417 THE SEXUAL ENCOUNTER

YOUCAT Lesson 417

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

417  What significance does the sexual encounter have within marriage?

According to God’s will, husband and wife should encounter each other in bodily union so as to be united ever more deeply with one another in love and to allow children to proceed from their love.  [2362-2367]

A Sudanese woman condemned for apostasy with her child receives a blessing from Pope Francis. …..417

In Christianity, the body, pleasure, and erotic joy enjoy a high status: “Christianity…believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body,  that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty and our energy.  Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians.  If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once” (C.S. Lewis).  Pleasure, of course, is not an end in itself.  When the pleasure of a couple becomes self-enclosed and is not open to the new life that could result from it, it no longer corresponds to the nature of love.

“”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.  What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”  Matthew 19:5-6 (citing Genesis 2:24)

“For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.”  1 Timothy 4:4

[2362-2367]

III. THE LOVE OF HUSBAND AND WIFE

2362 "The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude." (Gaudium et Spes 49 § 2.)¹⁴⁵ Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure: --Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

 The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation. (Pius XII, Discourse, October 29, 1951. )¹⁴⁶ --CCC

2363 The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family. –CCC

The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity. –CCC

* Conjugal fidelity

2364 The married couple forms "the intimate partnership of life and love established by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the conjugal covenant, that is, in their irrevocable personal consent." (Gaudium et Spes 48 § 1.)¹⁴⁷ Both give themselves definitively and totally to one another. They are no longer two; from now on they form one flesh. The covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble. (Compare Codex Iuris Canonici, can. 1056.)¹⁴⁸ "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder." (Mark 10:9; compare Matthew 19:1-12; 1 Corinthians 7:10-11.)¹⁴⁹ –CCC

2365 Fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one's given word. God is faithful. The Sacrament of Matrimony enables man and woman to enter into Christ's fidelity for his Church. Through conjugal chastity, they bear witness to this mystery before the world. –CCC

St. John Chrysostom suggests that young husbands should say to their wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the life reserved for us. . . . I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you. (St. John Chrysostom, Hom. in Eph. 20,8:Patrologia Graeca 62,146-147.)¹⁵⁰ –CCC

* The fecundity of marriage

2366 Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is "on the side of life," (Familiaris Consortio 30.)¹⁵¹ teaches that "it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life." (Humanae Vitae 11.)¹⁵² "This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act." (Humanae Vitae 12; cf. Pius XI, encyclical, Casti connubii.)¹⁵³ –CCC

2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God. (Compare Ephesians 3:14; Matthew 23:9. )¹⁵⁴ "Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility." (Gaudium et Spes 50 § 2.)¹⁵⁵ --CCC