“We Want Sexy Back!”

July 31, 2012 By 1 Comment

Sex is good.  Sex is fun. Sex is sacred. 

That’s the message from the eager young voices over at 1flesh.org.  The website is the creation of a group of young adults, mostly college students, who have launched a grassroots movement in opposition to the use of artificial contraception and dedicated, to use their words, to “bringing great sex to the entire universe.”

Pope John Paul II spoke about the beauty and the holiness of the marital embrace in a series of Wednesday audiences from September 1979 through November 1984.  That series of reflections has come to be called the “theology of the body”—inspired by Pope Paul VI’s assertion in Humanae Vitae that the problem of birth regulation must be considered in light of a “total vision of man.”

Catholic author Christopher West summarizes John Paul II’s “theology of the body” like this:

This is to say that everything God wants to tell us on earth about who he is, the meaning of life, the reason he created us, how we are to live, as well as our ultimate destiny, is contained somehow in the meaning of the human body and the call of male and female to become “one body” in marriage. How? Pointing always to the Scriptures, the Holy Father reminds us that the Christian mystery itself is a mystery about marriage – the marriage between Christ and the Church. Yes, God’s plan from all eternity is to draw us into the closest communion with himself – to “marry” us! Jesus took on a body so we could become “one body” with him (which we do in the Eucharist).

In his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church regarding married love, responsible parenthood, and the continuing proscription of most forms of birth control.  He warned that if sex were reduced to a form of casual recreation, and if the unitive (or relational) and procreative aspects of sexuality were severed by artificial contraception, then marriages would be weakened, divorce would be increasingly common, and the family and society would suffer serious consequences. 

Sounds like today’s culture, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, though, there are many people who will never read a papal encyclical, and who will never be exposed to the “theology of the body” in a classroom or in the pew.  How to reach those people?

Enter 1flesh.org.  This upbeat, high-spirited message about the meaning of sex in marriage is geared toward a younger crowd, even those who are not well schooled in Catholic theology. They explain:

If anything can be said of our generation, it’s this: We want sexy back. Our parents’ generation, well, they lost it. They delivered to us a world with sky-high rates of divorce, abortion, and STDs; a world bored with sex and bored with romance; a world in which more and more people are turning to pornography to find sexual satisfaction; a world in which 1 in 5 women report being sexual assaulted, and the human body — the sexiest thing in the universe — is used to sell cars.

After extremely little consideration, we decided we don’t want that. We want awesome marriages and mind-blowing sex lives. We want women and men to be respected and loved for who they are, to the very depths of their being. We want sex free from fear, love free from use, and a world of people who love and respect their own bodies. In short, we want sexy back. In fact, we demand it.

If you haven’t heard from these kids yet, check out their website.  Watch the videos. 

Help them bring sexy back.

Filed Under: Abstinence, Chastity, Sexuality Tagged With: , , , 1 Comment

A Tribute to the Jesuits on Their Feast Day

July 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment

On July 31, the Society of Jesus marks the 456th anniversary of the death of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits.  

Born into a wealthy Basque family, Ignatius of Loyola (1491 – July 31, 1556) was a Spanish knight; but he was seriously wounded in the Battle of Pamplona in 1521.  During his long recovery, he experienced a spiritual awakening and was led to abandon his military career and devote himself to labor for God, following the example of St. Francis of Assisi.

At the shrine of Montserrat in 1522, Ignatius had a vision of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus.  Filled with awe at this great gift which had been given him, he traveled to Manresa—where he prayed for seven hours a day, eventually developing the Spiritual Exercises which have been the hallmark of Jesuit spirituality.  He had an unwavering devotion to the Catholic Church, and he called his followers to unquestioning obedience to the Church’s authority and hierarchy.

Ignatius is the patron saint of soldiers and of the Jesuit order. 

*     *     *     *     *

The Jesuits have produced great scholars and great scientists, including two contemporary astronomers:  George Coyne, S.J., whose research interests have been in polarimetric studies of  various subjects including Seyfert galaxies; and Guy Consolmagno, S.J., astronomer at the Vatican observatory who has primarily devoted himself to planetary science.

Jesuit musicians have produced great works for the Church.  In the 1700s, Italian organist and composer Domenico Zipoli created great inspirational works.  In the years post-Vatican II, the group of five Jesuit musicians who came to be known as the “St. Louis Jesuits” set Scripture to music in contemporary hymns which are popular in American Catholic churches today.

Jesuits have expressed the Faith in poetry, too.  Two famed Jesuit poets are Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., and Saint Robert Southwell, S.J.

In tribute to Jesuits everywhere, and most especially in honor of my former boss Most Rev. George V. Murry, S.J. (now Bishop of Youngstown)—here follow two favorite pieces by great Jesuit writers:  Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur” and a unique performance by popular recording artist Sting of “The Burning Babe,” a poem by St. Robert Southwell.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed.  Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell; the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

 

And for this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 

Filed Under: Catholic, Holiness, Poetry, Prayer, Saints Tagged With: , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

CAN AN AGNOSTIC BE DIVINELY INSPIRED? “Babette’s Feast” Is a Eucharistic Allegory From an Unlikely Author

July 31, 2012 By 1 Comment

You probably know at least a little about Danish baroness and plantation owner Karen von Blixen-Finecke.  She was the heroine (Meryl Streep) who had a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter (Robert Redford) in the 1985 romantic drama Out of Africa.  She was an author who wrote under the pen name “Isak Denisen.”

But you may not remember that she was an agnostic. 

My husband and I recently pulled out our copy of the film Babette’s Feast (Danish: Babettes Gæstebud), which won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The story was originally published, I understand, in Ladies Home Journal—and it was recreated in film by esteemed Danish writer and director Gabriel Axel.

Babette’s Feast is Dinesen’s parable about two spinster sisters who, once beautiful young women, had forsaken their chances at romance and fame, taking hollow refuge in religion and caring for their father, a pastor of a stern Christian sect in a rough Danish coastal town. 

The sisters are named Martine (after Martin Luther) and Philippa (after Luther’s close friend Philip Melanchthon).  [This is an important factoid—more on this later.]

*     *     *     *     *

The sisters are approaching old age when Babette Hersant appears at their door carrying a letter of recommendation from Philippa’s former suitor.  Babette is a refugee from the French counter-revolution; and the sisters cautiously agree to take her in as a housekeeper. For fourteen years, Babette works as their cook and housekeeper—gradually warming the town with her generosity and pleasant demeanor.  One day, she wins the French lottery; but rather than return to her hometown, she decides to use the money to prepare a delicious feast for the sisters and the small religious congregation on the founding pastor’s hundredth birthday. 

Babette, in a lavish expression of generosity, spends her entire winnings on the banquet.  Not simply an epicurean delight, the meal is the means by which Babette expresses her gratitude and her love for the sisters who sheltered her. 

The wary townspeople—unprepared for such a lavish pallet of strange new foods, distrustful of a Catholic foreigner such as Babette, and unaccustomed to joy—secretly determine to eat the meal without commenting, to consume without truly appreciating the generous repast. 

But as the guests experience the rich flavors and beautiful presentation of the extraordinary banquet, they are moved—and they are gradually transformed by joy.  The director amplifies this joy with color, focusing on the delectable dishes, bringing a pallette of rich colors into the cool whites and grays of the sisters’ modest home.  And as the color intensifies, so, too, does laughter and pleasure and love.  

*     *     *     *     *

What does it all mean?

  • The Washington Post called Babette’s Feast “edible art,” a tour de force for the taste buds. 
  • Marjorie Baumgarten, writing in the Austin Chronicle, called it the “food in film” equivalent of Valhalla. 
  • Christopher Null at filmcritic.com sees in Babette’s Feast a seminal work about repressed emotions and self-doubt. 

 A foodie film?  A gloomy story of repression? 

Well, yes but…. for a Christian, the parallel to the Eucharist, to a heavenly Feast, is striking.  In her sacrifice, her pouring out of her resources in an expansive love, Babette is a riveting Christ-figure.  The satiating meal, an earthly parallel to the heavenly banquet, is eucharistic.  And the grace it imparts, the rich outpouring of emotion among the gloomy Danish congregants, mirrors the spiritual life-giving nourishment of the Eucharist.

But curiously, Isak Dinesen herself seems to have been limited by her secularism, incapable of applying the story’s imagery within the context of faith.  Raised in a Unitarian household, she drew upon the Old and New Testaments and other spiritual works for her themes; but she remained an agnostic, never raising her eyes toward the heavens to gaze upon the transcendent God.  Her personal life was marred by a failed marriage and unsatisfying relationships.  She was addicted to painkillers, and she died in 1962 of malnutrition—starving both physically and spiritually.

So to the question in my title:  Can an agnostic be divinely inspired? 

My answer is a resounding “Yes.”  It seems that Dinesen reached beyond herself, beyond her wildest imaginings, to reveal a Truth which she, lacking true faith, could not understand. 

*     *     *     *     *

Now about Martine and Philippe, and their famed namesakes Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon:

Melanchthon, the younger and lesser known friend of Martin Luther, labored with him to reform the church.  However, there is an interesting difference between the two:  Whereas Luther stood firmly on his self-constructed platform of “justification by faith,” Melanchthon was more moderate.  He agreed that one must have faith; but also, he taught, one must demonstrate one’s faith by works. 

The two friends are buried side by side at the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  I’ve read that Martin Luther has a statue of Mary at his grave.

Filed Under: Beauty, Books, Faith Tagged With: , , , , 1 Comment
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