with light, and he said the love coming from this light was utterly overwhelming. He said it was so overwhelming that “this life must have something to do with learning to love like that”. But then he corrected himself: “Rather, this life must have something to do with learning to be loved like that, to allow yourself to be loved by this light”. He then adds that if anyone you know died in horrible circumstances like this, “if my experience is any indication, they did not die alone; they died in a sea of love around them”. 

Sin takes on a whole new meaning for us when we have personally experienced the love that God has for us. At that point, religion is no longer a matter of observing rules, and sin is no longer the violation of a law; rather, it is the rupture of a relationship. I remember the first change that took place in me when I returned to my faith as a teenager, after having had a very personal experience of God’s intervention in my life, was that I could no longer take the Lord’s name in vain, which was habitual for me at the time. I became aware that I had God’s undivided attention at every instant of the day; I was in relationship with a Person and my actions affected this Person. 

To get to that point, we have to pay attention to what God is doing in our lives, individually, in my life, your life, the particular ways that God is showing you that He loves you, that he is paying attention to you, giving you his undivided attention, to become more aware of the blessings he pours out upon us at every moment, that is, allow ourselves to be loved by him and allow that love to awaken us and bring us to life. Then we begin to taste a tiny portion of the joy of heaven, for that experience is very much like finding a great treasure in a field, and we will be ready and willing to give up everything in order to purchase that field so as to never lose that treasure.  

Fire and Rain

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_443fireandrain.html

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

These are wonderful readings and there is so much to cover, but no time to do so. If this were a Pentecostal or Baptist Church, maybe–they tend to preach for 40 minutes. Something tells me you wouldn’t appreciate that. But the readings this Sunday emphasize the importance of keeping the commandments. In the first reading, we read: “If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and they will save you. If you trust in God, you too shall live. The Lord has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose”. 

Now, as St. Paul says, the law does not save (Rm 8, 3). We are not saved by the works of the law, but by faith (see Eph 2, 8), but these verses seem to suggest otherwise–that we are saved by our works. Both are right. If you have a living faith, which according to St. Augustine is fides cum dilectionem (faith that works through love), your life will bear fruit in charity: love of God and love of neighbour. If I love God, I will love what God loves, and God loves each one of us as if there is only one of us, as if you are the only being in existence to love. As St. Augustine says in his Confessions: “O thou Omnipotent Good, thou carest for every one of us as if thou didst care for him only, and so for all as if they were but one!” (3.11.19). And the commandments are nothing but the concrete implications of the love of God and the love of neighbor. The first three commandments have to do with God, the last seven have to do with our neighbor. This means that God is first. Do not worship any gods but the Lord your God; to worship is to make the center of your life. The most beloved gods today are money, security, my own comfort, pleasure, sex, popularity and power. These gods must be placed on the backburner, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who revealed himself in the Person of Christ, must take their place.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? …So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’…Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides (Mt 6, 25-34).

There it is. Put God first, and all other things will be provided. Seek first his righteousness, his justice, that is, his will. That’s it. Why is there so much evil, so much suffering and darkness in the world? Because people do not put God first, they worry too much about themselves, and so they end up putting themselves first, and others second. When that happens, our life slowly begins to fall apart. 

We’ve heard the old expression: ‘You are what you eat’. No, rather, you are what you love. In other words, you are what you worship. You are exactly what you have made the center of your existence. The more God becomes the center of your existence, the more God radiates through your life, and the more the self decreases in importance in your own eyes. You and I begin to love what God loves, and the less there is of you, and the more God occupies that place once occupied by you, the more you will live in his joy, because God is joy itself. 

As was mentioned, if I love God, I will love what he loves. What does He love? He loves every human person that he has created, brought into this world, and redeemed by the death and resurrection of his Son. He loves them so much that he identifies with each one of them, especially the least of them, the most destitute, so much so that what we do to them, we do to him. If God loves each one of us as if there is only one of us to love, then we must learn to love each person as if that person is the only person to love. 

Our culture does not understand this. Speaking generally, we value people on the basis of their quality of life, and when we value something according to its quality, we value it according to its usefulness. A television of low quality will cost less, for it is less useful. Once it no longer functions properly, it is of no value, to be tossed out and replaced by a newer and more useful model. That’s how we as a culture have begun to treat human beings. Many in the medical profession have adopted this mentality, which is the opposite of a “sanctity of life” mentality that regards human life as sacred, of immeasurable value, created by God. 

We know from Scripture that your life is the breath of God. In the second chapter of Genesis, we read that “the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being”. Your life is holy, because it (the soul) comes directly from God, brought into being by a unique and singular act of creation by God. Your value does not decrease as you get older, more frail, less able to do the things you used to do. Your value does not decrease if you were to lose your ability to walk and communicate intelligently with others. Every week as part of my ministry I visit a person with Alzheimer’s who used to be an Emergency room doctor just two floors below in the same hospital where he is now. His life is just as immeasurable in value as it was when he was a practicing physician taking care of patients. Of course, many people today do not see that nor agree with that, but believe that at this point, medical personnel should be available to put an end to his life and others like him, with proper consent.

If we don’t begin looking at human beings from God’s point of view, as people created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the death and resurrection of Christ, then we will inevitably look upon human beings with that quality of life mentality that believes that as the quality of life lessens, the value of the person lessons. Then we begin to see them as useless eaters. When we see people like that as useless eaters, we no longer look upon them through the eyes of love. We no longer love them for their sake, but for the sake of what they do for us as a society. Are they productive? Do they contribute in any way?

They are not productive in the way we typically employ that word, but what these people do, whether we are talking about Alzheimer’s patients, or Down Syndrome children, developmentally disabled people, etc., is they provide us with the opportunity to love them for their own sake, to learn to love human beings for their sake alone, not for the sake of what they can do for me or for society at large. We never really love another person unless we love them for their sake, not for the sake of what they do for us. I love food primarily for what food does for me–it tastes good, and it is good for my health. But I don’t really love food. As St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out, we don’t destroy what we love, but we destroy food when we eat it. When I say I love food, what I mean is I love myself, I love it for what it does for me. 

When we love human beings for what they do for us, we love ourselves primarily. If we love human beings whose spirit is the breath of God, then we won’t destroy them. We won’t be able to destroy them, kill them, give them a lethal injection to put them out of their misery. We can certainly administer medications that treat pain even if our pain management has the effect of shortening their lives, but we don’t eliminate pain by eliminating the patient. Willingly destroying a human life is contrary to love, even if it is in accordance with a person’s will. If someone who was severely depressed asked me to take this gun or that needle and put them out of their misery by killing them, they are asking me to do something incompatible with love. It might feel like love, but we don’t destroy what we love. God alone is the Lord of human life, and he commands us not to kill. He does, however, allow us to reject his will, but he warns us that doing so has repercussions: “I put before you fire and water. Stretch out your hand for whichever you choose”. If we stretch out our hand to the fire, it will burn and destroy us. Water, on the other hand, is life giving. We are what we love. If we choose death, we die. But if we choose life, we live.

Poor in Spirit and Pure in Heart

Poor in Spirit @Lifeissues.net

Deacon Douglas McManaman

As we all know, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mk 12, 31). That’s not easy to do, because we tend to love ourselves a great deal more than our neighbor. In fact, if we require some visible evidence of the extent of our self-love, just take a look at the property values of the homes of some of the richest celebrities. I know of one, whom I won’t mention by name, who has a 165-million-dollar estate. But that’s not all. He also has three others in Florida, all three totaling 230 million. He has another property in Hawaii at 78 million, another in Washington for 23 million, and a collection of apartments in New York City for 80 million. That’s a total of 576 million in total properties. 

Now, I’m not about to whine about people having more than they need or the sin of greed, etc., and I don’t mean to suggest that this person neglects giving to charity. My point is that we can see that loving another person, as we love ourselves, is rather difficult, because the ratio between our self-love and our love of neighbor is far greater than we realize. The wealth that I call attention to is merely a visible image of what happens when all the conditions are in place that permit a person to provide himself with everything that corresponds to the degree of that self-love. Is it possible that my real estate portfolio could look something like that, if billions of dollars were to suddenly fall on my lap? Of course it is possible, but I hope not, and if not, it will only be by the grace of God. But whenever we see this kind of luxury, it is really a manifestation of what happens when all the conditions are in place that permit a person to look after himself in a way that measures up to the degree of his own self-love. We want the best for ourselves and we probably don’t realize just how great that love is because of our circumstances. These celebrities help us get a glimpse of it. 

And it is a strange phenomenon that the more wealth a person acquires, the greater is his desire for more. One would think that greater wealth would be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in desire, that one is gradually reaching the point at which one no longer feels the need for more wealth–after all, I have everything I need and more. But it seems the opposite happens; the more wealth is acquired, the desire for more continues to increase. 

The first beatitude in today’s gospel is the most fundamental: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs”. Those who are poor know it. They feel their poverty, their lack of life’s basic necessities; they struggle to make ends meet. Those who are poor in spirit, however, are poor not necessarily in material things, but “in spirit”, and they too know it, they are aware of their spiritual destitution, that is, aware of their utter need for God. The poor in spirit know that independence and control are basically illusions. We are, all of us, one freak accident away from ending up in a hospital bed, dependent upon the care of others, or worse, on the streets with a serious mental incapacity to take care of ourselves. 

A person poor in spirit is open to God, desires God, will go in search of God–and of course, anyone who seeks God finds him. In fact, anyone who is actively seeking God has already been found by God. The difficulty is getting to that place where one actually begins to feel one’s own radical need for God. That is much rarer than we tend to think. Most of us, it seems, have to “hit rock bottom” before it begins to dawn on us that we really do need God. I believe this is one reason God allows suffering in our lives.

And so, poverty of spirit, the experience of a deep interior need for God, is really the greatest gift that a person can receive, for it is in fact the gift of faith, because faith begins with precisely that openness to God and readiness to surrender to him. And the blessing that goes with poverty of spirit is the kingdom of God, which Jesus compares to a treasure hidden in a field that someone finds and who goes off and sells everything he owns in order to buy that field. In other words, having the kingdom of God, living within it, having Christ reign over one’s life, is far more valuable than a collection of properties that add up to about 600 million dollars. To have found that interior treasure is to have become aware of that, which is the fruit of true poverty of spirit. 

The ones whom I have met in my life as a Deacon who are truly poor in spirit have been those who suffer from mental illness, in particular clinical depression. In my experience, these have had the deepest sense of their utter need for God. It was precisely the experience of their darkness that made them call out to God. It seems counterintuitive to imply that clinical depression can be one of God’s greatest gifts, but there is some truth to this. Friendships are typically based on common qualities and interests, which is why mental sufferers really do have something in common with Christ, namely, their life of suffering, a life that amounts to accompanying Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, keeping him company in the mental anguish he experienced on Holy Thursday night. That vocation imparts a much greater dignity and identity than does owning a multi-million-dollar estate and a private jet. As they say, we bring none of our wealth with us to the grave, only what we have in our souls, that is, our spiritual and moral identity. And the more like Christ that identity is, the more beautiful it is, and that is a beauty we will possess for eternity. 

The other beatitude that I would like to address is purity of heart, because according to the Desert Fathers and Mothers, that is the very purpose of the spiritual life. The pure in heart shall see God. “Pure” (katharoi) means clean or unmixed (as in pure maple syrup, which is unmixed with any artificial additives). A pure heart is one that loves God with an undivided love, a love not mixed with a competing love of self. 

Purity in heart involves a loss of a sense of “I”. In many ways, it is a return to the innocence of childhood, the innocence of the first parents in the Garden. When we compare ourselves to others, perhaps feeling a kind of satisfaction in knowing we are better than another in some way, there is a definite felt sense of “I”. But consider the times when you are watching a great film; you lose all sense of a “self” watching the movie. It’s as if you and the movie are one. That’s the place we need to get to in the spiritual life, if we are to be pure in heart. At that point, everything is seen in God and God is seen in everything; everything is loved in God, and God is loved in everything, and that sense of “I” disappears, at least for the most part.

The only regret we will have at the end of our lives is that we did not achieve this level of purity. In other words, we loved ourselves too much and did not love others enough. The real joy in human existence, however, is loving others as another self. St. Teresa of Calcutta often employed the expression “the joy of loving”. Think of the self as a kind of prison cell. The more we love others as we love ourselves, the more we go outside of ourselves, outside of the prison walls. That’s true freedom, and the result is that we bring so much more light and life to others who are living in darkness. 

Cloud of Witnesses

Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deacon Doug McManaman

There is a line in the 2nd reading from Hebrews that struck me, and it is the following: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely…” (Heb 12, 1-4). This notion that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses is so important. The expression refers to the faithful individuals from the past, including of course those saints who have been canonized.

When I was a full-time teacher, I used to visit my best friend Father Don Sanvido of the Hamilton Diocese a couple of times every semester, to give him a break from preaching, etc. I am an early riser, and this one morning I got up just before 5 am, went to the living room of the rectory, and said my breviary. When I finished, I looked up and noticed, on a large bookshelf, Butler’s four volume Lives of the Saints. I went up to the books, closed my eyes, randomly selected a volume, opened the book and placed my finger on a randomly selected page. Wherever my finger landed, I would read the life of that saint. I landed on some 3rd century saint I’ve never heard of before. After reading about her life, less than a page of that volume, I felt tremendous inspiration. I felt awakened. So I did it once more, this time choosing a different volume, landing on a 6th century male saint. His life and character was totally different from the first woman I’d read about, but I felt inspired once again, like I had just drank a large glass of orange juice. The feeling was actually in my body.  

And this is the lie we’ve been fed for years in the world of entertainment: goodness is boring; evil is interesting. But it’s really the other way around; goodness is profoundly interesting and inspiring, while evil is nothing but an empty promise. Goodness inspires and fills, but people tend to believe the opposite. My first 10 years of teaching were in a very poor and broken neighbourhood of Toronto, but every year our students would raise over 60 thousand food items for the Food Bank at Christmas, more than any other institution in the city. At first, we’d notify the media, the local newspapers, but no one was interested. However, let there be a non-fatal stabbing in the school Cafeteria and it’s on every local news channel by 6 o’clock in the evening. 

The lives and stories of the faithful are far more interesting. Think of a typical coffee shop, a Tim Horton’s for example. Practically everyone there is a non entity to you, and you are a non entity to them. But if any one of us were to sit down at a table where some old man is having his coffee and were to ask him to spend the next hour or so telling us about himself, his life history, etc., a whole world would open up before us and his life would acquire color and significance, and we’d never see him the same way again. Consider the number of tombstones in a typical cemetery. Each one represents a massive biography that would easily exceed two thousand pages. I am convinced that in our first few thousand years in heaven, we’re going to be reading biographies–without the actual books, that is, we will be coming to know the deepest meaning of every human person in the kingdom of God. The life of each person is a unique instance and expression of the workings of divine providence. We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, and we hope one day to be part of that communion of saints. 

But that is a frightening thought, in many ways. I think of the third volume of the Lord of the Rings, the scene in which Gandalf comes before Theoden, King of Rohan, who is under a spell that was cast by the diabolical character, Wormtongue. Gandalf is trying to get through to the King that he needs to call his people to take up arms and join in the resistance against Saruman’s forces. The king, however, is just not awake to the danger that is approaching, but Gandalf finally breaks the spell and Theoden suddenly realizes what he has to do and gathers his men for battle. Eowen, the king’s daughter, arms herself for battle because she too is determined to fight the evil that threatens. Theoden is finally struck down in the battle of Pelennor, and as she kneels down beside her dying father, he says the following: “My body is broken. I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed”. 

That is a tremendous line: “I shall not now be ashamed”. In other words, I would have been ashamed having died refusing to enter into battle and suffer for the sake of my people, but not now. We are destined to join our fathers and mothers, and the question I have often asked myself over the years is whether or not I will feel ashamed in their mighty company. Think of the courageous lives of our great saints, like St. Patrick, who in the 4th century was captured by Irish marauders and was a slave for 6 years in a region of Northern Ireland. He finally escaped and walked more than 200 miles to board a ship back to Britain. Years later, as a result of a dream he had in which the Irish were calling him to return, he actually returns as a missionary, surrounded by danger and living in hardship. Or consider the life of St. John de Brebeuf among the Hurons, in 17th century Canada, in the brutal Canadian winters, without heated vehicles, traveling in the freezing temperatures, long trips by canoe and portages over land, carrying canoes and supplies around rapids and waterfalls, living on corn mush for weeks on end. Or St. Isaac Jogues who was tortured, his hands mutilated, and yet after going back to France actually returned to the missions and ended his life as a martyr. Or St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose feast we just celebrated, who took the place of a polish sergeant chosen to die by starvation in a Nazi concentration camp in retaliation for an escaped prisoner. It took Maximillian two weeks to die of starvation. Or St. Thomas More who refused to take the oath of Parliament and was confined to the Tower of London for more than a year before being found guilty of treason. All he had to do was take a simple oath, and he would have been restored to his former position with all the perks of high office, an estate in Chelsea, a life of ease and prestige. Instead, he chose not to violate his conscience, and he had his head cut off for it–he was originally scheduled to be hung, drawn and quartered, but at the last minute the king had mercy and commuted the sentence to beheading. And then you have great saints in our day like Mother Theresa who left the comforts of the Loretto Convent to live on the streets of Calcutta. 

These are the kinds of people we are going to be in the presence of in the kingdom of God. That could turn out to be a rather uncomfortable experience, at least initially. Their lives were on fire with the fire that Jesus spoke of in Luke: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12, 49). God is a consuming fire and their lives were burning with it. 

And that’s what the spiritual life is about, becoming more and more disposed to be lit by the fire of the divine love for the human beings that Christ came to die for. In the end, that is the only real joy in life, the joy of loving others, as Mother Teresa worded it.  As St. John of the Cross wrote: “In the evening of this life, we will be judged on love alone”. Nothing else; not our accomplishments or awards, not our social status, not even the office we might have held in the Church. Only on love, that is, on how large the fire is that burns within us.