By: Christopher West

December 8 is one of my favorite feast days.   Why?   Because Mary’s Immaculate Conception (the solemn feast day celebrated in the Church on this day commemorating Mary’s being conceived without sin) is the certainty that what Christ did on the Cross worked.   It is the living hope of humanity’s redemption.   For redemption to be complete, it not only has to be perfectly given, it also has to be perfectly received.   It has been perfectly given in Christ, and perfectly received in Mary, who, through “a singular grace and privilege” was “redeemed from the moment of her conception” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 491).

The Connection Between the Cross & Immaculate Conception  

Volumes could be written about the connection between this feast and the “great mystery” unfolded in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body (TOB).   For starters, it’s no mere coincidence that John Paul II began writing his TOB on this marvelous feast day — the handwritten date on page one of his original manuscript says December 8, 1974.   And above that he wrote this dedication: Tota Pulchra es Maria — “You are all beautiful, Mary” — a clear adaptation of the bridegroom’s words in the Song of Songs, “You are all beautiful, my love, there is no blemish in you” (Song 4:7).  It’s a long held tradition of the Church to recognize Mary as the “unblemished” bride spoken of in the Song of Songs.   As the perfect model of the Church, Mary represents the mystical bride for whom Christ “gave himself up … that he might sanctify her” that she might be “without spot or wrinkle … holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:25-27).

Of course, it may seem odd to speak of Mary in some way representing Christ’s “bride.”   Bishop Fulton Sheen explained it this way: “Now we’ve always thought, and rightly so, of Christ the Son on the cross and the mother beneath him. But that’s not the complete picture. That’s not the deep understanding. Who is our Lord on the cross? He’s the new Adam. Where’s the new Eve? At the foot of the cross. … And so the bridegroom looks down at the bride. He looks at his beloved. Christ looks at his Church. There is here the birth of the Church” (Through the Year with Bishop Fulton Sheen, Ignatius Press 2003).

The work of redemption was consummated on the Cross.   And so, in a very real way, Mary was immaculately conceived — that is, she perfectly received the gift of redemption — not only in her mother’s womb, but also at the foot of the Cross.   In fact, the event that took place in Saint Anne’s womb is inexplicable without the event that took place at the Cross.   As John Paul II once observed, “Spouses are … the permanent reminder to the Church of what happened on the Cross” (Familiaris Consortio 11).   Perhaps the spouses that reveal this most clearly are Saints Joachim and Anne.

Anne & Joachim: Parents of the Virgin Mary

In the art of the East, the icon of the Immaculate Conception is actually an image of Joachim and Anne embracing.   Behind them is their marriage bed, and behind that sacred mystery we see the gates into the holy city of Jerusalem.   Through this “all holy” image (the Fathers of the Eastern tradition call Mary “the All-Holy”), we are led to contemplate a spousal love that not only cooperated with God in his power to create  human life, but also cooperated with God in his power to redeem it.   In this holy embrace of Joachim and Anne, we can truly speak of a love that was not only “pro-creative” but also, at the very same time, “pro-redemptive.”

As we learn in John Paul II’s TOB, authentic spousal love draws its deepest essence from the very mystery of creation and redemption.   It’s not only meant to bring new life into the world, it’s meant to save us from sin and prepare us for heaven.   Who by his own strength can live this divine kind of love? Only the grace of salvation makes it possible.   It’s not something we can muster up.   It’s only something we can receive.   And this is precisely what we celebrate on this grand feast of the Immaculate Conception — the receptivity of the human heart (Mary’s) to the saving love of God.

Mary, in all the joys and trials of life, teach us how to open our hearts to so great a love!

By: Christopher West

You may remember an article I wrote that began to explore the difference between sexual “repression” and sexual “redemption.”   It was in response to a former Catholic priest who had announced on the Oprah Winfrey show that “repression” of desire is the only choice for a person who remains celibate.   Because the question What is the human person capable of in light of our fallen nature? is so important, I wanted to expound on the issue of sexual redemption a bit more, especially in light of the insights of Pope John Paul II and his Theology of the Body.

Sexual Redemption & Freedom from Sin

It is abundantly clear from both Catholic teaching and human experience that, so long as we are on earth, we will always have to battle with concupiscence — that disordering of our passions caused by original sin (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 405, 978, 1264, 1426).   The interior battle we experience with our disordered desires is indeed fierce.   Yet, as Pope John Paul II insisted, we “cannot stop at casting the ‘heart’ into a state of continual and irreversible suspicion due to the manifestations of the concupiscence of the flesh…   Redemption is a truth, a reality, in the name of which man must feel himself called, and ‘called with effectiveness’” (TOB 46:4).

This “effectiveness” means that we are not hopelessly bound by our fallen desires.   The Catechism observes that the idea that concupiscence is insurmountable actually stems from the Reformation (see CCC 406).   As Catholicism teaches, through the gift of redemption “the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires, those inner movements that animate our lives” (CCC 2764).   Summarizing the teaching of John Paul II on the matter, as we surrender our lusts to Christ and allow “the Spirit of the Lord” to move in us, we discover the ability to orient our sensual and emotional reactions in the realm of sexuality “both as to their content and as to their character” (TOB 129:5).   What once moved us to use  other people for our own pleasure, can lead us to want to lay down our lives for them “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25).

This is good news — very good news.   Yet, for some reason, it seems many people are skeptical about it, and I’m speaking primarily of Christians here.   Many of us grow up with the impression that all we can really hope for in the sexual realm is a more or less successful program of “sin management.”   The idea of transforming our lusts, many believe, is simply beyond the realm of man’s possibilities.   It’s something we can only hope for in heaven.

Let Us Not Empty the Cross of It’s Power

From one perspective, those who think this way are correct.   It is impossible for human beings to transform their own lustful desires and — to be sure — the fullness of redemption awaits us only in heaven.   But those who enter the “effectiveness” of Christ’s redemption discover “another vision of man’s possibilities” (TOB 46:6).   Much is at stake in this question, as John Paul II makes clear: “[W]hat are the ‘concrete possibilities of man’?   And of which man are we speaking?   Of man dominated by lust or of man redeemed by Christ.   This is what is at stake, the reality  of Christ’s redemption.   Christ has redeemed us!   This means he has given us the possibility  of realizing the entire  truth of our being; he has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence” (Veritatis Splendor 103).

What is the alternative to an effective sexual redemption?   If man remains bound by his lusts, is he even capable of loving with a pure heart?   Marriage, in this view, comes to be seen and lived as a “legitimate outlet” for indulging our disordered desires and the celibate life comes to be seen and lived as a life of hopeless repression. And we end up “holding the form of religion” while “denying the power of it” (2 Tim 3:5).  “Ne evacuetur Crux!” — John Paul II exclaims, “Do not empty the Cross of its power!” (see 1 Cor 1:17).   “This,” he said, “is the cry of the new evangelization” (Orientale Lumen 3).   How desperately our sexually broken world needs to hear this cry!   There is another way to experience our sexuality than what our pornographic culture holds out to us, and it passes by way of the power of the Cross.   There is a water that corresponds to our thirst for love, and it flows from the side of our crucified Bridegroom.   Let all who are thirsty come — come and drink the water of life (see Rev 22:17).

Fasting: Crucifying our Lusts

John Paul II wrote that to experience victory over lust, we most devote ourselves to “a progressive education in self-control of the will, of sentiments, of emotions, which must be developed from the simplest gestures, in which it is relatively easy to put the inner decision into practice” (TOB 128:1). For example, we might examine our eating habits.   If a person can’t say no to a piece of cake, how will he say no to an email enticing him to look at Internet porn?   Fasting is a wonderful way to grow in mastery of our passions. If this isn’t already part of a person’s life, he should start with a simple sacrifice that’s relatively easy to put into practice. As one continues exercising this “muscle,” he will find his strength increasing. What was once “impossible” gradually becomes possible.

The muscle analogy, however, is only half right. Growing in purity certainly demands human effort, but we’re also aided by supernatural grace. Here, as I stated in a previous column, it’s crucial to distinguish between  repression  and entering into  redemption. When lust “flares up,” rather than repressing it by pushing it into the subconscious, trying to ignore it, or otherwise seeking to annihilate it, we can  surrender our lusts  to Christ and allow him to “crucify them” (see Gal 5:24).   As we do, “the Spirit of the Lord gives new form to our desires” (Catechism of the Catholic Church  2764).

In other words, as we allow lust to be “crucified,” we also come to experience the “resurrection” of sexual desire as God intends. Not immediately, not easily, but gradually, progressively, as we take up our cross every day and follow, we can come to experience sexual desire as the power to love in God’s image.  When sexual temptations assail us, as they often do, we might say a prayer like this:

Lord, I thank you for the gift of my sexual desires. I surrender my lustful desires to you and I ask you please, by the power of your death and resurrection, to “untwist” in me what sin has twisted so that I might come to experience sexual desire as you intend — as the desire to love in your image.

Perseverance & Self-Mastery

As John Paul II wrote in his Theology of the Body, “perseverance and consistency” is required in learning “what  the meaning of the body  is, the meaning of femininity and masculinity. …This is a ‘science that cannot really be learned only from books, because it consists primarily of deep ‘knowledge’ of human interiority,” that is, of the human heart.   Deep in the heart we learn to distinguish the mystical treasures of sexuality from that which bears only the sign of lust.   “One should add,” John Paul says, “that this task  can  be carried out and that it is truly worthy of man” (TOB 48:4).

It’s certainly true that sometimes love and lust are difficult to distinguish. A man, for example, upon recognizing a woman’s beauty, might wonder where the line is between seeing her as an object for his own gratification and lovingly admiring her beauty.   As John Paul writes, lust “is not always plain and obvious; sometimes it is concealed, so that it passes itself off as ‘love’….   Does this mean that we should distrust the human heart?   No!” the Pope insists. “It is only to say that we must remain in control of it” (TOB 32:3).

“Control” here doesn’t mean merely dominating unruly desires in order to keep them “in check.” As we mature in self-control, we experience it as “the ability to orient  [sexual] reactions, both as to their content and as to their character” (TOB 129:5). The person who is truly master of himself is able to direct erotic desire “toward what is true, good, and beautiful” (TOB 48:1).   As this happens we come to understand and experience the mystery of sexuality “in a depth, simplicity, and beauty hitherto altogether unknown” (TOB 117b:5).   In turn, we come to see that the version of sexuality promoted by the culture is like junk food compared to the banquet of love unfolded in the divine plan.

By: Christopher West

Recently, a former Catholic priest appeared on Oprah to defend his choice of leaving the Church in order to get married.   This priest had battled with desire for this woman for several years and finally decided his only options were to marry her or repress his sexual desires.   Indeed, as he announced to a national audience, “repression” is the only choice for a person who remains celibate.

Repression or Indulgence: The  Only  Two Choices?

Is this true?   Are our only options when it comes to sexual desire to “indulge” it or “repress” it?   Granted, to a world bound by sexual lust, life-long celibacy seems absurd. The world’s general attitude towards Christian celibacy might be summarized like this: “Hey, marriage is the only ‘legitimate’ chance you Christians get to indulge your lusts. Why the heck would you ever want to give that up? You’d be condemning yourself to a life of hopeless repression.”

The difference between marriage and celibacy, however, must never be understood as the difference between having a “legitimate” outlet for sexual lust on the one hand and having to repress it on the other. Christ calls everyone — no matter his or her particular vocation — to experience redemption from the domination of lust. Only from this perspective do the Christian vocations (celibacy and marriage) make any sense. Both vocations — if they are to be lived as Christ intends — flow from the same experience of the redemption of sexuality.

First, marriage is not a “legitimate outlet” for indulging our sexual lusts.   As Pope John Paul II once pointed out, spouses can commit “adultery in the heart” with each other if they treat one another as nothing but an outlet for selfish gratification (see TOB 43:3).   I know it’s a cliche, but why do so many wives claim “headache” when their husbands want sex?   Could it be because they feel used rather than loved?   This is what lust leads to — using  people, not loving them.  Liberation from the domination of concupiscence — that disordering of our appetites caused by original sin — is essential, John Paul II taught, if we are to live our lives “in the truth” and experience the divine plan for human love (see TOB 43:6, 47:5).   Indeed, Christian sexual ethos “is always linked . . . with the liberation of the heart from concupiscence” (TOB 43:6).   And this liberation is just as essential for consecrated celibates and single people as it is for married couples (see TOB 77:4).

A Mature Purity Leads Us to Sexual Freedom

It is precisely this liberation that allows us to discover what John Paul II called “mature purity.”   In mature purity “man enjoys the fruits of victory over concupiscence” (TOB 58:7).   This victory is gradual and certainly remains fragile here on earth, but it is nonetheless real.   For those graced with its fruits, a whole new world opens up — another way of seeing, thinking, living, talking, loving, praying.   The marital embrace becomes a graced experience of the holy, rather than a base satisfaction of instinct.   And Christian celibacy becomes a liberating way of living one’s sexuality as a “total gift of self” for Christ and his Church.

John Paul II observed that the celibate person must submit “the sinfulness of his humanity to the powers that flow from the mystery of the redemption of the body … just as every other person does” (TOB 77:4). This is why he indicates that the call to celibacy is not only a matter of formation but of transformation (see TOB 81:5). The person who lives this transformation is not bound to indulge his lusts. He is free with what John Paul II called “the freedom of the gift.”   This means his desires are not in control of him; rather, he is in control of his desires.

In short, authentic sexual freedom is not the liberty to indulge one’s compulsions, but liberation from the compulsion to indulge.   Only such a person is capable of making a free gift of himself in love — whether in marriage, or in a life of consecrated devotion to Christ and the Church.   For the person who is free in this way, sacrificing the genital expression of one’s sexuality for so great a good as the eternal Marriage of Christ and the Church not only becomes a possibility, it becomes quite attractive.

By: Christopher West

Recently, while preparing for a long drive, I decided to look through my old collection of tape series for something to listen to (yes, I still have a cassette deck in my car).   My eyes landed on a box set called “Passion for God” by a Carmelite Abbess named Mother Tessa Bielecki.   When I arrived at my destination before the tapes were over, I didn’t want to get out of the car.

Passion for God

“Passion for God” is an introduction to the spousal mysticism of St. Teresa of Avila.   Here’s how the back cover of the series describes it: “Inside the great medieval monastary at Avila, Spain, one of history’s great love affairs took place.   For it was here, within these turreted stone walls, that the Christian mystic St. Teresa surrendered her ‘ensouled body’ to God.   What emerged from this divine union informs our spiritual lives to this day through the ecstatic ‘spousal prayer’ form that St. Teresa embraced so fiercly. … Mother Tessa takes listeners far from the hard pews of dutiful worship and into a lush marriage chamber, where God is mystically experienced as spouse.”  Regular readers of my articles are certainly familiar with the biblical analogy of spousal love as a way of understanding God’s love for us.   God’s eternal plan is to “marry” us: the Church is the Bride and Christ the Bridegroom.   “Spousal prayer” means, very simply, to open oneself wholly and completely to Christ, surrendering to him in a union of love like a bride surrenders to the loving embrace of her bridegroom.

And, yes, as uncomfortable as this might seem for men at first, this includes us too.   As John Paul II wrote in Mulieris Dignitatem, “According to [the spousal analogy], all human beings — both women and men — are called through the Church, to be the ‘Bride’ of Christ, the Redeemer of the world.   In this way ‘being the bride,’ and thus the ‘feminine’ element, becomes a symbol of all that is ‘human’” (MD 25).   (Don’t worry, guys — it doesn’t mean we have to wear a wedding dress or anything.   It means, essentially, that we, as creatures, have to learn how to open and “receive” the love of the Creator.   This is not  a threat to our masculinity, but the key to authentic masculinity.)

The Love of the Bridegroom & His Bride

Spousal prayer, as St. John of the Cross put it, leads to “a total transformation in the Beloved, in which each surrenders the entire possession of self to the other with a certain consummation of the union of love.   The soul thereby becomes divine, God through participation, insofar as is possible in this life.”   Then he makes the analogy more explicit: “Just as in the consummation of carnal marriage there are two in one flesh, as Sacred Scripture points out (Gen 2:24), so also when the spiritual marriage between God and the soul is consummated, there are two natures in one spirit and love” (Commentary on stanza 22:3 of the Spiritual Canticle).

Oh to what astounding glory God calls us!   God is an eternal “explosion” of life-giving love, and he calls us to participate in it.   That’s where spousal prayer takes us — into the heart of God who not only loves us, but is love.   When we see the union of husband and wife for what it is, we see that it is a “great mystery” that reveals the master plan of God to become “one” with us in Christ (see Eph 5:31-32).   It’s an icon of something divine, a window into heaven.   And that’s precisely why our sexuality is under such attack in our world: the enemy wants to blind us to the divine “iconography” of our masculinity and femininity.

As Tessa Bielecki said so well in this tape series, we mustn’t repress or try to annihilate our sexual desires.   Rather, in and through Christ, we must sublimate them — that is, make them “sublime,” noble, holy.   Indeed, spousal prayer takes us on a journey of painful trials and purifications through which erotic longing becomes more and more a yearning for God, a path to holiness.   This is what John Paul II was positing when he said, “The sexual urge is … a vector of aspiration along which [our] whole existence develops and perfects itself from within” (Love and Responsibility, p. 46).  The great mystics of the Church not only understand eros  as a longing for God, they live it as such.   They live eros  as “prayer.”   For prayer, as Pope Benedict put it, “is nothing other than becoming a longing for God” (Mary: The Church at the Source, p. 15).

Letting Go of our ‘God Substitutes’

Spousal prayer invites us to enter more and more deeply into union with Christ the Bridegroom as a member of the Church, his Bride.   But for this to become a lived experience, we must learn how to let go of all of our “God substitutes” and open our deepest desires for love to the One who alone can fulfill them.  The Greeks called that deep yearning for love  eros.   As Pope Benedict wrote, “eros  tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine…; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.   Concretely, what does this path of ascent and purification entail? … Here we can find a first, important indication in the  Song of Songs, an Old Testament book well known to the mystics” (Deus Caritas Est  5, 6).

The great mystics of the Church love the  Song of Songs  because it speaks of an experience that’s near and dear to them — the experience of  eros  lived as “prayer.” For prayer, as Pope Benedict put it, “is nothing other than becoming a longing for God” (Mary: The Church at the Source, p. 15).   When  eros  is lived as a longing for God, we have “spousal prayer.”  In laying out his great pastoral “program” for the new millennium, John Paul II stressed the importance of such deep, intimate prayer: “Yes, dear brothers and sisters, our Christian communities must become  genuine ‘schools’ of prayer  where the meeting with Christ is expressed … [in] ardent devotion until the heart truly ‘falls in love.’” Indeed, we “have a duty,” John Paul said, “to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead.”   And to show these depths, he turned to mystics:

“The great mystical tradition of the Church … shows how prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved.” — As an aside, I’d bet that the word “possessed” reminds you of demonic possession.   But  possession by evil spirits  is simply a diabolic mockery of what we are all called to:  possession by the Holy Spirit, which means “vibrating at the Spirit’s touch,” as John Paul wrote.   Learning how to surrender to the divine in this way means learning how to enter into “spousal prayer.”  This is “a journey totally sustained by grace,” John Paul insisted.   At the same time it “demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications (the ‘dark night’).   But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by the mystics as ‘nuptial union.’   How can we forget here, among the many shining examples, the teachings of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila?” (Novo Millenio Ineunte  33).

Beware of Idols

Such deep, intimate prayer is not only reserved for those in a convent or a monastery.   It “would be wrong,” John Paul said, “to think that ordinary Christians can be content with a shallow prayer that is unable to fill their whole life.”   In fact, when we fail to enter into the depths of prayer, we are “not only mediocre Christians but ‘Christians at risk’ … [of] succumbing to the allure of ‘substitutes’” (Novo Millenio Ineunte  34).  Mother Tessa observes that one of the biggest “substitutes” on the market for intimacy with God is sex.   Sex is meant to be an  icon  — an earthly sign that points us to the heavenly reality of union with God.   But we so often treat it as an  idol.   That is, we go to sex as if it were our ultimate fulfillment, as if it were God.   Don’t we see this kind of idolatry everywhere in our media culture?

The way out of this trap for all of us — whether single, married, or consecrated celibate — is precisely the intimacy of spousal prayer.   If we lived spousal prayer to its depths, Mother Tessa observes, consecrated celibates would have their longings for love beautifully fulfilled in God rather than being prone to sexual frustration and bitterness; single people would be freed from a terribly destructive promiscuity; and married people would stop expecting their spouse to be God.  We have two choices as a culture, Mother Tessa believes: Mysticism or neurosis; sublimation of erotic desire or sexual chaos; spousal prayer or social upheaval.   In the end, she’s absolutely right.   Oh, Lord, teach us to pray!

By: Christopher West

The Associated Press recently ran a story about a controversy brewing among a community of “bible-believing” folk in rural Alabama.   Many in the town of Good Hope were disturbed by a billboard advertizing a series of sermons at the local Daystar Church.   The billboard, next to a picture of a bride and groom, read: “Great sex: God’s way.”   “It’s really stirred up the people here,” said a town clerk.

The prickly topic of sex always seems to “stir us up,” doesn’t it?   Perhaps my sensitivities are just different because of the work I do, but nothing strikes me as untoward in what Daystar Church is trying to do.   It strikes me, rather, as an attempt to engage the culture in a conversation about God’s plan for sex and marriage.   And this is something we must  do.  The AP article reported that Jerry Lawson, the pastor at the center of the controversy, said one of the purposes of his campaign “was to get Christian parents talking to their kids about sex before they learn too much immorality from TV or playground buddies.”  Sounds good to me.   Not only good — essential.   Because if we aren’t feeding our children from the banquet of God’s glorious plan for man and woman, they will, without a doubt, be eating from the culture’s pornographic smorgasbord.

What Does Sex Have To Do With the Gospel?

“‘I think some people are kind of missing the point,’ said Lawson.   The church needs to be out front on the topic of sex when even kids’ TV shows depict illicit relationships and homosexuality, he said.   ‘It comes down to God saying the most healthy place for sex and the only right place for sex is within a marriage — one man, one woman, and one marriage,’ Lawson said.”  And this has “really stirred up the people”?   Why?   Local evangelist Roland Belew gives a simple answer.   He said the whole idea of talking about sex in church goes against the teaching of the New Testament apostles.   “Paul said preach the Gospel. …Talking about sex ain’t gonna get nobody to heaven,” said Belew.

Oh boy.   Where to begin?   Obviously discretion is required from the pulpit.   But the idea that “preaching the Gospel” has nothing to do with sex and that “preaching about sex” has nothing to do with the Gospel betrays layers and layers of seriously misguided thinking.   When we divorce God’s love from sexual love, as Pope Benedict says, “the essence of Christianity” becomes “decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life” (God is Love 7).   The “gospel” then becomes cold, aloof, inhuman.   In other words, we’re no longer preaching the real Gospel.

Sex, the Gospel, & St. Paul

According to John Paul II, coming to understand God’s plan for sex — and by that I mean coming to understand God’s plan for creating us as male and female and calling the two to become “one flesh” — is essential  if we are to understand who God is and what his eternal plan  is for us.   In other words, it’s essential if we are to understand what the Gospel is actually all about — what it promises, how it challenges us, and what it leads us to believe in and hope for both in this life and the next.  For God stamped an image of his own mystery and plan right in our bodies as male and female. “For this reason…the two become one flesh.” For what reason?   The very Apostle to which Mr. Belew appeals tells us the reason for sex: it’s all a great mystery that reveals to us the “good news” of the Gospel: God has wed himself to us forever through the union of Christ and the church (see Eph 5:31-32).

In his Letter to Families, John Paul described this passage in Ephesians as “the compendium or summa, in some sense, of the teaching about God and man which was brought to fulfillment by Christ” (19).   In other words, if you are looking for a passage that summarizes the entire message of the Bible, this passage about God’s plan for sex fits the bill quite nicely.  I can agree with Mr. Belew that talking about sex the way the culture does “ain’t gonna get nobody to heaven.”   But talking about it the way St. Paul does will launch us there like a rocket.   If that’s what Pastor Lawson is trying to do, I’m all for it.