THEOLOGY OF THE BODY – FR. THOMAS LOYA – APRIL 9, 2011 “LOVE & RESPONSIBILITY” [Sr. Helena’s invaluable comments in brackets]
GOOD NEWS, CHICAGO! FR. LOYA WILL NOW BE ON “RADIO MARIA”
(an international Catholic radio network) on 1450AM Tuesdays from 4-6pm. It will be a TOB show, and eventually become a TOB call-in show!
(Love and relationship advice from a Catholic perspective!)
SENSES—COGNITION—IMPRESSION—EMOTION—VALUE
SENSUALITY—SENTIMENTALITY—INTEGRATED LOVE
Men are attracted to the “value” of femininity in a woman first of all, and vice-versa. Femininity and masculinity come “through” us, and if there is goodness there, it’s very attractive. But then a choice is involved: to love this person AS a person (whether the attraction grows or disappoints).
In a marriage in crisis, ask first of all: Who are you as persons? You are brother and sister in Christ. (There’s a need to put all the emotional hurt aside and recall this.) It doesn’t matter what this person did to me. They are still persons. How does a Christian-person respond to another Christian-person? Then as Catholic persons? If we relate on this level, then anything can be resolved/redeemed.
The only honest reaction to any person is love. If you don’t keep it at this level, it will just be a mess. We can’t stay at the sensuality (often guys start here more than girls) or sentimentality (often girls start here more than guys) level. We have to get to the integrated level [which means coming out of myself and not always seeking self]. Father knows an older couple (one is a deacon) who started out in their relationship very strongly all about the physical, but it grew and grew to an integrated love. [Today, people are terrified of the sacrifice involved in the “coming out of myself.” Terrified that “the other” won’t reciprocate or will eventually abandon us. That’s why we need to be rooted and grounded in Christ’s sacrificial love, so that it’s not ONLY human love that we are clinging to, that’s holding us up.]
p. 115: BJP2G sez “love is a drama” which involves our inner life very deeply. Man is free, otherwise we’d be determined by every movement, emotion, instinct.
Q: What caused the sexual revolution?
A: So many factors! The Pill, the World Wars (which dehumanized) and also separated men and women, and sent women into the work place, [junk sexual science (Masters & Johnson, Kinsey), and some Freudian understandings]. BJP2G: We need truth AND freedom! Sexual revolution=freedom without truth. “Repressed Catholics”=truth without freedom. When love ceases to be interior, it ceases to be love. For humans, it can’t JUST be physical.
p. 117—“That which is not free, that which is a compulsion is not love.”
p. 120--The world today only listens to its own experience, what is “real to me.” [The world no longer believes in what it cannot see, what authority tells it, what it has not experienced.] This is why BJP2G decided to use the phenomenological approach to philosophy: going through experience to the truth. Going through what can be One should not look to psychology for direction in love, but in ethics! The duty/morality here is the PERSONALISTIC NORM. We treat things according to what they ARE.
Without virtue, there is no love. BJP2G: VIRTUE first, then full flowering of LOVE. WORLD: LOVE-EXPERIENCE first, and we’ll figure out our own VIRTUE. [But it’s not working! AOL article on widespread depression after sex: Sad in the Sack: Do You Have Post-Sex Depression? - Sexual Health - Everyday Health ]
We shouldn’t say: “I love you because….” It’s simply, “I love you because you’re a person.” That’s why we don’t accept: “I’m gay.” No, you’re a person.
DATING TODAY: I like, I see, I appropriate, I take. Then I dump when I don’t like any more. It’s like “mock marriage”—rush into intimacy immediately. A lot of young women are hurting today, because women get more serious right away, but they shouldn’t! [STDs also damage women MORE than men!] They treat their boyfriend like a husband. Especially the girls will say: “he cheated on me,” “my ex.” Girls set themselves up for this hurt! And then they want to commit suicide. He never belonged to you in the first place! Were you engaged? [Dating can also be mutual “fun,” but how can you “play” with something so serious?]
Sr. Anne: my 20 yr old niece sez when they date, it’s exclusive right away. One young woman didn’t want any girls talking to her boyfriend: “Don’t they know he’s not single?” Wait! He is!
Fr. Loya: We should wipe out dating, only do courting OR go back to the old way of wholesome dating which was really opportunities to meet people. [We need mentoring in dating from older generations before the “tradition” is completely lost!] [Some women heading to divorce will say: he’s the only man I ever dated…. ]
Comment from class: Women feel possessed by a man, he can come on very strong. [Which women both hate and love!]
Men can’t be ordained unless his sexual organs are functioning. [This would explain why “gay” men shouldn’t be ordained. We are ONE person, body and soul and the body is a theology, and the priest is a father and must be such in potentiality, body and soul.]
Q: What about older couples getting married?
A: They must be able to have sexual intercourse. Because marriage is sex and sex is marriage. The marriage is not consummated without sexual intercourse, at least once.
ONLINE COMMENT: A couple even after the wife’s hysterectomy continue to practice the NFP lifestyle in order for the husband to “show that he loves his wife”!!! (So they abstain 7-10 days a month)!
p. 129—RECIPROCITY: “I get what I need only by giving to you.” Love is, of its nature, reciprocal. Only those who know how to give love know how to receive love and vice versa. [Even though it may seem that some people know how to GIVE love but not receive, it’s not true. The giving might be a compulsion, or even a form of self-hatred, low self-esteem, etc.]
Love has to maintain the inner structure of friendship. We find ourselves by giving ourselves away, but it’s not a reckless giving away. We can’t make a gift of self unless we have a self to possess, which means we mean we KNOW who we are as persons, as men or women, in Christ. Love is a skill and art that we can develop no matter what our background has been (abuse, lovelessness, no good models of love).
Comment: Loving is not an inbred quality that only certain people have!
p. 131—The greater the feeling of responsibility for the person, the greater love there is. It’s a weighty matter when choosing what person to bestow the gift of self on! It’s like choosing another “I”! We have to make sure that objectively you should be together (at least no glaring objective impediments).
NEXT MONTH: CHAPTER 3. Starts p. 143.
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