Posted on 09/24/2005 11:30:10 AM PDT by tuesday afternoon
I mean that really took a whole lotta effort to sqeeze that much outta my pea-brain. I'm not that smart, in fact I feel like I oughta go down to the Spiritual Life Center and sign up for every single course taught their, I feel so small next to so many of the Catholic posters here, they know their stuff :)
Since Matrimony is a Sacrament --- a means by which we receive grace and become more God-pleasing --- and sexual intercourse is a constitutive element of the Sacrament, and is considered part of the "mysterium tremendum" spoken of by the apostle Paul, an image of the love of Christ and the Church, I would hardly say that the Catholic Church has "denied" that sexuality is a gift of God!
In fact, the criticism one hears more often these days, is that the Church makes entirely too much of sex; that the Church insists too much on sex having lasting meaning; that, rather than sex being trivialized, it is in Catholicism too much exalted, regarded as the root of all human society here on earth and a metaphor of heaven to come.
I treasure the "high" view, myself. Not that I have always lived it in every thought, word, and deed, but I treasure it and try to live up to it.
I regard the Catholic Church as one of the few really comprehensive defenders of Sex. In the Church, marriage and celibacy share the same meaning: marriage, because the sexual union of man and woman is such a good gift; celibacy, as a sacrifice, and a sign that the best is yet to come.
"Looks like I missed this one. Excellent angle - the idiotic craziness of calling Same Sex Attraction a "gift from God". Justifying it like that is a sign of horrible spiritual sickness."
Before the 2006 election, we will hear how ever sexual mental illness is a "Gift from God, and that we mustn't judge those who receive these "Gifts".
"Celibacy is NOT a normal human state for man or woman. " You're right if you add "for a man or woman in the fallen condition we are all born into".
But in the spiritual pure state that we are instructed by God to stive for, one can be celibate and at the same time perfectly at peace.
That would be "spirituall pure"/
Note to self: Proofread!
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