we are put here to learn how to love. If we don\u2019t learn how to love we can\u2019t share in the divine nature because God is love.<\/p>\n
St John says, \u201cThose who live in love live in God and God lives in them.<\/p>\n
It follow therefore that those who do not live in love do not live in God and God does not live in them.<\/p>\n
But learning to live in love is a lifetime\u2019s occupation. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes discipline. It take sweat. It takes suffering and ecstasy, joy and sorrow all thrown together, and chastity is the main tool we need to learn how to use in order to learn how to truly live in love.<\/p>\n
Chastity channels our sexual desire into love as a music teacher channels a student\u2019s talent through lessons and practice and discipline.<\/p>\n
Chastity is the discipline that allows the full power of the sexual instinct to mature and blossom into this fragile and beautiful virtue we call \u201clove.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now here is where marriage or religious vows come in: It is through the marriage commitment for life or the religious commitment for life that we enter into the permanent quest for chastity and the lifelong quest to learn how to love.<\/p>\n
To put it simply, Marriage has to be a lifelong commitment because it is in marriage that we learn how to love and that difficult lesson takes a whole lifetime. That\u2019s why the bride and groom say \u201ctill death do us part.\u201d They need the whole lifetime to really learn what it means to live in love.<\/p>\n
If they\u2019re lucky they will one day be like those dear sweet couples you see who have been married for fifty or sixty years and have really become one flesh. They are the ones who show us what love really is and why it takes a long time to mature.<\/p>\n
Finally there\u2019s this: it is only this kind of lifetime commitment to love that will bring us to the gates of heaven. Marriage is a sacrament remember\u2013that means it is a physical channel of saving grace. Marriage is the path by which we learn to live in love and therefore live in God.<\/p>\n
If we break marriage through unchastity then we have dynamited the bridge that leads to God.<\/p>\n
This is why the church is against fornication, prostitution, promiscuity,masturbation, \u00a0adultery, divorce, bigamy, incest, sodomy, homosexuality, porn, sex abuse, rape, human trafficking and any other sexual sins. The church is against these things because they break marriage.<\/p>\n
In other words, marriage is your ladder to heaven, and if you break the ladder\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026.how are you going to get to heaven?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
we are put here to learn how to love. If we don\u2019t learn how to love we can\u2019t share in the divine nature because God is love. St John says, \u201cThose who live in love live in God and God lives in them. It follow therefore that those who do not live in love do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18892","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n