Chapter 4
The transformation of eros – Sexual desire aroused by lust is not erotic enough!!!
BXVI – God’s love is erotic and agape
Temperance as purity. Crucifying of the flesh.
Temperance and purity – more not less
- We think of temperance as the virtue that tells us to cut down on things, eliminate things from our lives – Like it’s the party pooper of the virtues. Justice is all ‘love, order and gratitude’ Prudence is wise, Fortitude is ‘Feel the fear and lets go’ and then Temperance is lets stop that. That’s not true.
Temperance is the virtue of moderation – so yes it may mean reeling back what we do that’s excessive but it also means amping up what we don’t do enough of. It’s the virtue that helps free us from being a workaholic, and what frees us from being a couch potato.
- Similarly with Purity – when we look at purity of heart – that’s about being free from that which is foreign. As Christians, our hearts were made for God so anything foreign of God, ie. not in obedience to what he asks of us – both in what we do, and do not do, or is just in worship is foreign to us and doesn’t belong to our hearts
- But more importantly than what these virtues are, why do they matter? They free us to love whole heatedly. While ever we’re tied down by what ‘feels’ like a need, which may not be more than a strong desire, we aren’t free to love.
Chapter 5
Complementarity and vocations – the tug-o-war between which path is ‘better’. The best vocational path is the one God calls you to. The church needs both married and celibate Christians – each strengthening and elevating the other – both being called to practice chastity.
-Risen life – Bodies still male and female but not connected to sexual procreation. Our bodies will become the expression of the nuptiual union with God himself. This means our bodily life hear on earth really is a prep for life eternal in heaven. Do we live out an authentic sacramental reality in our body or do we obscure that reality?
Celibacy – Eunuch for the sake of the kingdom. Jesus probably uses the word eunuch because it was an insult thrown at him – he was unmarried and that was odd for that particular time in history. A renunciation and a charism. An authentic expression of the nuptial mystery. Through the body service is rendered. Celibacy isn’t about ‘no sex’ so much as it is about radical service in the name of Christ and in his love.
Chapter 6
Primordial sacrament – Imagery of bridegroom’s love for Israel
‘They go back to the mystery hidden in the heart of God’ – JP2 = They reveal that God’s love for his people is a gift, which springs entirely from his own initiative, it’s totally free’
- Shifts the lens of Sin from merely breaking a law like it was something distant to us, rules made by an authority and moves it into something much more personal. We said this in a previous episode on marriage ‘it becomes more like adultery – a going against spousal love that we’ve been called into, where the bridegroom has been totally loving, and we have chosen to be unfaithful’.
‘Only when love is reciprocated in gift of self do we have spousal union = only when we recognize Jesus’ gift of self, his act of love for us on the cross, when we receive his love and respond to that with gratitude and love do we complete the covenant bond he’s made with us’.
Boom ‘ the church completes (the sacrament of Christ’s redemption) just as the wife, in virtue of spousal love, completes her husband’.
‘ Holiness is not something I do, but something I receive’ . – So easy to make out faith in to actions of things that we do. I see this clearly in my own active pursuit of Virtue which is what Vm is all about. When we make our faith into things that we need to do to ‘become’ who we were made to be, like it’s a list of character traits or skills, it becomes I do by my own strength, and merit and God might help from time to time. When true Virtue as we talk about in our talks and workshops, comes from being in relationship with God. Is there much effort on our part, 100% but the effort is useless and has no meaning if it’s not in first receiving from being in relationship with God, which my team and I spoke about more recently in our monthly formation sessions – We don’t separate our ministry of growing in virtue from relationship, they always come together because Virtue is meaningless if it’s not in relation to someone. It’s modeled on the first relationship we have, of being a child of God. Our lives being a gift from Him, and our practicing of worship being just towards a God who made us without needing us, then loving our neighbour because that is what he’s asked of us, and it’s not just to worship God and not be obedient to what he has asked of us. It’s not even true worship to do that. One comes from the other, so even the path of growing in Virtue with helps us lead more wholesome and holy lives is first a receiving from God not a creating from self.
A note between receptivity and passivity – Get Mumma Mary in here 😉
Passivity is almost like just being an observer in life, having no input only allowing life to happen to us instead of recognizing life happens not to us, but for us. When we become active participants we step away from being passive to being truly, actively receptive. Mary was a great model of this. She wasn’t ‘letting life happen to her’ she actively participated. She was given the freedom to choose, and she chose to give God her fiat instead of being ‘meh’ about it, and letting it happen to her. She conceived because she was actively open and free to receive.
TBG (Truth, Beauty, Goodness)
Padre: – Holy Eros – Adam Cooper
Stina: – Grace expecting bub