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Dear Parish Family,
The ancient Greek city of Corinth acquired something of a proverbial reputation for sexual promiscuity, and modern biblical scholarship has frequently reiterated a view of the city as a particular hotbed of immorality and vice. In addition to their wealth, Corinthians worshiped Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. Corinth was the ancient equivalent of Sin City. Most of the people of the pagan world engaged in blatant immorality, but some of the worst were those in Corinth. They even had their own saying to justify their behavior. “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food.” It was like saying, “You have no choice: you have no choice but eat, so too you ought to behave immorally.” Paul tells them and us that we are so much better than that. Our bodies belong to the Lord. We are members of the Body of Christ. We are far more than animals with nothing but animal instincts. We share in the Body of Christ. He goes on to use a very important phrase: our bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit. If we are immoral, we are sinning against our own bodies, sinning against our union with Christ.
That is a beautiful concept: we are Temples of the Holy Spirit. That is why we avoid immorality, particularly sexual immorality. It is not a notion of some ‘weird Catholic’ belief. This whole area of morality is far more important than that. It goes to the heart of whom we are. We are Christ and He is ours. So, we do our best to fight off our temptations because we are united to Christ. He flows through us. We are not animals. We are so much better than that.
One of the highpoints of visit to Rome is the visit to the Sistine Chapel. In the frescos, the creation of man begins with God touching Adam’s hand and concludes with the creation of Eve. Adam needed Eve and Eve needed Adam to overcome the loneliness of the human condition. They needed to give themselves totally to each other. And here is the message behind these frescos: the only way that we can find ourselves is by giving ourselves away. We are made in the image of God. God is a Trinity of Love, Father, Son and Spirit, forming a community of self-giving love for all eternity. We are created in the image of this love, in the image of God. When Adam and Eve gave themselves to each other, they felt no shame. They could be naked. Shame came when they began to use each other.
Now back to Corinth and to ourselves. Using others to fulfill selfish wants is no different than the sexuality of animals. It is imposed, instinctive and merely physical. We are far more noble than that. We have been created for love, love freely given and freely received, love which is based on a commitment for life. In this light, St. John Paul II speaks about chastity not as a matter of what we cannot do, but as a virtue that frees us to love another person as a person, not an object. That is why we speak about the chaste love of husbands and wives for each other. The married give their deepest selves totally to each other, entrusting their emotional center to each other. You here who are married are free to love each other as Christ loves us.This is not the way of the world. But we are called to holiness, to be separated from the world. Sexual morality itself is one of the many ways that we express this holiness. It takes a lot of determination and courage to be a Catholic. It takes determination and courage to love genuinely.Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.