Give us this day our daily... Catholic church issues prayer for faithful to say before sex

Daily Mail ^ | 02nd September 2009 | Simon Caldwell

[Daffynition]

Roman Catholic couples are being encouraged to pray together before they have sex.

A book published by a prominent Church group invites those setting out on married life to recite the specially-composed Prayer Before Making Love.

It is aimed at 'purifying their intentions' so that the act is not about selfishness or hedonism.

The prayer, which appears in the Prayer Book for Spouses, implores God 'to place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes'.

It adds: 'Open our hearts to you, to each other and to the goodness of your will.

'Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations, for your glory, for ever and ever.'

The 64-page book has been published by the London-based Catholic Truth Society.

Prayer book

Marital advice: The prayer book

The group has close links to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.

The Rt Rev Paul Hendricks, who is the Auxiliary Bishop of Southwark and sits on the charity's board, said he thought the prayer's inclusion was 'brave but good'.

'I suppose it is a bit idealistic but it is recognising that God is at the heart of the marriage relationship between husband and wife,' he said.

'It is important for the Church to affirm the value of marriage and family life and I suppose this is a particular way of doing that.'

'Perhaps it is something that has not been tried, certainly for a while - I can't remember seeing something like that before.'

The book contains prayers for every stage of marriage and family life, including engagement, planning for parenthood......

[snip]

[Daffynition]

[SkyPilot]

In the Bible, God is very clear about sexual immortality (rape, adultery, incest, homosexuality, prostitution, bestiality, and other forms of abhorrent behavior.). However, God repeatedly stresses the privacy and intimacy of married couples. God is not a divine voyeur.

I think the writer Phillip Yancy said it best when he wrote (I am paraphrasing):

God delights that couples are united, and then He closes the curtains and shuts the door.

While prayer is so important, I don't think this kind of edict or book of suggested words for married couples to say before sex is really appropriate or Biblical.

But......whatever.

[SolidWood]

1 Corinthians 7:4

4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

[DeuceTraveler]

Well ... The lady of the house mentions God during the act. Will that count?

[Biggirl]

But did not God touch upon the specialness of married love,romance,and passion in the Bible book of the Song Of Songs?

While that book of the Bible also speaks of the great love God has for His people Isreal as well of Christ for His bride, the Church, there are many references to the loving presence of God.

[pnh102]

It is aimed at 'purifying their intentions' so that the act is not about selfishness or hedonism.

This is silly. Why shouldn't sex between married couples be strictly for physical pleasure if that is what the couple wants?

God makes it clear that sex outside of marriage is a sin. However, once a couple chooses to marry, it should be no-holds-barred if that's what the couple wants.

[Thrownatbirth]

Depending on the circumstances, who hasn’t said “Thank God!” before sex?

[thecabal]

There’s a Monty Python sketch in here somewhere...

[Daffynition]

“If I were the president If I were Queen for a day
I’d give the ugly people all the money
I’d re-write the Book of Love I’d make it funny”

.............amen.

[Daffynition]

.....among other things! Yes!!!

[Mad Dawg]

I don't think this kind of edict or book of suggested words for married couples to say before sex is really appropriate or Biblical.

Edict? What edict? A bunch of Catholics publish a book and it's an edict?

God is not a divine voyeur.
...
He closes the curtains and shuts the door.

"On the contrary:" (channeling Aquinas here)
Psalm 139:7-12

Of course we have a few more books in our OT than some Protestants. In one of them, Tobit, there is a lovely prayer right before sex.

[Chickensoup]

However, once a couple chooses to marry, it should be no-holds-barred if that’s what the couple wants.

I think that the CC is trying to help focus on sexual mutuality here. Hedonism of one member of the couple can leave the other member used.

[married21]

“Well ... The lady of the house mentions God during the act. Will that count?”

---

Sure. I was also thinking that a simple “hallelujah!” would not be inappropriate.

[Daffynition]

No one owns me. Nor do I own anyone else.

If and when I choose, my body is given as a gift to another. This has shades of chattel in it, much as found in the Muslim faith.

[Mad Dawg]

I think the implication of the text is that Paul thinks of marriage as a mutual self-giving. Each belongs not only to himself but also to the other. The mutuality, I think removes the “Chattel” aspect.

[Daffynition]

Not positive, but I don’t think Catholics have much leeway into interpreting the Bible. OK ...here’s a one and only shot at this:

What is conventionally called “love” is an ego strategy to avoid surrender. You are looking to someone to give you that which can only come to you in the state of surrender. The ego uses that person as a substitute to avoid having to surrender. The Spanish language is the most honest in this respect. It uses the same verb, te quiero, for “I love you” and “I want you.” To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change. The ego singles someone out and makes them special. It uses that person to cover up the constant underlying feeling of discontent, of “not enough,” of anger and hate, which are closely related. These are facets of an underlying deep seated feeling in human beings that is inseparable from the egoic state.

.

When the ego singles something out and says “I love” this or that, it’s an unconscious attempt to cover up or remove the deep-seated feelings that always accompany the ego: the discontent, the unhappiness, the sense of insufficiency that is so familiar. For a little while, the illusion actually works. Then inevitably, at some point, the person you singled out, or made special in your eyes, fails to function as a cover up for your pain, hate, discontent or unhappiness which all have their origin in that sense of insufficiency and incompleteness. Then, out comes the feeling that was covered up, and it gets projected onto the person that had been singled out and made special - who you thought would ultimately “save you.” Suddenly love turns to hate. The ego doesn’t realize that the hatred is a projection of the universal pain that you feel inside. The ego believes that this person is causing the pain. It doesn’t realize that the pain is the universal feeling of not being connected with the deeper level of your being - not being at one with yourself.

.

The object of love is interchangeable, as interchangeable as the object of egoic wanting. Some people go through many relationships. They fall in love and out of love many times. They love a person for a while until it doesn’t work anymore, because no person can permanently cover up that pain.

.

Only surrender can give you what you were looking for in the object of your love. The ego says surrender is not necessary because I love this person. It’s an unconscious process of course. The moment you accept completely what is, something inside you emerges that had been covered up by egoic wanting. It is an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself. When that happens, a completely different kind of love is present which is not subject to love / hate. It doesn’t single out one thing or person as special. It’s absurd to even use the same word for it. Now it can happen that even in a normal love / hate relationship, occasionally, you enter the state of surrender. Temporarily, briefly, it happens: you experience a deeper universal love and a complete acceptance that can sometimes shine through, even in an otherwise egoic relationship. If surrender is not sustained, however, it gets covered up again with the old egoic patterns. So, I’m not saying that the deeper, true love cannot be present occasionally, even in a normal love / hate relationship. But it is rare and usually short-lived.

.

Whenever you accept what is, something deeper emerges then what is. So, you can be trapped in the most painful dilemma, external or internal, the most painful feelings or situation, and the moment you accept what is, you go beyond it, you transcend it. Even if you feel hatred, the moment you accept that this is what you feel, you transcend it. It may still be there, but suddenly you are at a deeper place where it doesn’t matter that much anymore.

.

The entire phenomenal universe exists because of the tension between the opposites. Hot and cold, growth and decay, gain and loss, success and failure, the polarities that are part of existence, and of course part of every relationship.

[JoeProBono]

[Daffynition]

[Mad Dawg]

I'm mostly with you until the last paragraph. I wouldn't say "Creation is because of," but I'd certainly entertain "Creation involves inescapable polarities," or something like that.

For the bulk of the rest, I'd say we have some different terminology, but most of the differences are trivial and easily negotiated.

I guess my edumication is so broad that the comparatively recent phenomenon of marriage and "love" being sort of automatically related sometimes slips my mind. Ever since a fine conversation I had 32 years ago with an Indian couple whose marriage had been arranged by their parents, I no longer take it as a given that "FIRST comes love, THEN comes marriage."

The husband and wife looked fondly at each other as she patted his leg and said, "The love comes ..." It made a great impression on me.

All of which is to say that when Paul talks about marriage it may never have occurred to him that some people would think he was talking about what we call "love", and certainly not about the "passion" or "feeling" of love.

In the "Traditional" marriage service (I was brought up an Episcopalian) there is a promise to love. I certainly never thought that that was or could be a promise to have a certain type of feeling about my wife. (It would be interesting to look at marriage vows in Spanish and see if quiero shows up.)

I think a lot of the psychology which you describe is on the money. I'd even say a lot of it has to do with how people, in their frequent fearful flights from insight, make a hash of their marriages and of their relationships in general.

And of course, being a feelthy papist and reading Paul (as I am and I do), I resonate deeply and happily with your talk of ego surrender. Pauline mysticism, greatly unappreciated IMHO -- even unnoticed -- is much about entering into the death of Christ as part of the soul's, uh, what shall I say, progress or process toward Life. If we can take Paul's "old man" as corresponding to your "ego", glibly I would say that Paul says, the old man must die, so that he finally says, "Now I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me."

It also strikes me as somehow important that in at least the Soto sect of the Zen school they talk about "dying the great death."

ANYWAY, I guess one of the reasons we hidebound, rigid, and tunnel-visioned Catholics see marriage as sacred is that it is an opportunity to enter intentionally into a relationship which requires a commitment which will almost always sooner or later require a surrender, a death. I am now old enough to have seen marriages die on the vine because that challenging requirement was no noticed or dodged. I have seen one or both of a couple only come to the death late in life.

But as Paul says, "You are not your own, you were bought at a price," about all of us who "belong" to God, he displays his thought that marriage is like the relationship that God has to the Church by saying that now each of you is the belonging of the other. And I would add, this is true whether you feel it or not, like it or not, know it or not.

And as far as the possessive or devouring sort of love (C.S. Lewis is VERY good on this) is concerned, Paul's saying works as kind of a check. Husband can only devour wife to the extent that wife can devour husband -- which comes down to, not at all.

Thanks for your thoughts. I enjoyed reading them.

[AFPhys]

Sorry I’m not thinking philosophically enough to expand more on my criticism here, but I believe that love is more and less than you are saying here.

My example is the love I’ve seen many many parents have for their children (and that God has for us, and that I believe I’ve seen in my parents and some other couples). The love many have for children is such that it doesn’t matter how dumb or evil or wrong or nasty or brilliant their children are; it doesn’t matter if the child is a Down Syndrome vegetable (I know a lady of this)- - - the love is there no matter what happens or whatever the child does or does not do.