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chevalier
Guest
Yes, indeed. Having sex is more comparable to, let’s say, going out for a “dinner and movie”, having a drink, dancing, something like that, rather than the necessities of life such as food or drink, let alone breathing, removing waste. That analogy is therefore false.
As for the part about grace, sacrifice and others, you can’t keep drawing analogies between Christ’s death on the cross for us, and sexual intercourse. Next, Christ gave up His life for us, for the Church, and so St. Paul tells husbands to do in Ephesians, but it’s wives who are told to submit (apart from, “submit to one other”) like the Church does and husbands to give up their life for wives if necessary. Christ came to serve and not to be served, but He was still God and King, He was not doing our commands - it’s we who are to follow His commands, the Church is to obey Him. Not the other way round. The Church is not above Christ, it’s Christ putting her needs above His own well-being or indeed His will understood in the sense from the Gethsemani prayer - “Father, if thou wilt, take from me this chalice, but nevertheless thy will be done, not mine.” So the needs of the Church, the plan of salvation was above the will of Christ as in that prayer, but the will which was above Christ’s was that of His father, not a mortal Church. What you’re trying to put forth is quite daringly anthropocentric, I would say.
Moreover, the talk about celebrating Good Friday with sexual intercourse is something which leads to absurd. Marital relations may be holy, but should they be performed on the altar or pursued in church during mass? The idea of celebrating Good Friday with an orgasm falls within the same realm of ideas, in my perception. Even if I’m wrong, it still looks odd.
Lastly, the talk about singling out one thing is a broad fallacy, intentional or not. Same arguments should be used, and have been used, against the requirement of abstinence from meat. They seem to be out of touch with the idea of penitence and Good Friday or any other penitential day being penitential. They concentrate instead of meeting some (possibly minimal) requirements of the law. In the litteral reading, while meat is forbidden, you can’t find anything about cream cakes. Does that mean cream cakes should be consumed on Good Friday in the honour of the day? See, it leads to absurd.
Thus, for all the reasons above, I can’t agree with any of your points except that marital relations are holy (but let’s not confuse sexual intercourse with the exchange of vows and conferral of sacrament, shall we - such arguing could lead to ideas putting a sexual intercourse between spouses on the level of sacrament and analogies with Holy Communion are already aplenty and going pretty far), but that’s as far as I can go. The rest of it leads to absurd. I hope my position is clearer now and the discussion is over and after this elaboration we can lay it to rest, which could not have been achieved with the shorter answers I gave last night.
As for the part about grace, sacrifice and others, you can’t keep drawing analogies between Christ’s death on the cross for us, and sexual intercourse. Next, Christ gave up His life for us, for the Church, and so St. Paul tells husbands to do in Ephesians, but it’s wives who are told to submit (apart from, “submit to one other”) like the Church does and husbands to give up their life for wives if necessary. Christ came to serve and not to be served, but He was still God and King, He was not doing our commands - it’s we who are to follow His commands, the Church is to obey Him. Not the other way round. The Church is not above Christ, it’s Christ putting her needs above His own well-being or indeed His will understood in the sense from the Gethsemani prayer - “Father, if thou wilt, take from me this chalice, but nevertheless thy will be done, not mine.” So the needs of the Church, the plan of salvation was above the will of Christ as in that prayer, but the will which was above Christ’s was that of His father, not a mortal Church. What you’re trying to put forth is quite daringly anthropocentric, I would say.
Moreover, the talk about celebrating Good Friday with sexual intercourse is something which leads to absurd. Marital relations may be holy, but should they be performed on the altar or pursued in church during mass? The idea of celebrating Good Friday with an orgasm falls within the same realm of ideas, in my perception. Even if I’m wrong, it still looks odd.
Lastly, the talk about singling out one thing is a broad fallacy, intentional or not. Same arguments should be used, and have been used, against the requirement of abstinence from meat. They seem to be out of touch with the idea of penitence and Good Friday or any other penitential day being penitential. They concentrate instead of meeting some (possibly minimal) requirements of the law. In the litteral reading, while meat is forbidden, you can’t find anything about cream cakes. Does that mean cream cakes should be consumed on Good Friday in the honour of the day? See, it leads to absurd.
Thus, for all the reasons above, I can’t agree with any of your points except that marital relations are holy (but let’s not confuse sexual intercourse with the exchange of vows and conferral of sacrament, shall we - such arguing could lead to ideas putting a sexual intercourse between spouses on the level of sacrament and analogies with Holy Communion are already aplenty and going pretty far), but that’s as far as I can go. The rest of it leads to absurd. I hope my position is clearer now and the discussion is over and after this elaboration we can lay it to rest, which could not have been achieved with the shorter answers I gave last night.
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OutinChgoburbs
Guest
To me, it would be, “People, the Church has given you an option here. Use the good common sense with which you were born, and make a clear judgment based on your situation!”
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
I find your position slightly more clear, but the route that you take to get there is still not at all clear to me. If you wish to drop the subject, I will not be insulted, but if you wish to elaborate on a point, you have my appreciation. At this time, I will limit my questions to you first point.
You say that marital relations are holy, but you make them analogous with ‘dinner and a movie, having a drink, and dancing’. Is marital relations on the same order of holiness as these? I believe that eating, drinking, sleeping, excersing, ‘etc.’ are more holy than these recreational activities, but inherently less holy than marital relations, leading me to conclude that my analogy is still the better one. Graphically, level of holiness increasing from right to left:
Recreational activities - Basic and required human functions - marital relations.
As for my analogies, whereas the condition of being human ‘requires’ the activities (from time to time) of eating, drinking, sleeping, exercising, etc., (with the associated satisfaction of these physical desires) so to the condition of being married ‘requires’ (from time to time) the activity of sexual relations. The same can not be said of ‘dinner and a movie’, going out for drinks, or dancing. I don’t suspect that these are ever morally required of anyone. My conclusion again is that my analogy is more appropriate than yours.
Looking forward to your contribution,
Dan
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chevalier
Guest
Great. I’m guessing I didn’t come across as very charitable, so no hard feelings here, just so you know.
Nope, I’m not putting them on the same level as regards holiness but I’m just saying that they are joyful, pleasurable, intended for pleasure. Eating is primarily for sustenance, secondarily for quenching hunger, the aspect of pleasure is lost on a penitential day altogether, I think. You just won’t eat on purpose food you don’t like for further mortification, but that’s it.
At any rate, the analogy with dancing or “dinner and movie” is because it’s well, joyful, social, meant for pleasure. Don’t get me wrong - dancing with your wife and having a joyful quality time with her, are there many things holier than that? I don’t think so. But at the same time, taking your wife to a chick flick after a salmon and caviar dinner, followed by a stroll down Lovers’ Lane, is not something that you would do on a penitential day. Certainly not on Good Friday! I see sexual intercourse as analogous here. The woman can be passive and receptive, but the man just can’t do it without sexual ecitement and arousal. I don’t find the intent to cause arousal - even as legitimate as between spouses - to be compatible with the penitential nature of Good Friday.
They are a part of life, the necessities of it. They are more of a matter of fact. Eating is not as elective as sexual intercourse - you can starve yourself for 30 days max, thirst for 3 days max, per average, but some priests are virgins and never break their vows and still live on to their nineties, don’t they? Let’s not forget monks and nuns. My point is that eating can’t be skipped as much as sexual intercourse, which can be simply and safely and normally be had on a different day.
If you were to construe that sexual intercourse as a pure act of pure love and whatnot, tying a sacrificial and mutually-devotional aspect into it, I guess we could actually agree at some point (albeit far from our respective initial positions), but in a situation fuelled by sexual desire or sexual needs, well… It’s not a sin, sure, but it does look bad on a penitential day. Who am I to deny people anything, but it looks bad.
Hmm. That way defecation could be holier than having quality time with a child or friend. That would be absurd and definitely untrue.
If I stuff a quick sandwich, I’m not particularly finding it particularly holy. I would have more of that impression at a family dinner and would certainly feel more radiating holiness in playing football with my son, had I any. Yup! But who has sexual relations daily? It would be too tiring and if it were always at night time, I doubt it would make for healthy sleeping patterns. Picking Good Thursday instead or waiting till Easter would surely feel like a better idea.
Those activities are merely examples of joyous and pleasurable social things to do, which are of themselves good but not normally compatible with a penitential day. While none of the examples is morally required on its own, certainly quality time with spouses, family, friends even, is morally required. Marriage is community of whole life, not just sexual. Sexual intercourse is an example of such a good thing, indeed possibly holy, that isn’t very penitential. “We can’t dance or go to movies, so let’s have sex?”
Likewise.
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CuriousInIL
Guest
Do you ever post anything helpful in such threads?
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Dan_Grelinger
Guest
None here either.
Here is perhaps the core issue. If the specific marital act in question is intended for pleasure, we are in complete agreement; not appropriate for Good Friday, and probably not appropriate at any time. The Church teaches that the marital act should not be intended for pleasure. Pleasure flows from it of course, must like it does for eating, but the intent should be to participate in the possibility of creation of new life and as a sign of the marital surrender of one spouse to the other. If intended for pleasure, then Pope John Paul II suggests that this is essentially use of the other person, a sin.
If my intent is to be entirely open to the possibility of a life creating moment, and to very physically give my entire self to my spouse, does that change your position on it not being at all appropriate for Good Friday?
After reading Pope John Paul II, I believe that every marital sexual act should have the attributes you describe above. That is what I strive for. So, I may not be so far away from your position after all.
Dan
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chevalier
Guest
Well… You see… I could actually imagine the act itself being compatible more so than some sexy kind of foreplay, which would not of itself necessarily be sinful (though such things always make me think of objectification anyway). Getting out of one’s skin to arouse someone sexually on Good Friday just doesn’t seem appropriate to me - one shouldn’t concentrate on being sexy or sexually attractive on that day. Whatever you could call naughty, would make me very sad to observe on Good Friday or indeed any Friday - even if I would probably just chuckle in some cases, if it were on a normal day.
Hmm… The purposes are two: union and procreation. Neither is exclusive. Pleasure is intended by God too. Depending on how we define pleasure - and we could define it broadly and tie it contextually with (fruitful) union… well, you get the idea.
Note that thinking of union and children alone will not exactly make a man physically able to perform intercourse.
It’s not mine to judge, but the event itself is supposed to be joyous and not penitential. Thus I don’t think it’s appropriate on Good Friday. Joy can be sought on other days. It’s the part about joy and the part about sexual arousal that give me a problem, not the part about self-dedication or sacrifice. Though that kind of self-dedication and sacrifice, I’d rather express by hugging and comforting on such a mournful day than by anything involving sensual arousal. Good Friday is not a day to be sensual, I believe.
I suppose between Catholics and sometimes between more broadly Christians, it’s more often about how we talk about it than about what we talk about. Three abouts in one sentence don’t look great, but I hope you get what I mean.
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