The Truth of Our Bodies

Today’s readings are all about marriage and children, starting with the Genesis creation account which declares,

"This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called 'woman, ' for out of 'her man' this one has been taken."
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.”

In the gospel, when Jesus is asked whether or not divorce is lawful, He replies with unequivocal support for the sanctity of marriage:

“But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate."

Our culture has forgotten, or chooses to ignore the fact, that marriage is more than just a legal contract, it is a sacred institution conceived by God and revealed in the truth of our bodies.  When God created us male and female, He did so out of love for us, and to ensure the continuation of humanity.  In creating us male and female, God made men and women different but complementary, as revealed in our physical differences.  He designed our bodies to be united in love (one flesh) and for that unity to be the genesis of new life, conceived in love and commitment.  These two aspects of physical love, unity and procreation, have long been upheld by the church as the central components of marriage and the marriage act.  Men and women are intended to love each other as they love themselves, as St. Paul points out in his epistle to the Ephesians (5:28).  Paul also points out that Christ’s love for the church is like that of a husband for his wife.  In Theology of the Body, John Paul II explains that married love is participation in the inner life of the Trinity because it is self-giving and reflects the unity and life-giving nature of the Trinity.  For thousands of years people seem to have intuited this, and therefore the marriage of a man and a woman has been held sacrosanct by societies from every culture in every age… until now. 

Over the past 50 years, marriage has been in decline, reduced to little more than a social contract with even less legal protection than business contracts which cannot be broken without cause.  Divorce statistics are dismal and disheartening.  Divorce has been the source of untold emotional damage to children whose families were destroyed by the notion of disposable spouses, and perhaps an impediment to adult children of divorce’s ability to make commitments to marriage.

So after thousands of years, what has been the cause of the demise of marriage?  The answer can also be found in today’s gospel: 

"Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."

When it became technically possible to separate the marriage act from the possibility of procreation, God’s plan for humanity was ripped asunder.  With no responsibility for conceiving children, sexual intercourse moved from an act of self-giving and commitment, to one of self-satisfaction and pleasure.  Even Sigmund Freud recognized that this was a recipe for disaster.  Sex without commitment to love and responsibility is not unitive, it is selfish.  As a secular culture, separated from God’s truth about our bodies, we now put the individual first in all matters.  As such, we no longer view others in terms of our responsibility and commitment to them, but rather, we see the world and other people as sources of pleasure and personal fulfillment.  No wonder then that when we tire of someone, we cast them off, just as we would any other impediment to our perceived happiness.

We all know that the bodies of men and women are different in many ways.  Besides the differences in appearance, our bodies produce different hormones, and elicit different emotions to situations.  Testosterone is present in both men and women, and among other things, it gives us our sex drive.  Men have 20 times more testosterone than women, accounting for their perpetual eagerness for sex.  However, marriage brings with it a taming influence over men’s instinctual nature.  The love of a woman gives a man the determination to exercise self-control over hormonal urges, out of love and respect for his wife, and responsibility to his family.  But when the wife’s fertility has been suppressed, and responsibility for procreation removed, the woman can become an object for man’s pleasure rather than respected for her personal dignity.   This is why Pope Paul VI prophetically warned that contraception would inevitably lead to more divorce and the decline of marriage.

Of course there are many other consequences of contraception, including the well documented fact that it also results in more and more abortions because of contraception failure and misuse.  In Africa, a new study demonstrates the causal relationship between contraception and the increase in AIDS which is rampant in the heterosexual population.  Contraception and its effects (abortion and divorce) also account for declining birthrates worldwide, which is playing havoc with the world economy as countries struggle with deficits caused by entitlement programs growing at a much faster rate than the working population.

Despite all this, our government continues its attack on marriage, attempting to redefine it as merely a social contract between any two (or more?) people in love, regardless of whether they are capable of starting a family and raising children successfully.  The government also insists that every employer provide free contraception, chemical abortion, and surgical sterilization to their employees, even if it violates the moral conscience of the employer.  Under the new law, church-owned hospitals and social service agencies must provide these services, even going so far as to accuse those who object, of waging a war on women.

God’s truth is that we have been created in His image, male and female, with the potential to love as He loves, giving ourselves to one another in permanent, loving, and committed relationships which respect the inherent dignity of our spouses and our offspring from the moment of conception.  Our secular culture is blind to this truth and is paying the price in countless ways.   If our society is to survive, we need to rediscover this truth and realize that marriage and family are the basis of society, and neither can be sacrificed at the altar of radical individualism.  Pray for marriages, for respect for every human life, and for our country to wake up to “The Truth” as revealed in our bodies, our marriages, and our families.