THEOLOGY OF THE BODY: "LOVE & RESPONSIBILITY"

FR. THOMAS LOYA – “LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY” –CHAPTER 3—

“THE PERSON & CHASTITY”
JUNE 11, 2011
[indispensable comments by Sr. Helena in brackets]

(going back a little): P. 138—Lust wants to take over a person to use them. Love wants to create happiness and the other person’s good. “Happiness” isn’t like what we normally think of as happiness. It isn’t that one person is making the other person happy in the moment so that that person’s happiness relies on the other person. It’s willing/working toward the ultimate good of the other. And it has to be “reciprocal”—BJP2G’s concept of “reciprocity.” We have to will GOD for the other person because only God can truly fulfill us. “Only people of faith can state quite clearly that the ultimate good is God.” –BJP2G

Couples need to will getting to heaven for each other!

It’s the awareness of a person’s total value—not just their sexual value. Love is the highest of values, but one needs to know how to transfer that to everyday life. It’s called “the education to love.” Love is a task, it’s not just a given. Love never “is,” it’s always a becoming and depends on the depth of the commitment of the persons involved.

Emotion, sensual desire, attraction is not wrong! It’s the raw material! You MUST have it! We should be attracted, aroused, inspired by the opposite sex, but not just by the visible, but the whole body-person! The invisible as well as the visible dimension of the person. This is very important because there’s a lot of misunderstanding about TOB here. [Like some Muslims think it’s wrong to have any reaction at all to a woman, so she needs to put a bag over her head.] There’s an error being made here. The desire is not wrong in itself. It is good. [It’s what you do with it.] The WILL must take that raw material and develop it into love of the whole person in an integrated way. The task! [The raw material is a starting point!] I choose to love ALL of you and will the good for all of you. Most of our culture just stops at he /sensual and leaves it there. This can fool a couple into thinking they actually LOVE each other. That’s why the relationship sours. There is so much MISSING in the relationship. [Society probably helped the love-task-process by making sexual relations outside of marriage taboo, so they HAD to get to know each other first before any physical relationship, and then, in marriage.] Premature physical relationships confuse, cloud and blind the person as to where the relationship should or should not go. They are no longer free or free to truly choose and choose well. CHASTITY is good for practical reasons because it helps us to perceive, see clearly and be truly free.

Movie “SPANGLISH”—is a good illustration because the couple goes to the brink, but they knew it wasn’t right, right for them (it would have been adulterous), and don’t go any further.

CHAPTER 3—p. 143
“Chastity” is resented because of weakness of will. It demands a higher resolution of will. The Catholic Church, by saying “no” to the wrong and “yes” to the good, becomes the conscience of the world. We all absolutely RESENT saying “no” to ourselves. The Catholic Church is one of the singular voices in the world that knows and sticks to the truth.

When Clinton got into sexual trouble, it was like permission for the rest of us. Someone in this lofty position came down, so that means we don’t have to “go up.” Chastity/virginity is even seen as an evil! Do NOT discount “sloth”! M. Scott Peck’s take on original sin was that it was “sloth,” Adam and Eve didn’t make the effort, they took a shortcut. [All 7 capital sins are connected, superimposed on each other!] Aquinas defines sloth (acedia) as a sadness that the good is so difficult!

Emotions can conceal the lack of true love or egoism even.

[We need to tell people: JUST KEEP GOING in their relationships! Affirm their feelings! But tell them they can have SO MUCH MORE! It can be SO MUCH BETTER! Isn’t that what we all want?]

Father wants a billboard to help people: “To hell with your feelings!” (Our feelings can be leading us to hell, too!) Feelings are like indicators on our dashboard. The greater reality is WHAT they’re indicating. “I feel angry!” Why? Because of thought processes and convictions you have.
In the sexual revolution, people actually thought they WERE being HONEST by FOLLOWING THEIR FEELINGS outside of chastity, outside of marriage, leading them out of religious life/priesthood. [Blessed James Alberione’s JESUS TRUTH, WAY, LIFE spirituality is about developing MIND, WILL, HEART equally. Wow. I never thought of applying his spirituality to TOB!]

We need to tell same-sex attracted people: We’re not denying what you FEEL [it’s real], but what are you going to do with it?

Egoism precludes LOVE and any shared/common good. Concupiscence is the habit of seeing people only sexually. It’s the constant temptation of humans to INVERT the order of values! [It doesn’t mean the spiritual is higher than the physical, it means that because we don’t SEE RIGHTLY, we keep separating out values that belong together: e.g., sexual pleasure and a person’s character. What we should be seeing, the real value, the highest value is the TOTAL INTEGRATED BODY-PERSON.

Neither sensuality or carnal desire is a sin. It’s just the raw material for sin or grace! Wojtyla is careful to base all this stuff on Aquinas, “Captain Catholic” himself! It BECOMES sin when YOU IN YOUR MIND [it’s not the other person’s body out there that’s at fault/to blame!!] DISINTEGRATE the body-person. It starts inside. [And that’s why Jesus said you can commit adultery in your heart.]

P. 162
PROCESS:
I see something…

I have a non-sinful reaction…

and then I either feel shame (but don’t need to!) OR I give in to lust (by willing the arousal to be an end itself—and usually it will be outside the context of a loving marriage!)…

and because I want to be justified/refuse to admit I’m not perfect/I’m proud, not humble…
I wallow in shame/guilt OR I blame the person/image/thing outside of me…

and

become discouraged/despair OR give up trying OR live in denial/double-life OR affirm sin as good
(see p. 170!—results: hypocrisy, unchastity!)
INSTEAD: WE HAVE TO ADMIT THAT WE ARE ALL SCREWED UP. NOT BECAUSE I’M SUCH A BAD PERSON, BUT BECAUSE OF THE FALL. THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE IS SCREWED UP.
WELCOME TO THE HUMAN RACE.
BUT WE ARE ALSO REDEEMED. WE CAN OVERCOME LUST WITH THE GRACE OF GOD.
BUT IT’S NOT EASY. LIFE-LONG TASK/CHALLENGE/BATTLE.

[We have to realize that our interior life is sooo important. Everything starts there. We need purity of heart. We need to will what God wills. Love what God wills. Monica Ashour, TOB evangelizer, puts it this way: We need to work on our purity of heart and then figure out how we will express that through our bodies.]

p. 162—Even if we strongly will not to lust, we CAN’T will not to feel!! And the body will RESIST your attempts to quell/channel arousal!

Being ASEXUAL is NOT purity of heart! We ARE sexual beings, and it’s good and it’s the way we’re made and what God wants for us. It’s how we “are,” how we “be.”

Women tend to put the emotional feelings first. But feelings CAN even be INIMICAL to truth in behavior. “What is pleasant must always be good” is not true! Is your will intent on unconditional pleasure? What’s your goal?
[So what should we be pursuing? Truth, Goodness, Beauty: JESUS TRUTH, WAY, LIFE.]

p. 170--“To be chaste means having a transparent attitude toward the person of the other sex.” “Chastity is often understood as blind inhibition of sex….so we push sex drive down into the subconscious where it’s going to EXPLODE.” –BJP2G (BJP2G uses the word "explode" and "explosion" TWICE.)

“This is when we see chastity as primarily negative! But it’s primarily a positive YES of which some ‘no’s’ are a consequence.” “Sex alone is allowed to reign supreme as the highest value.”

“Chastity is a long term integration of, not denial, of body-sex.”

Chastity=integration of body and soul.
Purity=seeing the glory of God in the human body.

In Eastern Church, they pray over and over during the marriage ceremony for “a chaste marriage.” What this means is: see each other as persons always!!!

[70-year-old woman in class: “But our lives our wasted now! I’m so jealous of these younger people! I can’t create a beautiful marriage!” Everyone encouraged her that she always has her interior life, is heading to the heavenly marriage, can pray for younger people, help them with TOB now.]

Men can get very frustrated by provocatively-dressed women. They are being “sexually assaulted” visually. It can be a form of “reverse rape.” Men are trying to respect women or they wouldn’t be angry about provocatively-dressed women. Women sometimes want that power over men to make them lust, make them fall, even though they deny it. Why make it harder for men to respect you? Why put men “in the occasions of sin”? Many women are also just clueless or in denial about the effect that the sight of women’s bodies have on men.

Comedian David Chappelle said: When women dress provocatively but pretend they don’t want men to look at them or say anything to them or approach them, it’s like dressing up like a cop and then telling people when they come to you for help: “Oh, but I’m not a cop.”

Q: Does virtue get easier?
A: There should be less effort of the will, but there’s always new levels and challenges, and we can’t let our guard down. But it all starts with understanding what’s happening (TRUTH) and willing (WAY) our goal (LIFE)!

The New Evangelization is telling people who they are, what God wants to give them, what He is giving them, what they can have, what God wants them to have AND HOW TO GET THERE.

PICKING UP SECOND SATURDAY IN SEPTEMBER: page 174

"LOVE & RESPONSIBILITY"

“LOVE AND RESPONSIBILITY”—FR. THOMAS LOYA—10/13/2010

p. 45--“Instinct”and “urge” mean the same thing more or less.

Man is capable of rising above sexual “instinct” and other “instincts.” The sexual urge is the strongest of all urges because it has to do with our very EXISTENCE.

The sexual “urge” is a "vector of aspiration from which the human person grows and perfects themselves from within." When we live according to the sexual order, it orders our whole being and we progress and grow. E.g., a man becomes fully a man only in relation to woman (not just an individual woman, but, e.g., a priest toward the Church, the feminine). A priest’s relationship to the Church perfects both himself and the Church. IT MUST BE COMPLEMENTARY IN NATURE for the perfecting to happen. A man cannot fully perfect another man.

That’s why our sexual drive is so strong—because it’s what perfects us in every way! People attack Christopher West for being “too sexual” in his presentations, but actually, we are not “sexual” enough! We have to be like God, more like God. How? Through love and life which is what our sexuality is all about.

We are not responsible for what occurs independent of our will in the sexual sphere (senses and emotions), but we are fully responsible for what we do with it (sense and emotions and will).
To understand ourselves in terms of the spousal element of our being is to understand everything about ourselves. Gender has a revelatory nature. Our genders reveal God!
What about hermaphrodites? (Who prefer to be called “intersex” today.) Doesn’t change anything. Even though it’s a kind of departure from the norm, it doesn’t change anything about the fundamental order of creation or human nature. The fact that we talk about it as an exception also shows this. But hermaphrodites are also sexual/spousal beings! They too, need to make a gift of self! (And receive the gift that others are.) Everything “TOB” applies to them, too. Even if our bodies/sexual organs, etc., aren’t perfect, it doesn’t matter, because sexuality isn’t just physical, it’s also spiritual/emotional/psychological/social!

A human male is attracted to the whole value of what is feminine, not just her body for “reproduction” like the animals. Same for the woman attracted to a man. We each have a value that completes the other. It’s not just about mating and sexual satisfaction.

To talk about sexual “orientation” is amorphous/too generic, we are attracted to a specific PERSON (or should be). It’s personal. [Sr. Anne: A woman who was in a lesbian relationship for many years eventually married a man and had kids. She says she is still not attracted to men. She is only attracted to her husband.]

LOVE is a phenomenon of people only, not animals. It’s fundamentally different FROM the sexual urge. It involves the whole person. Love is given its definitive shape by acts of the will at the level of the person.

What should couples do/not do when dating? BE HONEST TO THE SITUATION. Are you really going to get married? Don’t treat dating like mock-marriage, marriage-lite. It’s not. Only marriage is exclusive. Don’t treat dating like it’s marriage. Maybe not even call it dating, call it “friendship,” and once it’s a solid Christian friendship/brothers & sisters in Christ [“Today I marry my best friend” is a great marriage-sentiment!], you can advance to “courtship” because you’re purposefully heading toward marriage. If you’re not thinking about marriage, don’t get so intimate (of course not sex, but also not the other intimate demands that marriage would put on each other: call me every hour, don’t even look at other women/men or talk to them, etc.). Don’t put each other in an either/or situation: Either this leads to marriage or I’ll be heartbroken. This is also why too much physicality will BOND you to each other and make it very, very difficult to break up even when you should!

Our world says: If you don’t act on all your urges, it’s unnatural! But the truth is the opposite! AS HUMANS, it’s unnatural just to follow our urges! It’s natural to HUMANS to regulate our lives according to our WILL, exercising our WILLPOWER.

[Our culture is both BLINDLY SUBMITTING TO NATURE (but only in our sexual instincts), and REBELLING AGAINST NATURE (in things like contraception and natural conception), and CRUSHING/CONTROLLING/MANIPULATING NATURE (genetic engineering, pollution, raping natural resources). Why do we have to treat Nature as Sacred? Cause it’s all we got! God made it and is working through it. The invisible—the spiritual and divine--is made visible through the physical.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. –Romans 1:20

Through faith we perceive that the worlds were created by the word of God, and that what is visible came into being through the invisible. –Hebrews 11:3

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. –Colossians 1:15]

NFP—to use unnatural means to contracept damages the love-relationship between persons and that’s why it’s wrong. [Because it’s going against the nature of the act, the nature of love which is SACRIFICIAL. It must start with our love of/TRUST in God, otherwise we’re NOT going to trust Him with this huge area of our lives. We need to make room for God!]

Everything rises and falls on what goes on in the bedroom, that’s why we WANT God and the Church in the bedroom! The bedroom is the sanctuary of the human race. The woman’s womb is a tabernacle which the man must approach as a priest approaches the tabernable.

If we’re contracepting, you’re not just doing it in the bedroom, we’re doing it everywhere else: “contraceptive mentality.” [Closed to God, closed to "the other," closed to anything I don't tightly plan in my own life.] Soooo…one can practice NFP with a “contraceptive mentality” if one is totally closed to life.

It’s not biological determinism…it’s God’s Creation/Order working through “biology.”

Q: Do you have to accept God to accept the natural order/natural law?A: No, but it helps.

National Catholic Bio-ethics Center shows all the science that is being suppressed (e.g., the contraception/abortion/breast cancer link)! The National Cancer Institute is adamantly suppressing this stuff!

Q: How define natural law?A: Our objective and subjective interaction with Nature. [And we ARE Nature, too!] VJP2G said: We are subject and object at the same time! We are subject to Nature, and object IN Nature, but we can also step back and reflect on our existence as the acting person/subjective subject that we are.

[VJP2G does use human experience as a starting point—the phenomenological method--(but AUTHENTIC experience). This is how VJP2G purified Kant! We can do things wrong for years and then say: “But this is my experience.”]
Fr. Loya: That’s what’s meant by a totally, totally HONEST and thorough examination of our experience….

MOVIES: “UP IN THE AIR”

Star-studded Oscar-contender "Up in the Air" showcases not only what is wrong with jobs/the economy in America, but something even more profound: What's wrong with love, sex and marriage in America. If "UIA" is representative, we haven't a clue what it is. How can love be the organizing principle of our lives and relationships if we don't even know what it is? May I suggest reading (slowly--it's the only way one CAN read it) Karol Wojtyla's "Love and Responsibility"? Here's a (non-comprehensive) definition of love gleaned from it: "Love always does what is best for the other." "Up in the Air" does not show us this kind of love. The closest it comes is when hired gun, Ryan Bingham (the versatile, world-weary George Clooney)--who flies around the country firing people for large companies--infuses some dignity and compassion into his work.

Are the filmmakers aware of this parallel (both jobs and love in decline in America)? The film is based on the book by Walter Kirn, so maybe we need to look to the author also for an answer. My sense was that the storytellers DIDN'T have a problem with the ingrained, persistent, promiscuous, casual sex throughout, and were trying to find some redemption, some rebuilding of male/female relationships BASED on these shambles. Although the tone of the movie is light and the acting superb, I left the cinema with a creeping depression that grew and grew. It made me forget all the funny and brilliant parts and just focus on the bleak, arid, exhausted, spent, mechanistic, behavioristic panorama of the sexual revolution. (Yeah, this movie is THAT sad.)

The women in "UIA" are the ones who (true-enough-to-life) seem to push for commitment, but this doesn't mean that they know what love is either (Natalie, Ryan's young uppity upstart protégé has one of those destructive, damaging laundry lists of "requirements" for her future mate). Love is also about playing lots of games. (And knowing/following the "protocol" of those games.) Oh dear. I tell teens: "The surest way to NOT find true love is to start playing games. Even if at first it's just to defend and protect yourself, or because others are playing you." Better to get hurt and stay open to true love than trample on love.

Neither of the two approaches to "love" in "UIA" (the older and wiser "sloppy, lower-your-expectations" approach NOR the younger and rigid "aim high, never settle" approach) come close to true love. They are all "me"-centered and consumeristic, rather than other-centered and personal/interpersonal. Check out SNL's "Me-Harmony":




http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/me-harmony/229060/ (Actually, Ryan's occasional sex partner, Alex (Vera Farmiga), says something very similar to the comedians in the spoof!)

SPOILER ALERT: The wrap-up for the movie is simply that I WILL BE HAPPIER IF I'M NOT ALONE. MY HAPPINESS. ME, ME ME. MARRIAGE AS COMPANIONSHIP. BUT MARRIAGE IS SO MUCH MORE. IF THE ESSENCE OF MARRIAGE IS SIMPLY COMPANIONSHIP, THEN WE CAN HAVE ALL KINDS OF "PAIRINGS" PASSING FOR MARRIAGE.

A new book contends that we as Americans have a built-in conflict of interest when it comes to marriage: We love the idea of marriage, but our society was founded on individualism which we take into our marriages and often treat marriage as a means for our own self-fulfillment, and when we don't get what we want out of marriage, we end it (and are expected and encouraged by those around us to end it): "The Marriage Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today," Andrew J. Cherlin, 2009, Knopf.

It's interesting that there are different interpretations for the "Unity Candle" (used in the marriage ceremony in the film)!

(Wikipedia entry)

It is sometimes performed to symbolize the joining together of the two families, and their love for the bride and the groom, into one united family that loves the new husband and wife. More often it is to symbolize the union of two individuals, becoming one in commitment. The popular explanation is that the taper candles are lit by representatives from each family to symbolize the love and allegiance that each family has for either the bride or the groom.^[1] As the bride and groom use these two flames to light the unity candle, they bring the love of both families together in a united love of the new couple. Generally, the two tapers are left burning and replaced in their holders (because each family's love for their own will continue). However, in some ceremonies they may blow out their individual candles.

When the ceremony is alternatively performed to symbolize simply the joining together of the bride and groom, the tapers may be blown out, to indicate that the two lives have been permanently merged, or they may leave them lit beside the central candle, symbolizing that the now-married partners have not lost their individuality.^[2]

I was recently doing an introduction to Theology of the Body for junior high students with some parents in attendance. When I asked them if they thought true love was possible, a few girls enthusiastically squeaked "Yes!" and the rest remained silent. One boy offered: "There's a lot of fighting." I went on to soothe their doubts by saying: "Lovers' quarrels, perhaps?" And "We can't judge a couple's relationship from the outside, true love often looks kind of ordinary, even frumpy." (I have a slide of a happy, frumpy couple in my Powerpoint.) I asked them if they had seen couples of whom they could say: "THAT'S what I want my marriage to be like…." One or two hands went up. I turned to the parents for some back up: "Is it worth it? Would you do it all again?" The ten or so parents in the room sat in torpid silence. "Parents???" A few mumbled "yes" and smiled wistfully. I hurriedly told the students to "keep on looking!"

We have a love and marriage problem in the USA! (Even though we are a people who like to GET married much more than our European counterparts, and multiple times.) I like to stress with students that true love is not something that descends on us from on high, like Cupid's arrow. There isn't necessarily "the one" out there just for me. I tell them that marriage is what you make it, your marriage can be whatever you want it to be—it doesn't just happen. But of course, this presupposes that we know what true love is.

I truly believe we WANT to know what true love is, what marriage really is, and we keep trying different theories and praxis. One is a desperate attempt at trivializing the physical element of a relationship while at the same time being addicted to it (UIA). One big mistake we make in love is to put the physical first when it is actually the last stage in a relationship.

I am more and more and more convinced that Venerable John Paul II's greatest legacy and gift to us is his straightening out of our notions of love. Human love. Romantic love. Life-giving love (life-giving in every way). I have to confess that I am being converted more and more (daily!) in my own understanding and living of self-giving love as I study VJP2G's masterwork "Theology of the Body" in conjunction with his other writings. I still shock myself at my own ignorance of what he calls "education in love." What course of study could be more important?

VJP2G's vision of love is God's vision, the Church's vision, the most ancient vision, the most beautiful vision, AND the most challenging vision—kind of knocks the wind out of you. In a good way.

DO see this movie. There's a lot to it. But have your TOB resources close at hand so you don't despair.

OTHER STUFF:

--Some people, on discovering TOB, cry: "Where was this when we needed it??!" TOB is not too late. It's right on time.

--GOOD STUFF ABOUT JOBS AND WHAT PEOPLE REALLY VALUE WHEN THEY LOSE JOBS. REAL PEOPLE WHO LOST JOBS WERE USED IN THE "BOOKEND" INTERVIEWS AT BEGINNING AND END OF FILM.

--When I saw the "happy talk" used at the firings, it made me think of a new book out regarding American eternal optimism (that says it's harming us): "Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America," by Barbara Ehrenreich.

--ANNA KENDRICK ROCKS. I would just like it to go on record that I saw her great potential immediately in "Twilight." You can check my old reviews.

--Everyone uses strong profanity in "Up in the Air," even Ryan's plain, down-home sister in northern Wisconsin. This gives every character the exact same "voice" (bad screenwriting) and feels very forced. (Good screenwriting might have—understandably and realistically—saved the cussing mainly for the newly-fired.)

--Only a hint of poetry: "I FERRY WOUNDED SOULS"—but Ryan was on the right track here! Most of life IS poetry! We need so much more poetry than statistics.

--Much talk of people acting like "grown-ups" and "children," but no one is grown up till we take responsibility.

--"Nice touch"—Everything is self-conscious spin and marketing! Arrrgghh.

--New media is "put on hold" at Ryan's job! Good testing of the spirits, we can go back, we can use media intentionally, humanly, etc.

--We need to save our humanity. Just when we think no one could be more cutthroat than Ryan, the next generation, Natalie, outdoes him in newer, even colder ways. And not only outdoes him, but almost replaces him.

--LOTS of subtle product placement in this movie.

--Great visual of landscapes of empty offices in large glass office buildings. If there's any "objective correlative" (an object that is a symbol for the theme of a whole film) it would be the no-longer needed (stacks of) office chairs.

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY: “LOVE & RESPONSIBILITY"

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY NOTES—FR. THOMAS LOYA—SPECIAL SESSION
USTREAMED FROM DAUGHTERS OF ST. PAUL/PAULINE BOOKS & MEDIA, CHICAGO
TO HESTER CAFÉ IN CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS, TO YOU!
February 12, 2010
"Love & Responsibility" VJP2G, starting p. 101

When a man is attracted to a woman and vice versa, the couple doesn't always really know what's going on and therefore don't always know why it ends badly. JP2G says there are three elements in attraction: 1) SENSE--starts on the very basic sense-level. 2) COGNITION--Man knows this is woman, woman knows this is man. 3) IMPRESSION—this impression can remain even after they are not in each other's physical presence. Our interior senses can prolong the meeting/attraction. After an impression we can have a REACTION. A sense-impression is reaction to CONTENT. An emotional reaction is a reaction to a VALUE.

There is a hierarchy here:
SENSES
COGNITION
IMPRESSION
EMOTION
VALUE

There can be 3 results to the above:
1) sensuality—involving the physical senses
2) sentimental—emotional
3) integration—putting it all together, prioritized properly. All parts work together in beautiful harmony.

SENSUALITY alone can be consumeristic. It does not try to come into contact with the deeper realities, the person, true beauty. It's OK to see someone's body first and be physically moved (and maybe see some of the person coming through the body). But if it stays only at this level it can fool us into thinking we're in love, that it's love, into thinking that we really know the person.

p. 106—It's OK to see someone as "hot." There is nothing wrong with this. It's natural. Even children—who are not sexually developed—can be attracted to each other: puppy love. But this is not true love.

p. 107—We can't use a person's body apart from the whole person because it's an integral part of the person. If we do, it threatens to devalue the person. The couple may not realize that they are using each other because in their erogenous zones they feel good, they feel close. If relationships are based only on the sensual and stay there, they usually end badly, even in hatred, because the persons feel used.

p. 109—SENTIMENTALITY involves attraction to the whole person, male to female, female to male—not just their body and is not an urge to consume with the excitability of the physical. Sentimentality is the source of affection. There is an admiration for what is feminine by the masculine and vice versa.

In general, women are more sentimental than men, men are more sensual. Women by nature need a relational connectedness, men by nature are more connected by the physical and the perception of visual beauty. It doesn't mean that he's more of an "animal" than the woman, we're just hard-wired differently. It's so important that men and women understand this about each other.

If we stop at sensuality and sentimentality, we're still not at LOVE yet. But sensuality and sentimentality are like the building blocks of love.

p. 114—Love is full of drama. Persons, among all objects on earth, have an inner life. "Integration" means bringing things together as a whole. We need TRUTH and FREEDOM in order to integrate ourselves. If people are seeing things honestly, they'll have a greater experience of love. He will see her as a PERSON, she will see him as a PERSON, honestly.

LOVE is always a matter of the spirit, an interior matter. Love is not a feeling. Love is a spiritual state of freedom, truth and honesty. What's going on in the body alone doesn't constitute love.

p. 117--The value of the person is bound up in freedom which is of the will. If we say: "I can't help myself, we love each other." That's not love! You're not free! Love is not a compulsion. (Sentiment can be a compulsion, too.)

The objective value of love matters the most (not just the subjective value—how I experience love).

Love is about a choice to do what is better for the other person, regardless of how/what you feel (physically or emotionally). Again, it's OK to have physical and emotional elements (and it's good), but ultimately it's about love.

Q: WHAT IS TRUE LOVE?
A: You have to read the rest of "Love and Responsibility" and "Theology of the Body."Ha ha. Love is greater than the sum of its parts. It's a mystery. God is love. Love is very outward oriented to what is not just good but BEST for the other and doesn't count the cost to self.

We don't want to be JUST objective about love or JUST subjective. We want both, and to be integrated.

Q: WHAT IF SENSUALITY AND SENTIMENT GO AWAY IN A MARRIAGE EVEN FOR A LONG TIME?
A: God and the Church say: there's more to love than that. There's a covenant. Sensuality and/or sentiment often comes back. Couples go through dry periods. But they have to give it TIME. There's a process. Couples fall in love over and over again.

[CHECK OUT THE PROMISES MADE BY MEMBERS OF THE "HOLY FAMILY INSTITUTE" FOUNDED BY BLESSED JAMES ALBERIONE IN VIDEO BELOW]

Q: MEN TEND TO BE WOUNDED IN SENSUALITY, AND WOMEN TEND TO BE WOUNDED IN SENTIMENTALITY. HOW CAN WE HEAL IT?
A: People need to learn to see each other as man and woman again. "Who is he for her? Who is she for him?" What are their needs as God created us? [And Father said he's serious about finishing reading/studying L & R and TOB!]

Q: WHAT ABOUT SAME-SEX ATTRACTION?

A: This is a very hot topic in our culture. Don't have time tonight to go into it. But remember: the body doesn't lie. The body tells you who you are and who you are to be attracted to. That's why it's "THEOLOGY OF THE BODY." Same-sex attraction says there has been a disturbance in the development of a person and who they are ordered to be attracted to. But these are very complex issues and have to be dealt with fully and with compassion, but also with TRUTH. Go to Father's website: www.taborlife.org to ask him more about this. You can also check out his articles/talks on: www.catholicradiointernational.com

and the Theology of the Body section of www.catholicexchange.com