Whenever the Lord calls upon us to do that which is challenging, He always offers us the grace that enables us to do that which is pleasing to Him. Regardless of our marital status, a gift that the Lord has entrusted to each of us is that of our sexual energy. In and through the way that we relate to this gift, we have a unique opportunity to communicate our personhood as the Lord wants us to do this.
The Lord works through our sexual feelings to attract us to others. In a certain sense, our sexual feelings can be likened to the fuel that we put into our vehicles. When fuel is used properly, it enables the vehicles in which we travel to take us to places to which we could otherwise not arrive. On the other hand, if we are careless or reckless with engine fuel, the results can be fatal for ourselves and for others.
This can be said of the sexual energy that has been entrusted to us. When sexual energy is expressed in directions that have not been designed by the Lord, this leads to grave suffering for ourselves and for others.
Unless we are spiritually on guard, we can quickly become mastered by the sexual energy that has been entrusted to us. A lie that we are pressured to swallow is the contention that to be whole or complete as a person, one needs to be free to have genital sex. As one of us, our Lord Jesus Christ was not married. Hence, He did not express His sexuality in an overt physical manner. His words in the Sermon on the Mount about the possibility of committing adultery in one’s heart in the manner in which one looks upon a woman suggests that our Lord was tempted to sin with the gift of His sexuality as are each of us.
As long as we live, we will be tempted to relate to the gift of our sexuality in ways that are gravely hurtful to ourselves and to others.
When sexual feelings come up within us toward a particular person, this serves as an opportunity to pray for this person and relate to this individual as the Lord wants us to do this. Through prayer, the Lord frees us to channel the sexual feelings that we have for others that lead to actions that build others up as the Lord wants this to happen.
Within Sacramental Marriage, sexual feelings lead a man and a woman to express their love for each other in a total and complete manner of self-giving. As the Lord has designed us, each expression of the marriage act is intended to be a total commitment of one’s self to the other which is open to the possibility of creating new life, however small that possibility might be. Married couples are strongly encouraged to embrace Natural Family Planning as an opportunity to relate to the gift of sexual expression within marriage in a manner that is in accord with the Lord’s design for marriage. For more information about Natural Family Planning, NFP, kindly contact the Diocesan Coordinator for Marriage and Family Life, Mr. Nicholas de la Torre at 419-244-6711, ext. 4918 or email him at ndelatorre@toledodiocese.org
With the Lord’s grace and our pro-active cooperation, we can grow in the ability to channel the sexual energy entrusted to us in a manner that would enable us to reach heights of intimacy with others that we could not otherwise envision or imagine.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Nelson Beaver – Pastor