As for the pill, don’t even THINK of going on it:
payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/04/26/reading-selections-from-the-pills-deadly-affair-with-hivaids-by-joan-claire-robinson/
And as for your rant:
Mature Purity
The teaching of John Paul II is clear: liberation from concupiscence – or, more precisely, from the domination of concupiscence (John Paul II used both expressions) – is not only a possibility, it is a necessity if we are to live our lives “in the truth” and experience the divine plan for human love (see TOB 43:6, 47:5). Indeed, Christian sexual ethos “is always linked . . . with the liberation of the heart from concupiscence” (TOB 43:6). And this liberation is just as essential for consecrated celibates and single people as it is for married couples (see TOB 77:4).
It is precisely this liberation that allows us to discover what John Paul II called “mature purity.” In mature purity “man enjoys the fruits of victory over concupiscence” (TOB 58:7). This victory is gradual and certainly remains fragile here on earth, but it is nonetheless real. For those graced with its fruits, a whole new world opens up – another way of seeing, thinking, living, talking, loving, praying. But to those who cannot imagine freedom from concupiscence, such a way of seeing, living, talking, loving, and praying not only seems unusual – but improper, imprudent, dangerous, or even perverse.
Why, we should ask ourselves, does such a cloud of negativity and suspicion seem to hover over the realm of sexuality? The distortions of sin are, of course, very real. But through the grace of redemption, can our sexuality not become in our practical, lived experience the realm of the sacramental and the holy? Can it not become the realm of a truly sacred conversation? “To the pure all things are pure,” St. Paul said (Titus 1:15). But to those bound by lust, even the pure seems impure. Oh, how tragic when we label as ugly that which is beautiful!
Some people say the redemption of the body is something reserved only for the resurrection at the end of time. While it is certainly true that the fullness of our redemption awaits us only in the final resurrection, John Paul II insists that the “‘redemption of the body’ …expresses itself not only in the resurrection as victory over death. It is present also in the words of Christ addressed to ‘historical’ man … [when] Christ invites us to overcome concupiscence, even in the exclusively inner movements of the human heart” (TOB 86:6).
And here we enter the tension of what theologians call the “already – but not yet” of redemption. The not yet aspect means we must be cognizant of the many distortions of our fallen nature and the ease with which we can be lured into temptations. The already aspect means there is also a power at work within us which is able to do “far more than we ever think or imagine,” as St. Paul said (see Ephesians 3:20). Both truths must be held together…
More
here.
You seem to have hit the nail on the head.
dj
Yeah, I saw your posts on infertility, and I do feel for you. It’s terrible to want something you can’t seem to have. “People say that children aren’t everything, but the people who say that are the ones who have children.” (random Law and Order episode.)