February 25, 2003 How to Kiss a Catholic: Sexuality and Dating
by Deacon James Keating
How to Kiss a Catholic
The following is the notes from a talk given by Deacon James Keating, professor of Moral Theology at the Josephinum and Deacon at St. Andrew's Church
Virtue
This virtue is under great attack by pop culture. There is no where you can go without seeing an indecent image. It is become common and people are getting used to it. This is the way the virtue is attacked.
Some television models come with the "V" chip which help control which channels to block on the TV, etc. it was said "Isn't it sad that you have to do all the work to stop it from coming into your home, there should be a technology to want to look at the bad stuff not the other way around." We are being forced to be defensive. That really proved how far our culture had come. We are the ones who have to work hard to stop it from hitting us where as the others don't have to do anything and get hit hard with it.
This says a lot about how American culture is and how hard the battle is.
Romans 12 1-2
This is the premiere scripture verse on moral living. "(2) Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." That particular aspect of Romans 12 is the transforation that we need to take together. The transformation of the mind. Paul, however, before that says "(1) I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." The body is to be offered back to God the Father. What will He do to the body? He will conform it to His mystery. When St. Paul says, "that you may prove what is the will of God", we cannot discern the will of God until we do the first, offer our bodies, then we will get the insight into the mind.
That's what lot of people struggle with, the offering. It's not just an intention but it's the will being changed and formed to a new object of love. That stops a lot of people. Once you're offered, the mind begins to change, it is turned into something worthy of love, not lust. The book of Romans is the hallmark to all virtue and especially chastity.
The Eucharist
Henri DeLubac said, "We live in the Eucharist and from it we derive all of our virtues." We just don't go to Mass, we live in it. It points to that which we draw life from. DeLubac says "I desire to be in the mystery of the mass." As we're living in the Eucharist Christ is teaching about Himself, calling us to be conformed to His great mystery. He's trying to teach us how to meet evil with love. DeLubac while writing these things is meditating on the Church fathers.
We are gifted with virtue for a large part in receiving the Eucharist, that is what the Church father's believed. As we live in the Eucharist, the struggle to be live in virtue begins to fade and we are gifted with such a peace about whatever virtue we're taking on, in this case chastity. We go to the Eucharist to continually surrender our bodies in worship, 'bodies' here means 'whole self'. In doing this Christ allows us to participate in His virtues and it will be a light burden from that point on.
Overcoming the Struggle
The problem is people start the journey and stop because it's too hard. If you can go through the wall of pain, it no longer will be an everyday struggle. Your initial turn from a vice will be painful because you directed your will for so long towards that vice. Your will has become wedded to it and to make the turn you must expect pain, there's no other way to do it.
Frequent reception of the Eucharist and reconciliation and friends who feel the same way you do would be the sure way to live the virtue with ease. The great mark of a holy person is they live virtues with ease. That's our goal isn't it? We will die happy, the happiness will come from living the virtues with ease. Which appears as a burden to others but isn't really due to your connection with the Eucharist and Christ.
We're aiming here towards a life of ease. As Americans we should like that. It's not physical ease or comfort ease like A/C but ease in the sense that you will pant after the virtuous life. You will truly desire it and want it. The great lie of Satan is that the virtuous are in a continual struggle but only those outside the mystery think that's so.
Meet evil with love
DeLubac says by participating in the mass we participate in the suffering and death of Christ. Christ calls us to participate and we consent, it is a communal relationship. Jesus says in the mass "come to the place where I meet evil with love and evil doesn't triumph".
I don't think there's any other place to be, I really want to live in the place where we meet evil with love and evil does not triumph. This reality is as local as your parish church. The thing about God's grace as He's made it universally accessible. Except, of course, for those countries where religious persecution exists. But for us here, we just have to go to your local parish where this mystery happens continually. The mystery is inviting us into the place where evil is met with Love and evil doesn't triumph.
Jesus was asked "where do you live?" which is analogous to saying "where are you from?" and He said, "Come and see". Where does He live? He lives in the reality where evil is met with love and evil doesn't triumph.
How is it done?
I can get through this struggle with lust by remaining in Christ and the Eucharist, with my friends and with my mind deep in the word of God and not this age.
There will be times that you fall. The initial struggle is hard but over time and over years of entering into this mystery continually you grow strong and your happiness becomes the fruit of that struggle.
DeLubac points us to the mass. Jesus said, "Love as I have loved you" How did He love us? He loved us till the end, till the blood was gone. In total self-offering to the Father and we can be empowered to love the same way. That seems very difficult but don't forget, we are not doing it by ourselves, the Holy Spirit is gifting us from within.
In order for this to be attractive to us, however, it has to be associated with the person of Jesus. You don't become attracted to an abstract virtue. Don't make Catholic ethics an abstraction. That's why DeLubac points us to the mass. If you think of your own lives in the people you love, sometimes when selfishness calls, it can only take the imagining the face of your beloved to turn you from your selfishness.
Love came in love in the face of someone you love, and you respond to that love. So it is with our belief in Jesus Christ. If you need to cling to the crucifix and cry to overcome lust, then do it. Hold the Scriptures close to you. The amazing liberation of being Catholic is that it's incredibly sensuous and it goes through creation. Through the senses we can see the face of the beloved, we can hold the crucifix and see God in the bible.
Be weak! Paul says "be a fool for Christ." (1 Cor 4:10) There is a group called "courage" that helps those that are attracted to the same-sex. The group helps these people follow their desire to serve the Church and live with their feelings without acting upon them. People who are in the program have said they had to be weak to be able to excel in that virtue. They knew their weakness and they struggled hard in the spirit to overcome it. The last thing God needs is someone who thinks they're strong. Especially in a culture where temptation is so prevalent. It's okay to be weak and have as many crutches as you need.
Becoming a saint
DeLubac says (paraphrased) "When we are converted we don't follow a law but are given a virtue above others, a new law it is not a law you're following but a person and by continuing in the relationship with that person, you are gifted with new possibilities." As we let this new life in you will be able to do things you can only now imagine, why, because you're heading more towards heaven and the virtues you posses are making you fit towards heaven. If I were to die now I don't think I could be in the same room as Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa, but that's what we're heading towards and soon will be in.
There will be this incredible sense and continually amazement that we're there. Sometimes people think heaven will be kinda boring, but heaven is the invitation into the very life of God. Nobody thinks that would be boring except those who imagine it in a finite or limited way; as if it's a day off at work. This is something more profound and will last forever. We would have become fit to live with those who have come before us.
The struggle we have with chastity is just a hint of that glory that is to come. It's all about hope. You can bet your life on the future. Today is iffie though, you don't know if you will cooperate with Satan or grace, but we know what is ahead for us in the future. God is solid, His promises will stand. You have to grab the future to get the hope you gain tonight. As the present opens up to heaven.
DeLubac goes on to say, if we participate in the mass, we will be more like Jesus who lived to do the Father's will. Paradoxically, after the resurrection Christ becomes our food and in His listening to the Father, the mystery of His crucifixion and resurrection is what we feed on in the mass. We are feeding on what Jesus fed upon; His love and obedience to God. We can become holy because we are becoming holy through and out of the power of holiness itself, Jesus Christ.
Do you live out of resurrection power? "No I'm just a loser, I'm always back-sliding, I'm a mess". Well, that's true, you are a mess, humans are a mess, but we can't let our regular sinning spoil the vision and block the entry of our souls info resurrection power. I hope that there are some sins that you did in high school that you're not doing anymore. Sometimes it's good to look back on what we used to do so we can have hope that we have changed. I have a memory of conversion, I don't vandalize anymore! What is your sin that you have a memory of and that you do not do anymore? That you have brought to the mystery of the cross and resurrection and that cross swallowed it up. In other words, evil was met with love and now you don't carry that disposition anymore. You don't linger over it but you must remember. That adds to our capacity for gratitude.
If you remember where you where, where you are now, and where you are going, you will pant after the mass and love virtue more. St. Augustine said, "The Eucharist is the one thing where when eaten it does not become us, but we become it." The more you enter the Eucharistic mystery the more you become Christ so as to enter heaven. St. Ignatius of Antioch in the year 107 said "The E is the medicine of immortality and the antidote that saves us from death, driving evil away and causing us to live in God and Jesus Christ." It preserves us from mortal sin and cleanses us from venial sin. It opens us up to life in Heaven.
St. Francis, when he was dying asked his brothers to take him out of his hermitage and lay him on the ground. He started singing and his brothers did too and he went off into heaven singing. Why? how? Because he was dead already, he had been dead already for many years; dead to this age and alive in Christ. Saints never fear death because it already has happened from moving from vice to virtue
People who's identity deep in time go out kicking and screaming. But those who have made this transition from attachment to vice to virtue, they are already dead to sin and alive in Christ. Death has no power over them.
Chastity as a Virtue
The aspect of chastity, people think of it as "no sex". But that's a microscopic part of the virtue, if we get the foundation correct, we will get the rest fine it won't be a burden to us. America is preoccupied with genitals and orgasm. Sex is judged on how good you are, was it better than last time, how long was it, etc. You are a role model if you're 'better' at it. Society obsessed with genitals! There is an obsessive sense of the body and one's performance, because we have objectified the body. We have made it a thing and lost the person as mystery.
A man came to me in tears. For years he had been addicted to pornography and masturbation. He had an insight at the most inopportune time, when he was making love to his wife. He said, "Ever since I married her I never once made love to her, instead I was masturbating into her." Pornography had made him incredibly alone. He had become what he chose. He chose that outlet and he had become it. All alone. Even at the time when he was supposed to be at one with his spouse. He was essentially in bed alone. That was the beginning of his conversion. Now he travels the country teaching people on this Catholic truth: what you set your will upon, you become.
This is not a game, fun, or "Real TV" on M-TV. This is not superficialities of pleasure. People create their being through sexuality and it has become a source of entertainment and measurement. Christ will show us again the person as mystery, He will show us His body, the mystical body of Christ and we will change.
Practical Steps
The most practical thing is that if you're living an unchaste life you must move toward self mortification. That is denial of yourself. It will help you be chaste. By not giving into your wants, like watching TV, getting a beer, ice cream, whatever. This affects our power to choose by descending upon slowly of your other aspects of choosing. That's why gluttony is associated with lust. As you begin to deny yourself it will become easier to grow strong in the bigger areas.
Lastly, the sacrament of reconciliation is your greatest ally in being chaste. It is understandable that we are weak and that we judge our bodies by the image that comes out of Hollywood. Society is swimming in lust. The sacrament is the place to go with that weakness, continually, regularly to get that lust under control.
We know that living the chaste life comes with peace and happiness.
Father hayes: From what I'm hearing, the key, here, is touch. The Eucharist is an embrace of Christ, and the heart of chastity is touch.
Yes. The Catholic idea of Chastity is held in vocation. Someone who is chaste as an unmarried person is faithful to their spouse, even though they don't have one. And when they embrace for the first time on their wedding night as virgins they can say they were faithful to each other from the moment they were born.
What contraception has done to chastity, it has rendered us and our minds sterile, we imagine sex as sterile, we don't think of unity and babies. In America, having a baby means sex 'broke'. We're the first generation that can have all the sex we want and never have babies and all the babies we want and never have sex.
Question: Is procreative sex, then, the only thing allowed in marriage? What about recreational sex?
Recreational sex is an American term, is your wife a recreation in herself? By saying this you are objectifying and not entering into the mystery of the person. That being said, as you are attracted and that attraction is ordered to her good and your good together, there is nothing wrong with having sex during the infertile period.
However, this is mine field to a certain extent. It is still true that a husband can lust after his wife. Marriage doesn't protect us from denigrating our spouse. If there is a person attracted to their spouse through selfishness, this is easily brought to confession and our minds can be tuned more purely towards the him/her. Don't confuse desire for lust, it's the intention that's important; 'Using' or having sex for 'me' is where lust lies.
If you're denied the sexual experience, mediate on anger that sometimes happens as a result, what could lurk under there could be egotism which is satisfying the self and rather than what is good for the spouse.
On the issue of AIDS and the complaint that the Church says you cannot use a condom even if you are marrieds, if I have AIDS and I love my wife, the loving thing to do is to not have sex rather than risk it with her. "I love you so much that I don't want to risk hurting you." Pleasure is a by-product of the harmonious good between the two there can be others ways the two can derive pleasure and love each other.
Question: What then is the definition of lust?
Lust is having sex alone, for the self, only. It's like gluttony, eating alone at a table of sharing.
Question: How do you kiss a Catholic?
With great passion. You are continually racing to the orgasm, so the level of kissing or touching has to reflect the level of the relationship you're in. If you're dating, a chaste kiss is acceptable but touching each other in sexual areas would indicate more than where you're at and that's a lie.
Men and woman approach kissing very differently. A female is more united in one with her body, she says, "I am my body" the male says, "I have a body". There is separation for the man. The male feels more separated for protection. There is a masculine idea that if the body is in harms way, I cannot identify with the body. This comes from the idea that the man would work in dangerous places or go to war. That's why if a man has an affair he says "it meant nothing."
He is not united with his body so is less damaged by fornication. On the other hand, for a female it's much harder do separate. For her sex equals love. Men don't think that way, for them sex equals sex. What is love to a male? Love equals marriage. "If I love her, then I want to marry her." And that's the safe environment created for the woman to become naked. Any other environment for the woman is dangerous psychologically.
Touching according to one's vocation, ordered rightly to it's end. That's Chastity. If we want to remain chaste, we control what we look at and think about. Modesty, since men are attracted visually, it's important especially for the women. However, it is necessary in men as well.
