Fire Place - Sexuality and Self-Control

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Divine3

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It would be great if we had different categories in the Eastern Church Forum section but we don’t. (Yes, this Church is not yet in union with Rome – maybe one day, but this is very good for our youth etc.
Can’t put this in Morality section because it is the Coptic Church. And not in union with us as of yet. May it happen one day. Good information in this you tube.
 
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I think the morality section would be a great place. The Coptic Orthodox Church May not be in full communion with Rome but they still are a True particular Church with a valid priesthood and sacraments.

I’ll take a look. Thanks for sharing.

ZP
 
I love watching videos from CYC. They’ve always got great content. There’s a Coptic Orthodox parish in Fairfax, VA. that also has some great video content - they post homilies and parish lectures.

@ziapueblo, don’t forget that there are also Coptic Catholics who are in full communion with Rome and us Eastern/Oriental Catholics.
 
As I listen to this video, I can’t help but be reminded of Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. In my opinion the Theology of the Body is fundamentally an Eastern Christian text (written from a perspective that is almost identical to the Eastern Christian perspective). In fact, I’ve told others before that it was my study of the TOB that prepared the way for me to embrace Eastern Christianity as my own expression of the Faith.

The section of the book on “The Heart” is particularly relevant to what the folks are talking about in the video.

I’d also recommend folks read Chrysostom’s book On Marriage and Family Life and couple that reading with the Paradise of the Holy Fathers (bearing in mind, of course, that the Paradise was written for monastics, and so not everything applies to those of us called to marriage).
 
I also thought of Theology of the Body too. Wouldn’t it be such a gift of grace if the Coptic Church (not in union with Rome) had the openness to read and use for their youth ,Theology of the Body?
 
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I’ve known of Eastern Orthodox folks who have read the TOB and thought very highly of it. However, I don’t know of any Coptic Orthodox authorities who have either read or commented on it.

One thing that struck me after I began reading the likes of St. John Chrysostom and the spirituality of the Christian East was that the TOB wasn’t really anything new. Whether he did this intentionally or not, St. John Paul II seems to have simply synthesized the Eastern Christian perspectives on the human person, God’s plan for man and woman from the beginning, God’s plan for marriage and celibacy for the sake of the kingdom, and most especially the human heart and the struggle to purify the heart. He then presents this synthesis to a Western audience that is almost completely unfamiliar with the Christian East.

The other thing he does with the TOB is reopen the West to the sacramental-liturgical worldview that the East has clung to for the last 2000 years.
 
You are off the topic and haven’t a clue what is being discussed here. Are you just here to twist topics? Have you ever read Theology of the Body or anything by St. John Chrysostom?
 
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I’m a little confused as to what in this discussion brought on your response, but I’ll answer to the best of my abilities.

No. These Holy Fathers do not discuss the benefits of having slaves. Most of them were hermits living out in the desert, trying to escape the distractions of the cities so that they could radically focus their lives on the love of God and neighbor. Some had “servants” who accompanied them. These “servants” were other religious brothers who dwelt with them voluntarily in order to learn from them how to devote themselves to God (and they were free to leave if/whenever they chose). They were more along the lines of “disciples” than our modern understanding of “servants,” but in their humility they referred to themselves as “servants.”

The Desert Fathers have remarkably little to say about women. They were focused on living virginity for the sake of the Kingdom and so had few interactions with women. But they strove to live the words of St. Paul in Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

This led them to seek after impartiality - where they loved no one person more than another, but loved all equally in Jesus Christ.

However, the Desert Fathers have a great deal to say in praise of the women who, like them, chose to live lives of virginity for the sake of the Kingdom. It was not uncommon for them to seek out the advice of these women, whom they referred to as “Amma” or “Mother.” And there are even occasions where they praise certain married women who were also living their lives radically for Christ, but according to their vocation as wives.

(Cont)
 
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Great! Helpful and very informative. Hope @Plaintalk has a chance to see your info.
 
In terms of your objections about women, it is well documented that the Church revolutionized cultural attitudes toward women that treated them like property at best and slaves at worst.

I won’t go into that here, but will simply point out that St. John Chrysostom in his treatise On Marriage and Family Life was insistent that a wife was equal to her husband (while serving a different role in the family), that a husband should treat her with the utmost love and respect, and should be constantly seeking out her guidance. After commenting briefly on St. Paul’s words that “wives be subordinate to your husbands,” he goes on to comment extensively on how husbands are to "love your wives as Christ loves the Church… Anyone familiar with Scripture would immediately see that Christ loves the Church to the point of pouring out every drop of his blood for Her. This is the love that a Christian husband ought to have for his wife.

If you actually read some of Chrysostom’s homilies on marriage, you’ll find that some of his ideas (if lived out, of course) are extremely romantic. I’ve taken his advice for my own marriage, and my wife talks every day about how happy she is in our marriage (and we’ve been married for over a decade [hardly newlyweds, although we act like it a lot]).

(Cont)
 
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I don’t understand how ancient standards of health and hygiene have anything to do with the discussion at hand. Medical science was not very advanced at the time (although one could argue that certain natural remedies and medicines are more effective long-term than many modern medicines), nor was the advancement of medicine a primary concern for the Desert Fathers. That being said, the Desert Fathers fasted a great deal (an understatement, to be sure), and the health benefits of fasting are well-documented by modern science. Just do a Google search for “health benefits of intermittent fasting.”

It’s also interesting to note that not only are the modern hospital and university systems indebted to Christianity for their advent, but many modern scientific and medical breakthroughs occurred thanks to the studies and experiments of devout Christians (many of whom were devout Catholics).
 
Well I knew that they were Desert Fathers striving to live a life of virginity. I also know about the girls and Women, who posed as eunuchs in order to be admitted along with taking a masculine name in order to become monastics. I know that their gender was only revealed along with great miracles after their death. So to those posters who said that I was “off topic” well as they say, when you can’t present your OWN arguments and WIN, you can always resort to name calling.

But to the point:the presenter stated that married couples obviously not living as “brother and sister” provided excellent advice on marriage. Well HOW can THAT BE if their emphasis in life was n virginity? A peculiar contradiction don’t you think? Also the wealthier class had SLAVES, not paid servants running a household so how could they NOT discuss slavery?

You want to get advice from Bronze Age people about living in the 21st century. Outside of historical interest you still haven’t DISPROVED how futile and practically USELESS the information is. In fact you continue to prove my analysis to be more accurate. Thank you.
 
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The Egyptians, Greeks, Jews and Moslems especially the latter two in Spain and Portugal had higher levels of medical skills and standards of hygiene all around than the average Catholic in ancient times (of course there WERE NO Christians in Egypt or Homer’s Greece as is well known). But the latter two non Christian communities were highly sought out for their medical expertise by even Catholic royalty in those 9th, 10th and even early 14 the centuries and soon. As for the East , Robert K. Massie author of Nicholas and Alexandra noted that the Russian Orthodox, were amongst the first not only to preserve food packed in ICE , but also preferred sauna baths on a regular basis to tub bathing which Western Europeans were legendary in avoiding, even the wealthy classes.

As for the intersection of Catholicism and hospitals the modern controversies speak for themselves; I shall not present them here.
 
Actually, many of the Desert Fathers highly praised the Desert Mothers who did not pose as young men (not eunuchs) in order to join all male monasteries, but formed their own communities of women/virgins or lived on their own as solitaries in the deserts of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine.

There were, of course, women who posed as young men in order to enter all male monasteries because of those monasteries’ reputation for living a much more severe ascetical life. The women wanted to prove that they could endure just as much as the men could. And I’d say they proved it quite well!

As to the rest of your posts, I’m not quite sure what your objections are. The Church has always been very clear that sexual relations between a husband and wife are not only a good thing, but a very good thing when entered into in accordance with God’s plan for marriage from the beginning.

When it comes to looking for advice, I think most of the folks who post here would be honest enough to say that they seek the advice of anyone (regardless of age, race, gender, or time-in-which-they-lived) who has extensive experience in the spiritual life and has demonstrated the highest levels of holiness when held up to the standard of the Gospels. There are certain things that are constant throughout the centuries. One of those things are what constitutes vice, what constitutes virtue, and the struggle to uproot vice so as to live in virtue.

Incidentally, the Bronze Age ended several hundred years before the coming of Christ. The Desert Fathers and Mothers lived several hundred years after the coming of Christ. But frankly I don’t really care when they lived. They give good advice when it comes to self-control (whether in the area of sexuality or in other areas).
 
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