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THE PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR THE FAMILY
THE
TRUTH AND MEANING
OF HUMAN SEXUALITY
Guidelines for Education within the Family
I
CALLED TO TRUE LOVE
8. As the image of God, man is created for love. This truth was fully
revealed to us in the New Testament, together with the mystery of the
inner life of the Trinity: "God is love (1 John 4: 8) and in himself
he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race
in his own image... God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the
vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.
Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being".
The whole meaning of true freedom, and self-control which follows from
it, is thus directed towards self-giving in communion and friendship with
God and with others.
Human Love as Self-Giving
9. The person is thus capable of a higher kind of love than concupiscence,
which only sees objects as a means to satisfy one's appetites; the person
is capable rather of friendship and self-giving, with the capacity to
recognize and love persons for themselves. Like the love of God, this
is a love capable of generosity. One desires the good of the other because
he or she is recognized as worthy of being loved. This is a love which
generates communion between persons, because each considers the good of
the other as his or her own good. This is a self-giving made to one who
loves us, a self-giving whose inherent goodness is discovered and activated
in the communion of persons and where one learns the value of loving and
of being loved.
Each person is called to love as friendship and self-giving. Each person
is freed from the tendency to selfishness by the love of others, in the
first place by parents or those who take their place and, definitively,
by God, from whom all true love proceeds and in whose love alone does
man discover to what extent he is loved. Here we find the root of the
educative power of Christianity: "Humanity is loved by God! This
very simple yet profound proclamation is owed to humanity by the Church".
In this way Christ has revealed his true identity to man: "Christ
the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and
of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most
high calling".
The love revealed by Christ "which the Apostle Paul celebrates in
the First Letter to the Corinthians...is certainly a demanding love. But
this is precisely the source of its beauty: by the very fact that it is
demanding, it builds up the true good of man and allows it to radiate
to others". Therefore it is a love which respects and builds up the
person because "Love is true when it creates the good of persons
and of communities; it creates that good and gives it to others".
Love and Human Sexuality
10. Man is called to love and to self-giving in the unity of body and
spirit. Femininity and masculinity are complementary gifts, through which
human sexuality is an integrating part of the concrete capacity for love
which God has inscribed in man and woman. "Sexuality is a fundamental
component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation,
of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living
human love". This capacity for love as self-giving is thus "incarnated"
in the nuptial meaning of the body, which bears the imprint of the person's
masculinity and femininity. "The human body, with its sex, and its
masculinity and femininity, seen in the very mystery of creation, is not
only a source of fruitfulness and procreation, as in the whole natural
order, but includes right from the beginning the nuptial attribute, that
is, the capacity of expressing love: that love precisely in which the
man-person becomes a gift and — by means of this gift — fulfils
the very meaning of his being and existence". Every form of love
will always bear this masculine and feminine character.
11. Human sexuality is thus a good, part of that created gift which God
saw as being "very good", when he created the human person in
his image and likeness, and "male and female he created them"
(Genesis 1:27). Insofar as it is a way of relating and being open to others,
sexuality has love as its intrinsic end, more precisely, love as donation
and acceptance, love as giving and receiving. The relationship between
a man and a woman is essentially a relationship of love: "Sexuality,
oriented, elevated and integrated by love acquires truly human quality".
When such love exists in marriage, self-giving expresses, through the
body, the complementarity and totality of the gift. Married love thus
becomes a power which enriches persons and makes them grow and, at the
same time, it contributes to building up the civilization of love. But
when the sense and meaning of gift is lacking in sexuality, a "civilization
of things and not of persons" takes over, "a civilization in
which persons are used in the same way as things are used. In the context
of a civilization of use, woman can become an object for man, children
a hindrance to parents...".
12. The gift of God: this great truth and basic fact stands at the centre
of the Christian conscience of parents and their children. Here we refer
to the gift which God has given us in calling us to life, to exist as
man or woman in an unrepeatable existence, full of endless possibilities
for growing spiritually and morally: "human life is a gift received
in order then to be given as a gift". "In fact the gift reveals,
so to speak, a particular characteristic of human existence, or rather,
of the very essence of the person. When God Yahweh says that ?it is not
good that man should be alone' (Genesis 2:18), he affirms that ?alone',
man does not completely realize his existence.
He realizes it only by existing with some one' — and even more deeply
and completely: by existing for some one '". Married love is fulfilled
in openness to the other person and in self-giving, taking the form of
a total gift that belongs to this state of life. Moreover, the vocation
to the consecrated life always finds its meaning in self-giving, sustained
by a special grace, the gift of oneself "to God alone with an undivided
heart in a remarkable manner" in order to serve him more fully in
the Church. Therefore, in every condition and state of life, this gift
comes to be ever more wondrous by redeeming grace, through which we become
"partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) and are called
to live the supernatural communion of love together with God and with
our brothers and sisters. Even in the most delicate situations, Christian
parents cannot forget that the gift of God is there, at the very basis
of all personal and family history.
13. "As an incarnate spirit, that is, a soul which expresses itself
in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit, man is called to
love in his unified totality. Love includes the human body, and the body
is made a sharer in spiritual love". The meaning of sexuality itself
is to be understood in the light of Christian Revelation: "Sexuality
characterizes man and woman not only on the physical level, but also on
the psychological and spiritual, making its mark on each of their expressions.
Such diversity, linked to the complementarity of the two sexes, allows
thorough response to the design of God according to the vocation to which
each one is called".
Married Love
14. When love is lived out in marriage, it includes and surpasses friendship.
Love between a man and woman is achieved when they give themselves totally,
each in turn according to their own masculinity and femininity, founding
on the marriage covenant that communion of persons where God has willed
that human life be conceived, grow and develop. To this married love,
and to this love alone, belongs sexual giving, "realized in a truly
human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and
a woman commit themselves totally to one another until death". The
Catechism of the Catholic Church recalls: "In marriage the physical
intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion.
Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament".
Love Open to Life
15. The revealing sign of authentic married love is openness to life:
"In its most profound reality, love is essentially a gift; and conjugal
love, while leading the spouses to the reciprocal ?knowledge'....does
not end with the couple, because it makes them capable of the greatest
possible gift, the gift by which they become cooperators with God for
giving life to a new human person. Thus the couple, while giving themselves
to one another, give not just themselves but also the reality of children,
who are a living reflection of their love, a permanent sign of conjugal
unity and a living and inseparable synthesis of their being a father and
a mother". From this communion of love and life spouses draw that
human and spiritual richness and that positive atmosphere for offering
their children the support of education for love and chastity.
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