Grace & Peace!
You have a bad habit of taking people for fools and therefore feeling you can dish up all sorts of tripe. It is well accepted in theological and academic circles that St. John of The Cross wrote metaphorically. That is a whole diffeent thing from suggesting he made it clear that our love for God is erotic. That’s just palin ridiculous.
John, one of the things I’ve come to appreciate about your posts is their unerring ability to find and elucidate or insinuate the worst in just about anything someone with whom you disagree might say. It’s a peculiar talent.
That having been said,
of course St. John was writing metaphorically. It’s a poem. His Spiritual Canticle is clearly modeled after the Song of Songs, however, and like the Song, it uses erotic imagery to convey profound mystical meaning. If the erotic imagery could not bear the meaning, however, if eros were merely the base thing you think it is, then the poem would not and could not be as successful as it is at conveying it’s central points, and the Song of Songs would just be a pretty piece of ancient near-Eastern smut. That is, of course, not the case.
I therefore maintain–our love for God is erotic. If the Bride of the Songs is the Church, and we, too, are the Church, is the Bride’s Song not our song? It seems to me that that was precisely St. John’s assumption which allowed him to express his longing for union with God in very human, very erotic terms,
thereby showing us the true nature and direction of eros itself.
If I recall correctly, it was Socrates who insisted on the development of good habits. And nothing conclusive came out of his dialogue on love either.
I’m not sure what you’re saying here, John. What Socrates says in the Symposium is not put to a vote, to be sure. But the movement of the text suggests that what Socrates has to say is the most profound.
And just what did you glean this whopping great assumption from? Been reading tea leaves?
Because you insist that lovers
must have sex in order for them to be lovers. No tea leaves are required, John. You even say so later in your post.
Perhaps you’re assuming that a platonic love is merely a distant friendship? That would be a common, but nonetheless erroneous, assumption.
So now Socrates and Alcibiades were platonic friends? That’s not what they gay protagonists would have us believe.
Some folks certainly have an interest in portraying their relationship as including sex. I have no such interest as there is no such evidence.
Interesting use of the negative there. Fruedian, perhaps? For the record, homosexuals are renowned for being un-chast. I don’t need any convincing.
I made the correction in a post immediately following. I direct your attention to it.
But lovers without sex aren’t lovers.
Tell that to Dante and Beatrice. Or to Our Lady and St. Joseph.
In all of your denials, I’m detecting an alarmingly persistent insistence on two things:
- Some people just cannot overcome their passions–same-sex attracted people are among such people. (And yet, for all of your denials, you indicate below that you believe chastity is possible for homosexual folks. Are all your denials merely rhetorical, then, and not to be taken too seriously? What is it, in fact, that you’re denying?)
- What is true or real is only true or real insofar as it corresponds to your idea of what the true or real is. Life can never surprise you by proving you wrong–or if it does, it will do so entirely on your terms.
What you are suggesting is that some homosexuals might be able to embrace chastity.
Indeed–not only may they embrace chastity, but they may even fall in love and be in a relationship in which that love is reciprocated and which does not include sex…and still remain chaste.
Now–to bring this back to the OP–should such a relationship be called or be susceptible to marriage? According to the RC understanding of the sacrament, no. And that’s that. But it doesn’t mean such relationships do not or cannot exist.
Under the Mercy,
Mark
All is Grace and Mercy! Deo Gratias!
