Riflessioni ad alta voce

Sexuality and vow of chastity Recalling what we have already said we can affirm that: - Man is made for relationship - Love is the language of this relationship Both relationship and love come from God and are a necessary part of human nature. From that we have to deduct that the vow of chastity cannot go against these two points. We can say that: The vow of chastity is in no way against relationships or love, but has a different way of fulfilling them. We do not give up the relationship but simply the physical aspect of it in order to develop better the social and spiritual aspects. We do not give up love, but the erotic aspect of it in order to develop better the agape aspect. So whoever makes the vow of chastity has to be a mature person, able to understand his own impulses and desires, accept them as part of his nature and sublimate them rather than satisfy them.

Problems and deviations in sexuality Before dealing with the problems which can come out of sexuality we must put a clear foundation to our concept. 1- Sexuality comes from God (he is the source and so we should respect the way he made things). It has a purpose. (Goal. We cannot use things for our own purpose) 2- The language of sexuality is LOVE. (Instrument. If we speak a different language then we create misunderstandings). 3- Furthermore we should keep in mind what in the person is: - Gender. (Male or female, as provided by nature and written in the genes). - Orientation. (This is the feeling we prove for other people, whom we are attracted to). - Desire or choices. (The actions we take in our sexual behavior).  The deviations can be divided in groups according to where the problem lies compared to the 6 points above. Of course we have to remember that not all deviations are actual sins. A sin is a purposely made choice of something that is wrong, while many ...

From attraction to intimacy When a person reaches the teenage, he experiences a strong attraction for people of the other sex. This is natural and has the important task to push him towards relationship. Usually this attraction is strongly "erotic". The person feels the desire of seeing, touching etc. ... At the beginning the attraction is generic (for all girls), but little by little it gets oriented towards one of them which more than the others fulfills what he unconsciously feels he lacks. At this stage he is fully into eros. Usually he is afraid to talk to her for fear of being rejected or made fun of. This first stage is called attraction . When we have the courage to talk to the girl, we start discovering even more things which are attractive. Furthermore we discover that she is available, she somehow likes me. At this point the emotions go full speed, while the intelligence seems unable to work. The girl is seen as whole perfect, she becomes the centre of ...

Love and sexuality. Love is the most used and misunderstood word. Everybody likes to speak about love, but what they all mean is different. To love cricket means to enjoy, to love a girl means to feel attraction, to "make love" means to have a sexual relationship, to love our parents means respect and veneration, to love children means care and protection, to love your country means dedication, to love the enemy means to be like God. Are there different kinds of love? Pope Benedict XVI wrote an encyclical letter called “Deus Charitas est” (God is love). In this letter he says that there are not different kinds of love, but different stages. Love is the nature of God. We human beings participate to the nature of God, (we are at his image), but we are also ruined by sin and by nature we are limited. So the more we grow in the image of God, the more our love is perfect. The more distant we are from God, the worst our love is. The three stages of Love. EROS: it means ba...

Extra readings: some lessons on Sexuality These readings are not to be done after the lessons on chastity as a separate topic, but together with them as a complement. They are put here as an appendix so they can be used with freedom. Reading them will help us to understand better the concepts developed above. Genesis 1:26-27 has: "Let us create Human being at our image.... Male and female he created them". In this passage we see that both male and female are image of God so are equal. Sexuality is the fruit of the creation of God, so everything that belongs to sexuality is good. What is sin is the wrong use of sexuality. When we use sexuality only for our pleasure and against the plan of God, then we commit sin. The fact of being man and woman means also that the two of them are called to live as community (family) so much united through love that they become one. This means that human beings are made by nature, for relationship and must live by love. The con...