All comments by: frangelo

Very beautiful, Joseph.  Thank you.

Bill,

I guess the question that underscores the problem you are dealing with is creation ex nihilo, which means bringing something into existence without preexisting matter and without secondary or instrumental causes.  In effect God’s intellect and will are one.  What is intelligible to God is given existence merely by the act of His will.  Miracles concerning things which already exist are similar.  That is why they are miracles.

Lauretta,

You are most welcome.

Is anyone aware that Father Andrew Greeley is a writer of soft-core pornography?  I find it really rich that he is commenting on “prudery and fear.”

He is also a fairly well-known dissenter.  He claims to be a sociologist, not a theologian, which is true enough.  But, for example, when he discusses contraception, he gives all the sociological reasons why Catholics do not believe and few, if any, of the theological reasons why they should and concludes by saying that the bishops

Don’t seem to comprehend that if you still have the appeal of warm and intense community you may be able to recapture your credibility when you try to teach sexual ethics.  However, if you are an eithical teacher without a community that listens, are you still Catholic (The Catholic Myth 105)

Greeley, it seems would be more concerned about whether statistics show that the faithful want and are helped by phallic symbols than whether they are part of God’s revelation.  I don’t want this to an ad hominem attack; however, since all we have to gone on is his word, I think his track record counts.

And isn’t interesting that again, as always, no sources are given for this very “obvious” and supposedly ancient teaching?

Katie,

I see your point.  I apologize for my misreading.  I would generally agree that there is largely an imbalance in modern society and that where prudery exists it is usually a reaction against our pornified culture.

Perhaps we are splitting hairs; however, I am not sure that perfect self-mastery is achievable, except is rare instances.  The sexual impulse is a complex, spontaneous and extraordinarily volatile thing.  For instance, you may have a man who is very much in control of himself and who is able with relative ease to sublimate his own natural reactions to women by means of his high regard for them and by means of his spirituality.  But sometimes, for such a man, it is not only or even principally the way a woman may be dressed or exposed that becomes an issue.  It might be precisely because of his high regard for her, or because he perceives her as virtuous or modest that he becomes aroused.

And I am not suggesting that such a man have no contact with such a woman.  I only suggest that the interior and unresolved tension that exists in such a situation is neither prudery, nor necessarily a deficit in the redemption of the body.  It is simply the state of homo viator.

In any case, I admit that I agree with you and Lauretta more than in this context I am able or willing to express.  The reason is because I think it necessary to defend that other kind of shame of which Josef spoke, and to point out what I think are West’s contrived attacks on prudery.

I guess I am less inclined to speculate on what a better world in this regard might look like, though I am sure it would be more modest, more respectful, more joyful, more spontaneous less scrupulous, less fearful and less guilty.

I believe that the real reactions of individual men are generally beyond outside analysis, and it would seem to me that a personalist approach would be to presume the best.

I also believe that various reactions, including, sometimes, the reaction of men to women breastfeeding can be prudish, but, no, I would not assume that the one who sees no need to look away is generally further along in self-mastery. I don’t think we can know that about individual persons, generally.

I understand what you are saying and probably agree more with you than is reflected here; however, while I do think prudery is a problem, I also think we are giving it too much credit.

I do not know this (perhaps others can verify), but I would assume that the paucity of breastfeeding women in American up to late, has had little if nothing to do with prudery, but with the convenience of bottle feeding.  I would also submit that it is a lack a familiarity of the average man, more than anything else, that makes the prospect of watching a woman breastfeeding alluring in an arousing way. 

In terms of the way religious men react to this, very often they are countering years of habitual lustful thoughts and looks within a culture that has no conscience for such things and in which women are taught to expose themselves continually.  Yes, this can lead to exaggeration and excessive fear and a lack of spontaneous self-mastery, but I do not think the answer to the problem is another form of reactionism, which is contrived and assumes to see prudery where there are other explanations.

I believe that catechesis and prayer, and yes, including a enthusiastic examination of TOB along with all the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality within the framework of a hermeneutic of continuity (not discontinuity) will help men find a balance.  But I do not believe that telling men that they are not very advanced if they intuit the need to look away, or encouraging them to constantly examine themselves on the way they react to various occasions, or contriving solutions like looking at oneself naked or learning to be comfortable with Maria Lactans will be the solution because they are based on an assumption which is false, namely, that such reactions are by definition prudery.

I think this is important because while we contrive to organize ourselves against a shame which is disordered and which hides a subtle preoccupation with lust, we run the risk of stamping out that beautiful, humble and wholesome shame which is directed toward the good of the person, the mystery of personhood and the true “mysticism” of sexuality.  In my opinion this seems to be totally underestimated by the presentation of West.

Lauretta,

I agree that self-mastery, a more exalted view of sexuality and spontaneous and personal charity for everyone, including someone on might find sexually arousing, should be the goal of chastity education.

Thank you, Josef.  Yours is a very beautiful reflection.  What is the text of JP II to which you refer?

Very fruitful discussion.  I would just like to repeat for good measure, if I may that all these considerations about breastfeeding are perfectly legitimate.  I think the bottom line is that one should not assume anything about anyone’s response to a woman breastfeeding.  It certainly is not prudery for a man to look away from a woman breastfeeding if he finds her semi-nakedness sexually arousing.

Lauretta,

What you say of the fecundation of the Blessed Virgin is true.  A Virgin, by definition cannot conceive except by loosing her virginity, unless God intervenes by miracle.  The miracle is not an insemination or any kind of process whatsoever.  A miracle by definition is instantaneous, that is, without natural process, and unexplainable by natural causes.  So yes, the Virgin is made fruitful (fecundated) by the Holy Spirit, and yes Our Lord is biologically related to Our Lady; however, neither the Holy Spirit nor the Father generate or father Jesus, nor do they inseminate the Blessed Virgin.  The language of the Church is very specific and telling both in terms of what it does say and in what it is unwilling to say.

Part of the meaning of consecrated virginity, especially in its archetype of Our Lady’s virginity is that the earthly pleasure of marriage is forgone in view of union with God, which is not a sexual union.  It is not an eternal climax.  Sexual union and climax point up to Divine Union.  That is the proper use of analogy.  But it is confusing and inverted to project upwards, in an anthropomorphic way, the attributes of this world onto that of heaven.  Sexual union is a sign of the fulfillment, but not the fulfillment itself.

Furthermore, the Virginity of the Blessed Mother is itself a sign and is not not typified by lesser things that might introduce confusion into the sign.  Thus, things like the Arc of the Covenant and the Burning Bush are appropriate signs of the virginal maternity, but symbols of male and female genitalia are not, precisely because the conception of Jesus is not by way of intercourse and insemination, but by way of virginity and miracle.

I am no expert on phallic symbols, but, as I have already mentioned, what we are discussing here is West’s use of phallic symbology and in this case, he is certainly saying that the Easter Candle is a symbol of a penis.