By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
The fires deep within the Earth which, while controlled, do great good for our planet can sometimes break free from their bounds and wreak widespread destruction. Molten lava consumes and destroys all in its path; homes, cars, trees, human beings, and all living things are melted and burned to cinders as fuel to feed its ferocious fires.
As we see with the recent eruptions of the volcano in Hawaii, what is good and necessary for the benefit of our green Earth at the same time also possesses the power to eradicate life and flourishing once loosed upon the land, freed from the strictures put in place to guide it toward a beneficial outcome.
So, also, human nature has been endowed with great power in sexuality. The forces of marital love have been placed in nature to bring about a beneficial result. Once loosed from its natural discipline of marriage together with the sacramental graces of matrimony, however, the fires of passion put in place to co-create and nurture human life can become a destructive force that militates against the greater good of persons.
The so-called LGBTQ alphabet soup of misnomers about sexuality is based on a false conception torn loose from the guidance of nature. Human love and flourishing, given such great power by God, the divine source of the fires of love in the human heart and mind, have here become destructive, torn loose from their beneficial discipline in disregard for the power of God meant to be shared by one man and one woman alone within marriage.
Only man and woman can become one flesh. To them alone is entrusted the capability of taking what was incomplete and becoming whole through their exclusive marital embrace, expressed by physical, genital, life-giving union. Their love is total, embracing the whole of life, until death. Their love is called to be open to new life, shunning contraception because it is always used with an anti-life will. Their love is exclusive, meant to be shared by them alone.
Holy matrimony is the power of God placed sacramentally within our hands to channel the volcanic forces of sexual power and love entrusted to man and woman. In our day the movement to redefine marriage, in denial of the truth about man and woman, has been loosed upon the land. One aspect of sexuality, the unitive, has been sundered from the other aspect of marriage, the procreative.
An assent to a lie, a repeat of the disobedience of the first man and woman, is all the Devil needs to achieve his victory. The moment man and woman agree that love and life can be divorced in their marital embrace they reenact the original rebellion of the Garden and suffer its dire consequences. Their love and life together as persons in communion is dangerously compromised and in need of the saving effects of the Lord for healing.
Here faith comes in to strengthen and affirm what is known through nature. It is scientifically demonstrable that the one marital act contains with it both the union of man and woman and the power together to conceive a new life.
We also know by Revelation, however, that “what God has joined man must not divide” (Mark 10:9). The obedience of faith and morals forbids that we would use our human ingenuity in an evil way to frustrate God’s beautiful design, which always keeps life and love together. Science has attempted, however unsuccessfully, to exclude the procreative aspect from the one marital act. The artificial methods of contraception remain frustrated, however, because they are never capable of completely excluding the power of life that God has joined to love. No method of contraception can achieve its goal 100 percent of the time. Man’s rebellion always leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
Flowing from the original lie about the exclusive love of man and woman and the exclusion of life from their embrace is the campaign to redefine marriage. If marriage is no longer always about conception, the argument goes, than neither is it always only about man and woman.
This false claim rests in part upon the conjecture that some persons are “made that way” and, because of that, must be allowed to act on same-sex attraction. The argument is then advanced that two men or two women must also be affirmed completely, to include the ability to become “married.”
The Pope recently appeared to add fuel to this sulfurous fire by his alleged comments to Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of Fr. Fernando Karadima in Chile. Francis’ recent meetings with him and other victims was a moving and beautiful exercise of the healing power entrusted by Christ to His Church. What was not helpful, however, was his comment, no matter how motivated by good will, which asserted something which he could not possibly know: “God made you that way.”
Making things up to help another person feel better happens all too often, but is certainly something which the Holy Father should never allow himself to do.
The Pope, in these private and personal remarks, separates himself from the Holy Spirit, if he does not teach that same-sex attraction, no matter why experienced, does not come from God because it is disordered and a temptation toward evil. The Church in no way mitigates the dignity of human persons when she asserts this. She teaches what she knows is true for the sake of human dignity and its ordering toward the highest good of eternal salvation.
What exactly “accompaniment” means, as touted by the Holy Father, when it comes to Catholics or others who experience same-sex attraction, remains largely undefined. This was demonstrated once again by a vague article, “Italian archbishop endorses a ‘new pastoral attitude’ for LGBT Catholics,” by Bishop Matteo Zuppi in America magazine. While stating that Church teaching won’t change, he doesn’t make clear what exactly accompaniment means in practical terms beyond what parishes already do.
A man named Albert, on Twitter, in reaction, wrote: “Given the recent ‘gay is ok’ comments, the only accompaniment is to Hell.” While this may be somewhat draconian, it makes it plain that for many accompaniment amounts to code language for toleration and even approval of those who act on their SSA attractions.
Accompaniment is human “communio” based on sacramental Communion. Every parish has a strong vertical “communio” based on worship of God and the Real Presence of Christ received sacramentally in holy Mass. Building horizontal community outside of the Mass is sometimes a more difficult task.
Accompaniment for all persons will happen when a parish enables broad opportunities for friendship built on dialogue and shared experience.
One of the ways in which our parish offers this is brunch at the hall following Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday, something that has been done for nearly thirty years now. Sincere friendships are evident when parishioners, married and single, spend hours enjoying each other’s companionship, a human accompaniment built on the solid and holy foundation of the divine, the friendship of God Himself in true worship of holy Mass.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
@MCITLFrAphorism
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