TOB for couples

So why is chastity so brilliant before and within marriage? As I wrote in my last entry, TOB good, man and woman are made to be in a monogamous relationship, and in order to live out the nuptial meaning of their bodies, chastity is vital. It may not be easy, but when men and women attempt sexual honesty (leaning heavily on grace), they will find many blessings.

In my previous relationships, I never really knew if I was liked for who I was or was it the sexual chemistry that kept the relationships going. When couples focus on the physical aspect of a mutual attraction, lust muddies the water of love, if it flows, for the motivations that keep a couple in a relationship become unclear. Both had used each other for their own gratification from the start, and this pattern of using often becomes the blueprint of relationship dynamics.

Lust tends to cement relationships of two personalities that should not be together. Even if it becomes clear that they do not bring out the best in each other (every good, long-term relationship should do this) things may have advanced to the point where they are too comfortable to break up and move on. They rationalize staying in a stagnant or unhealthy relationship rather than face being alone.

The mindless, feel good character of lust is akin to gorging on junk food which fills the empty void inside temporarily and leaves you craving for more, like an addict. And what about the ill effects? While less visible than clogged arteries and obesity, they are more damaging.

One night stands are only good for cheap thrills, the danger and risk one exposes oneself to is not worth it, let alone risking one's soul.

Casual sex keeps one focused only on scratching the sexual itch, neglecting the real prize one craves for, a life partner to rely on, through thick and thin.

We have become a world full of people desperately searching for love, but no longer certain what love really looks like and how to find it. We think a sexual smörgåsbord feeds the emptiness in our souls and we keep going back for more. Instead, we grow more pleasure-seekingly selfish, self-absorbed and immature, falling easily into sexual infidelity and perversity. We are morally flaccid.

Here is where chastity makes a difference. When you first meet someone you like, by not jumping into bed immediately, you give each other time to figure out if you really like each other, or is it just hormones talking.

As time progresses and feelings grow, you focus on liking each other in ways that do not objectify or use the other. You plant the seeds of a giving, selfless love and watch it grow.

If you find yourself in love and working towards sharing a lifetime together, should you maintain sexual purity? Yes, for good things truly do come to those who wait. Respecting and honouring the dignity of the other beyond seeking one's own pleasure is of inestimable value, as is the value of self-control.

You know your relationship is not just based on animal attraction but on more substantial stuff, the stuff that keeps marriages going through tough times. You don't feel used. You feel cherished. You are loved the way you want to be loved, for you. If anything, abstinence before marriage begets love of a higher, more generous order.

Marriage is the ultimate symbol and gesture of love for a formal and public exchange of vows enables you both to love to the fullest of your potential with honesty and integrity. In the permanence of the marital bond (this is, of course, assuming both parties recognize the sanctity of the marriage vow they each took), couples have space in the relationship to screw up, behave badly (at times) and fail in life, knowing their spouse will always be there for them to support, forgive and love them.  

Marriage is not an excuse to indulge in lust, although, marital sex can be mind-blowingly good in the absence of lust. For in the intimacy of shared lives, the connection of minds, hearts and bodies becomes an experience that transcends the ordinary where God is present, making the union of husband and wife sacred and achingly wondrous. This realization of heaven on earth is the gift open to all married couples. It's a gift I am holding out for, even if it takes forever.

Chastity within marriage makes sex an act of love that is unitive as well as procreative. Every time couples engage in sex, they are not only renewing their promises of avowed love to each other, they are also saying I give myself totally to you in such a way that if the miracle of new life should occur, we give thanks for that blessing, even if we may not be so thrilled about it initially (if unplanned). Children are that gift of life, created out of love. They are not a right that parents decide to exercise at will, despite the wonders of modern science.

We humans have the ability to practise natural family planning and couples who do abstain from sex when necessary, find that it makes for better communication that, in turn, engenders mutual love and respect. It is life affirming, unlike couple who contracept and focus only on getting their sexual kicks by blocking fertility.

A asked me a question when we met for dinner recently, about what I thought about an unmarried couple in a committed relationship sharing a room while on vacation.

My immediate thought is why put yourselves through this test of will power when you have already come so far in maintaining sexual purity (and if you haven't, there's no better time like the present to start)? Besides, even if you managed to just sleep and do nothing else, no one would believe you.

Although propriety seems irrelevant, the old-fashioned standards of behaviour make good sense. They make for refreshing simplicity and clarity. Adhere to them and relationships won't get complicated. No unpleasant surprises before marriage, and the courtship is a little sweeter, while the wedding night all the more special when it finally arrives. Plus no one can point a moralistic finger at you, and you will feel very good and virtuous about yourself, and deservedly so.

Chastity works to keep couples on the right track of love, to love with purity and single-minded intensity. And if couples allow the third party of Jesus to be part of their love, then all they need do is follow His lead.

PS: I thank God for the gift of JPII and his amazing Theology of the Body.

TOB good

While driving me home last night, J asked me a question that made me smile and roll my eyes simultaneously (and she was not the first one to ask it). She asked if I had met someone special on the cruise. What is with this absurd Love Boat notion (I loved that schmaltzy 70s show growing up)? Worse, S had asked me earlier on when we met if I had a little holiday fling?

It amuses and annoys me at the same time when my women friends think that I can only have a good time on vacation if I (a) find a man who is attracted to me and romances me, or (b) have a mindless sexual encounter with a strange man.

Yes, it would have been a huge ego boost (after I laughed in his face in disbelief) if a tall, dark and handsome stranger had materialized before me and told me I was his soul mate, but I have outgrown trashy, romance novels that promise love that is not true love but the surge of pheromones and the idea of romantic love itself.

I will admit I am picky. I always want the best in life, the real thing, no fakes, and I will not compromise, especially when it comes to that special someone. So I have put all my trust in God. If indeed, I am to be married someday, then He will show the way.

If not, I am not waiting in the wings, quiescent and half alive until that happens. My hours are filled with satisfying work, relationships that are dear to me, and ideas and things that fill me with wonder, curiosity and passion.

It is hard to surrender one's desire for a spouse to a Higher Power and wait on His will to unfold His plan for we all have this innate, urgent desire for unity embedded deep within our souls.

In JPII speak, this longing for union is, at the core, the longing for God, put there by God. It is a life force that impels and drives us and one of the ways we humans fulfil this longing for union is in marriage, a lifelong commitment to love each other freely, totally, faithfully and fruitfully.* It cannot be found in casual sexual encounters or romances that last only as long as the fizz in an opened bottle of champagne lasts for it is much more than a physical union.

The nuptial union is a promise to love beyond selfish desires, hurts, abuse, betrayal, misfortune, adversity and loss. It is a union that must rely on supernatural graces to inject forgiveness, compassion and the ability to love with vulnerability and fidelity in the marriage.

Sex, the physical part of the union, is the final and ultimate outpouring of love originating from the spiritual and emotional bonds of a marriage, and, is the unitive act that says I pledge my love without reservations and I promise to be there for you forever.

Unfortunately today most couples trivialize the sanctity of the physical union, making it the first step in establishing a relationship, using sex as a tool to satisfy lust. This makes for a shaky foundation for lust is both indiscriminate and selfish, an uncertain material on which to lay a relationship. And that is why chastity before (and inside) marriage is a brilliant idea, but that's another story (look out for my next post).

The alternative to marriage is a way of life that JPII calls celibacy for the kingdom. It is to consecrate one's life to God in a special way, as priests and religious do. Clearly this is not a calling for many, and yet, it is a way of life that I can emulate as a single woman, and all single people are called to copy.

Chastity is really sexual honesty and integrity. So in order to be true to my human nature, I choose to have no sex before marriage and if I never marry, no sex forever. It is not very comfortable at times, but I love how it allows me to develop other facets of my sexuality more fully, rather than taking the narrow world view of what sexuality means and bemoaning my state of life.

In choosing to cultivate an intimate and living relationship with the Lord, I am able to live out this nuptial meaning of my body wholly, even as a single person. He is my playmate, my bestie, my spouse and my ultimate lover. Through Him, with Him and in Him alone, I have need of no other.

He alone reveals the way I can attain inner peace, lasting happiness and deep self-satisfaction. Following in the footsteps of Jesus has been, for me, a challenging, but fascinating, always enlightening and thrilling journey.

Therefore, whether on vacation or at home, I am happy to go where He leads me, to love others as He loves them without using them, but giving them what I have to give in my personhood, as He did.

* Christopher West's interpretation of Blessed John Paul II's Theology of the Body. 

Conversion experiences

When M asked us to reflect on one high point and one low point in our lives last week it was easy for me to pick THE high point. It was the three weeks of ICPE Mission's Pastoral Counselling School (PCS) in Bangalore.

Last night, I realized that it has been just about 10 years since those incredible days in November 2003. As it is with all life-defining moments, that period in time remains etched in my memory forever, timeless and ageless.

I am freshly amazed by how Jesus knew exactly when my heart would be ready to receive Him and thus orchestrated this first meeting at the well. When I drank the water of eternal life He offered from the PCS cup, there was no turning back. I was hooked for life for I had found my priceless pearl of faith.

For the first time ever I realized how much I was loved, totally and unconditionally. Even my darkest, deepest sins were forgiven. It was a homecoming to rival that of the Prodigal Son. I regained my identity as daughter, bride and queen and the words from Isaiah 62:4 resounded fully:

You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married.

My life changed. Overnight I knew where I came from, I knew who I was and what I was here for, and I knew where I was going (sorta, kinda, well in the general direction, anyway). And because I was forgiven much, like the sinful woman in Luke's Gospel (chapter 7), I loved Jesus with great passion and verve.

Ten years on, nothing has changed. I am still as in love with Him as I was, if not more. Our relationship has matured into an exceptional vintage wine of love and trust. It has been an intense decade that has not been all fun and roses even though I have embraced every second of it.

Every successful relationship requires work and sacrifice. By throwing my lot in with Jesus, I had to make some hard decisions concerning career, lifestyle and love life. The lowest point in my life involved choosing between God and His ways, and a man I loved enough to consider marrying.

What made the decision doubly painful was obedience to the Father had me stay in the relationship for an additional year before I was to let it go. Apart from the grief of the breakup, I had to deal with my confusion, wondering if I had discerned correctly. And if I had, why did God play this cruel joke on me for I had known a year before the relationship was a no-fly and I was ready then to walk away. Why, God, why???

To misquote Tennyson, mine not to reason why, mine but to do and die. The process of breaking down to build up, of the Divine Potter moulding me into His image and likeness was excruciating when it came to this particular instance. Everything else pales in comparison in terms of difficulty or the pain factor.

With the benefit of hindsight I am able to see that this low point was a necessary conversion experience, just as my conversion experience in Bangalore was. Both helped me grow in faith and hope, while enabling me to break free from the bondage of relativism and secularism.

I stand on the side of goodness and truth, knowing that there are absolute rights and wrongs in life. It is not all relative in life. Doing the right thing will not leave you feeling fuzzy and warm most times - it is hard work. Sexual intercourse is a unifying act of love between husband and wife and not a pre-marital recreational activity. Choosing the better part will always be a real struggle. And when it comes to love, I profess to the kind of love that leads to death on a cross, the kind of love the world mainly disparages.

This is where I am, 10 years later, and I know there is more perfecting to undergo, more high and low points in life to encounter. It is daunting and exhilarating at the same time. Exhausting yet energizing.

Today is World Mission Sunday and learning more about the missionaries who braved and lost much in order to establish a dynamic and thriving Catholic Church in Singapore (I did a Pilgrimage In My Backyard, big thanks to Amilia and Adeline) has spurred me to be more missionary in spirit.

Loving Jesus has to mean more than merely receiving the graces of conversion from Him. It means stepping out in Christ's spirit: to see His goodness and likeness in others, to bring confidence and joy to people, and to ultimately be light to the world (great homily, Father Arro).

I thank God for conversion experiences and I pray for a missionary heart that is untiring, courageous and boundless in love, mercy and compassion.

Blessing others

In today's Gospel, of the ten lepers that were healed, only the Samaritan returned to thank Jesus. He was the only one who took time to express his gratitude properly, not that the other nine were not thankful (I would have been ecstatic if I were cured of an incurable disease). It was, as Father Romeo put it, the recognition of a moment, and thereby doing justice to that moment.  

I found what he said next to be very profound: The recognition of the present moment is the beginning of blessings.  By returning to bless Jesus with gratitude, the leper received yet another blessing from Jesus, the blessing of salvation that comes from faith.

For someone who rushes around much of the work day, I find myself often motoring on without recognizing the present, and thereby missing many opportunities to act with openness and love.

I miss chances to be available to others, and in so doing, to be able to give thanks to the Almighty who blesses me constantly and creates many moments in my day for me to possibly act with sanctity. To meet Him face to face.

Recognizing the moment and expressing gratitude must be done a certain way, it must be done joyously. Here is where something I read this morning segues in nicely. 

Doctor Edward Mulholland wrote this of the Pope's visit to Assisi on his namesake's feast day, that he "gave religious and all Christians a one-question conscience exam on sanctity: do you smile like a stewardess?"

Pope Francis was emphasizing to the cloistered sisters he met that a genuine smile that brims with joy best represented their humanity. He said:

“When one goes along the path of the contemplation of Jesus Christ, of prayer and of penance with Jesus Christ, one becomes immensely human. Cloistered nuns are called to have a great deal of humanity, a humanity like that of Mother Church. To be human, to understand all things about life, to be people who know how to understand human problems, who know how to forgive, who know how to pray to God for people. Your humanity. And your humanity goes down this path: the Incarnation of the Word, the path of Jesus Christ. And what is the sign of a sister who is that human? Joy… joy... when there is joy! It saddens me when I see nuns who aren’t joyful. They might smile, but it’s a flight attendant’s smile. But not with the smile of joy, the joy that comes from within.”

When I read this, I felt challenged for I am not the sunniest of personalities around. And yet, what best represents my love for Jesus is joy. When I think of Him, I melt. I smile. So do I translate this interior smile externally? If I do not exude this joy to others, what's the point of being good? Merely performing good deeds with a surly air and snappish, exacting ways sucks all the good out of any deed. Something I do quite well, unfortunately.

Now that I have been inspired to be mindful of the present, to give thanks with joy and thus be a blessing to others, the last piece of my reflection today is to bless others not just through my actions, but in bold words that speak of God.

Last night, M told me a story that Father Gino told retreatants last weekend about blessing others. Father Gino would unfailingly greet the bus driver on boarding a bus and give a farewell blessing to the driver before he got off. As he travelled a certain route every day at a certain time, he would meet the same bus driver, on occasion.

One day, lost in thought, he missed his stop. However, because the bus remained stationary, he looked around and realized that this was his stop. So he quickly got off. But the bus still did not move. Thinking he had perhaps left something on the bus, he went up the bus again, only to be told by the driver that he had forgotten to bless him. So he blessed the driver and the bus was finally able to go on its way.

Father Gino related this anecdote to communicate that we should not be hesitant in blessing others (the talk was centred on evangelization), even if we thought that others may not share our faith, for fundamentally we all want to be blessed by God.

So if you are reading this, I hope that you will be blessed with mindfulness, gratitude and joy this week, and bring joy and blessings to all you meet.

May God bless you abundantly!     

Witness of life

Today's readings are reminders to me on how I should be living my life. First, I should not be like Jonah, who refused to acknowledge his mission (being unforgiving of the Ninevites whom God wished to save), fled onto a ship, only to be caught on a storm, tossed overboard and swallowed by a big fish.

When we run away from responsibilities we do not like, or when we are not honest with ourselves, we become like Jonah. We tend to put conditions on how we should live our lives and thus we end up disobeying God. We place our own selfish needs before others, even if that was not our intention initially.

I was like Jonah on my recent vacation. I felt justified in pursuing my own interests because I had already sacrificed a lot for the trip and so I ultimately failed to consider fully what would make the time abroad enjoyable for my mother. As a consequence we ended up doing too much by her reckoning, and churches just did not enthral her as much as they did me. I failed in making the vacation a good one for her even if that was what I really wanted. Sigh.

Yesterday my circle of Friends met (we are each journeying towards a covenantal relationship as an ICPE Mission Companion early next year) and we watched a video on worship and evangelization.

 

When Mario Capello shared that the witness of life is an irreplaceable form of mission, I realized I had not been a very effective witness, even if I had thought I was doing an okay job. 

Witnessing means that if I choose to love God with all my heart, being, strength and mind (today's Gospel from Luke chapter 10), I must love my neighbour as myself. This love of neighbour must extend to all people, and in every encounter.

 

I cannot pick and choose when, where and whom I wish to serve but must respect the dignity of the other especially in instances where our preferences diverge, or when I do not even like the other (making loving them tough). I also cannot choose to love myself more than others as and when I wish to, especially when it is a stretch for me (even tougher when I really do not want to do something, like Jonah).

 

It should be obvious by now that the witness of life, showing others a certain way of life that is consistent in that it is a true gift of self is not humanly possible. It really isn't if we rely on our own strength. But if I rely completely on God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, then I have a fighting chance.  

So I would say my biggest lesson from the trip is although I will never be the perfect daughter, I can listen more carefully, hear the unspoken needs and wants of my quiet mother, then act accordingly to fulfil those needs and wants with a modicum of fuss.

 

This sensitivity to others, family members and strangers alike, can only come if I listen more closely to Jesus and develop His unerring ability to read the hearts of others.

 

As A shared with me, "Rise up, call upon your God!" (Jonah 1:6) speaks to her and reminds her to not rely on her own strength. If I do as she does, then in my everyday, ordinary life, others can see God who is invisible, fully alive within me. And that is how I desire to witness. 

Little Flower power

It is the feast day of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and my parish feast day, so it's cause for celebration. Her spirituality of the Little Way is inspiring for she is the saint for small people, people who may never be great in the way the world measures greatness, and yet, they are people who accomplish much with their quiet faithfulness.

From the point of every individual's conception, we are called to life and chosen to love in a similar fashion that God loves each and every one of us.

It does not matter if we are not the sharpest tool in the toolbox, the most beautiful or sweetest smelling flower in the garden, the juiciest apple, the sparkliest diamond...what matters most is that we love God. That is all that is required for greatness.

As Saint Augustine put it: Love God and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.

That was exactly what Saint Thérèse did, hence she knew from a tender age what she wanted to do and she pursued her dreams with unrelenting compromise until her early demise at age 24.

She was inspired by Saint John of the Cross who "taught her that God can never inspire desires that cannot be fulfilled." Therefore we must not be faint-hearted in pursuit of our dreams, especially if we know these are the desires put into our hearts by the Lord.

Saint Thérèse shows us that her Little Way of simplicity and humility in glorifying God can lead to greatness. How else can we explain why she could enter the convent at age 15, six years ahead of most people, then, a few years later, was ordered to write her memoirs which subsequently took the world by storm when it was published posthumously.

Or how these simple writings led to her becoming a Doctor of the Church, a rare title reserved only for those who have made significant contributions to theology or doctrine.

We may be small, weak, über ordinary, even insignificant, but we have no excuse for giving up or for mediocrity. Being physically frail and a weepy, sensitive soul did not stop Saint Therese from being true to who she was, the Little Flower who loved God, and others, in a big way. So what's stopping us?

Saint Thérèse,
Help me to always believe,
As you did,
In God's great love for me,

So that I might imitate
Your "Little Way" each day.