“The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality” is a Masterpiece

The Pontifical Council for the Family’s The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality (TMHS, 12/8/95) is a catechetical masterpiece, suitable for bookending with Saint Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and his voluminous other works.

Rather than a TMHS “Summa”, this brief article aims to whet appetites and lead readers to the document itself.

Between its intro and conclusion, the TMHS is divided as follows:

• Called to True Love
• True Love and Chastity
• In the Light of Vocation
• Father and Mother as Educators
• Learning Stages
• Practical Guidelines

TMHS celebrates God’s magnificent gift of human sexuality and parents as their children’s rightful/primary teachers.

TMHS provides wonderful developmental/psychological/theological insights and echoes the Catechism: “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being.”

Called to True Love

Each of us is made in God’s image and called to live like the Holy Trinity.  In marriage, the wife and husband are called to unity and procreation – a procreation that brings forth and raises new little people.  The wife and husband are cooperators with God’s ongoing work of creation.  Pause here….

Think for a moment (or lifetime) about being a cooperator in God’s ongoing work of creation – it doesn’t get any better!  Nothing compares!

In raising children, the wife and husband must promote chastity – the right ordering of God’s awesome gift of human sexuality- for the next generation’s own call to continue God’s work of creation.  Wow!

True Love and Chastity

People can rightly respond to God by choosing authentic/exclusive/lifelong marriage or by foregoing that incredibly good gift for His glory.  Celibacy is not simply being unmarried, but the sacrificial foregoing of marriage.  How could celibacy be a gift to God, unless the person treasured what was sacrificed?

In the Light of Vocation 

In my opinion, we are unaccustomed to proper esteem for marriage, as far too many hierarchy, clergy and others minimize God’s love in His Sacrament of Reconciliation and ridiculously fear offending others by truly proclaiming the Catechism:

2392 “Love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being” (FC 11).

2393 By creating the human being man and woman, God gives personal dignity equally to the one and the other. Each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.

2394 Christ is the model of chastity. Every baptized person is called to lead a chaste life, each according to his particular state of life.

2395 Chastity means the integration of sexuality within the person. It includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery.

2396 Among the sins gravely contrary to chastity are masturbation, fornication, pornography, and homosexual practices.

2397 The covenant which spouses have freely entered into entails faithful love. It imposes on them the obligation to keep their marriage indissoluble.

2398 Fecundity is a good, a gift and an end of marriage. By giving life, spouses participate in God’s fatherhood.

2399 The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception).

2400 Adultery, divorce, polygamy, and free union are grave offenses against the dignity of marriage.

In my opinion, any hierarchy, clergy, vowed religious, or teachers of Catholicism who are unwilling to proclaim the Catechism (That includes you James Martin, SJ,) should stop their dishonesty and get themselves new “gigs.”

Fathers and Mothers as Educators 

I was born in 1959 and married in 1986.  My parents and parents in law were pious Catholics living in less challenging times:

we are dealing with a right and duty to educate which, in the past, Christian parents carried out or exercised little. Perhaps this was because the problem was not as acute as it is today, or because the parents’ task was in part fulfilled by the strength of prevailing social models and the role played by the Church and the Catholic school in this area. It is not easy for parents to take on this educational commitment because today it appears to be rather complex, and greater than what the family could offer, also because, in most cases, it is not possible to refer to what one’s own parents did in this regard.

I am NOT in the same league of sanctity as my father or my father-in-law.  Yet, God has equipped me with spiritual armor needed for this time and place.  I cannot shy away from donning that armor.  

Paths of Formation Within the Family 

The family itself provides the best setting for conveying the TMHS, as well as its “prerequisite” virtues and piety.

Learning Stages 

Emminently practical, the TMHS dives into insights and particular for what it calls:

1. The Years of Innocence
   2. Puberty
   3. Adolescence in One’s Plan in Life….
   4. Towards Adulthood

Practical Guidelines

Accepting God-given roles as primary teachers of their own children, parents need God’s assistance and the fullness of His truth, so as to avoid being hoodwinked (Lots of wolves in sheep’s clothing are out there!)  Parents can benefit from the mutual support of like minded others!

Conclusion

I will now circle back to the start and repeat that The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality is a 1995 masterpiece.

Was it  coincidental or providential that the TMHS was published on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception?