“For Men of Our Time …”

Velius N. , The Chtonic World in Lithuanian Mythology [in Lithuanian], Vilnius, 1987, p. 52.

Douay-Rheims Version of the Holy Bible (Rockford, IL: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1971.)

John Paul Pope II , Blessed are the Pure of the Heart Catechesis on the Sermon on the Mount (Boston: St. Paul Books and Media, 1983). p. 76.

See Burke Cormac , “St. Augustine and Conjugal Sexuality,” Communio, 17 (Winter 1990), p. 555.

St. Augustine, for example, condemned behavior aimed for satisfaction of sexual desire independently of reason and will. St. Thomas similarly “warned against pleasure seeking (not pleasure experiencing) in love (see the above-mentioned article of Cormac Burke in Communio, Winter 1990 p. 554 and the article of Fabian Parmisano, “Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages II” in New Blackfriars 80 (1969) p. 659.

St. Ambrose “Book on Isaac and the Soul” Bk. 7 Ch 3.8 (cited from Dietrich von Hildebrand's book, Man and Woman Sophia Institute Press, P. 54.

This is the thesis of the classical philosophy of Aristotle, reinterpreted by St. Thomas in his “Treatise on Man” in Summa Theologica I, Q 81, Art. 3.

Wojtyla Karol Love and Responsibility. Ignatius Press 1993, p. 275.

Love and Responsibility, p. 275.

It seems intersting to notice that the tradition of abstaining from conjugal intercourse on the first or more nights of the wedding is described not only in the Old Testament, but also in other religious traditions. For example, triratravrata (abstaining for the first three nights) is the tradition cited in the Hindu holy scriptures. Folklore scientists report similar behavior still in use in our days in some remote parts of Northern Europe. See Bali Pandey R. Hindu Samskaras Motilal Banarsidass, Dehli 1976, P. 195. and D.M. Balashov The Russian Wedding Moscow 1985, p. 296. These examples help us to realize how highly the virtue of chastity is respected universally in human experience.

A more thorough analysis of the reasons why people outside of marriage seem often to have a special glamour in our perception would require a lengthy excursus on the psychology of marriage and of mutual attraction between spouses; although folk wisdom, as it frequently does, explain that briefly in a saying that “the grass is always greener on the other side …”

The concept of “sublimation” or “transformation” of sexual energy fits with this discussion. An Italian psychiatrist, R. Assagioli — one of the founders of a spiritual branch of psychotherapy — mentions numerous famous artists and scientists who lived chaste lives, and even gives direct examples of how the sexual passion was transformed into spiritual creativity with the result of beautiful opuses being born (the history of R. Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde). As the areas of human relations can equally be considered as one of the most subtle spheres of spiritual and psychological creativity, the sexual energy, not wasted in the lustful and selfish sexual relations, can be a large power in the successful building of marital communion. This transformation is a fruit of conjugal chastity, which includes both: the periodic abstinence at certain times and the “channeling” of sexual desires into self-giving love in the conjugal intimacy. See Psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli, Hobs, Dorman & Co., Inc., New York, 1965, p. 274.

A book by Mary Shivanandan, Challenge to Love, provides numerous witnesses of spouses about the beneficial influence of periods of abstinence on the loving relationship between spouses as well as preserving the “bright colors” of conjugal love itself — contrary to the experience of it “wearing off” in the case of availability of intercourse at “any time”. See Shivanandan M. Challenge to Love, KM Associates, Bethesda, MD. 1989.

These opinions can be found in the works of theologians such as Louis Janssens (see “Considerations on Humanae Vitae” in Louvain Studies 1969), Bernard Haring (“The Inseparability of the Unitive-Procreative Functions of the Marital Act” in Contraception Authority and Dissent, New York 1969), and others whose critique of Humanae Vitae contributed to the emergence of the well-argued defense of the encyclical in the works of Karol Wojtyla, Germain Grisez, William E. May, and others.

See G. Grisez’, J. Boyle's, J. Finnis’ and W.E. May's article “Open to the New Life …” in The Thomist 52.3, July 1988, p370. The authors use the strong term of “practical hatred” for describing the attitude toward the possible new human being coming to be, explaining that it is not necessarily emotional. While the word “hatred” can seem shocking to those spouses who believe in the goodness of contraception, because they never had a chance to examine it deeply enough, nevertheless it truly describes the neglect of a possible new person at the moment of taking a pill or similar contraceptive.

See “Gaudium et Spes”, #27.

A famous phenomenologist, Max Scheler used to criticize a bad use of intellect in our everyday life. He strongly advocated a refreshed perception of reality, which becomes possible when one leaves “the imprisonment of the intellect which turns toward what is merely mechanical and what can be mechanized” (see “The phenomenology of Essences: Max Scheler” in The Phenomenological Movement” by Herbert Spiegelberg, The Hague, 1965, p.240). Then we seem to regain the “colors” of the world and become capable of seeing and realizing again that various objects around us are not just inanimate “objects”: for example there is a big difference in perceiving a tree as just an object standing there and realizing, becoming aware of what it really does to my environment and my emotional-spiritual condition.

See Pieper Joseph Was Heist Philosophieren? Verlag Hegner GmbH, Munchen, 1948. p. 12

This is explained by a self-determining character of free choice: we become what we are by what we choose to do (see An Introduction to Moral Theology by W.E. May, Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. p. 25). For example if I choose to look at a woman or even at my wife lustfully, I practice lustfulness and I become lustful. On the contrary if my wife and I choose freely to be open to life in conjugal love, we become bearers of life, therefore alive in our spirits; we constitute our characters with qualities of life: with gentleness, freshness, joy, tenderness …

Although this explicit intention to integrate one's sexuality with love is crucial for getting in touch with that meaning of life, we cannot totally neglect its beneficial influence even when somebody doesn't perceive it consciously. For example, if somebody sees a real tree but thinks it is a plastic one (you can really confuse which is which at a modern mall), this misperception however does not change its realness nor its beneficial influence upon the environment; he, who sits at the bench under that tree receives its good influence upon the atmosphere around it independently of the fact that he is not aware of it. The issue seems similar to the influence of the Sacraments: in receiving them we are called first of all to personal and conscious relation with Christ and with the Holy Trinity through Him. The fact that a newborn baby is not capable of this kind of awareness does not negate the Sanctifying influence of the Sacrament of Baptism upon him, for “it is clear that the influence of the Spirit is not confined to those levels of consciousness we take to be signs of maturity” (cf. O'Neil Colman E. , O.P. Sacramental Realism, Michael Glazier, Inc., p. 212).

Love and Responsibility, p. 56.

Karol Wojtyla aptly describes what happens to conjugal love when the possibility of parenthood is rejected: “If the possibility of parenthood is deliberately exluded from marital relations, the character of relationship between the partners automatically changes. The change is away from unification in love and in the direction of mutual, or rather, bilateral, “enjoyment” … Their relationship is transformed to the point at which it becomes incompatible with the personalistic norm. When a man and a woman entirely reject the idea that he may become a father and she a mother … the danger arises that objectively speaking there will be nothing left except “Utilization for pleasure”, of which the object will be a person (idem, p. 228).

In a survey undertaken by the World Health Organization itself, the ability of women to recognize the signs of their fertile period was investigated in five centers of wide variety with respect to the cultural, economic, and educational backgrounds (Auckland, Bangalore, Dublin, Manila and San Miguel, El Salvador). (93% of the women regardless of culture and education were able to reliably interpret the signs of fertility, including El Salvador's women, 48.1% of whom were illiterate. The probability of conception from intercourse outside the period of fertility defined by cervical mucus observation was 0.004 (cf. British Medical Journal, vol 307, Sept, 1993).

In the above mentioned article of G. Grisez, J. Boyle, J. Finnis and W.E. May (p. 370) the authors prove that the act of contraception and the intercourse itself are separate, i.e. two different actions. It is most evident when the pill is taken or any other contraceptive device is applied, installed, etc. before or after sexual intercourse. Realizing this distinction helps us to avoid the mistaken impression of a noble character in contraception which may seem to pertain to it when it is confused with the conjugal act itself. Although the spouses, having not reflected on this, can genuinely believe that by using contraception they foster love in their marriage, this motivation doesn't change the content of the act of contraception itself, i.e. acting against life. The morally wrong character of the action doesn't change because of a noble purpose for which it is performed.