Second Essay on Marriage - Sexual Conduct

A quick prelude to the introduction, I wish to say that this essay is, in a way, incomplete. I have spent many days and weeks working on this, but I have realized that this project shall in a sense remain incomplete. Each section should double in length based on what I have learned and be rewritten, but I will leave things as they are. I intend to one day return to this and greatly expand on what has been written and release today my thoughts and discoveries rather than shackle myself with the ever-shifting goal of perfection. Although I would love to continue to work on this writing of mine, I find it is a humbling thing which is good for my soul to release my writings so that they may be reviewed and criticized by the world, which then drives me to become a greater writer as a consequence. And so, here I give to you my incomplete writing, for I don't think I will ever complete it, but out of humility I share it regardless of what quality I believe this to be.

Introduction

Here begins my second essay on marriage. My focus is no longer on revealing Eastern ideas on marriage to those of the West, although I will still approach this topic with elements of the East - I am Eastern, after all. I will still bring in elements from that side of the tradition of our faith, but the focus in this essay is not going to be on what the East says, rather we will dive into the mysteries and wonders of the sexual aspects of marriage. I will be bringing together teachings found in the early Church, as well as insights which I have discovered through my research on the Church's understanding of this Sacrament. We will speak here of the expectations for married couples in regards to the act, how sex has a divine fingerprint upon it, and how you should be conducting yourselves in regards to intimacy within marriage.

When I mention sex, I am not speaking of simply the carnal connection between the man and woman wedded together, not simply that, since the uniting of two persons is far more than just carnal. The binding of two bodies together through the intimate act of unification is a primeval act of man - not in the neanderthal sense of rudimentary and old, but in the sense of ancient and original. Look at Genesis, when God creates man and forms woman from his side - one becomes two, and through sex the two become one. There is this original truth that man and woman were meant to be united, as it says "but for Adam no suitable helper was found." We understand inherently that man is not complete on his own, and that woman is not complete on her own - not because we are made lacking as individuals, not that we are flawed in our masculine or feminine by our nature, but rather because we can only reflect God when we come together, and God is relationship, God is love. In that sense, a man alone is flawed - no, not flawed, but perhaps made lacking - because God is not alone, He is a family, the Holy Trinity. And so, we are meant for each other, made for each other.

But also, I do not just speak of the physical aspects of the sexual union, for the act of sex is not just that. Just as the human person is not simply body, or simply soul, but both united as body-soul, so it is that sex also has a spiritual aspect to the physical action. When the spiritual aspect is forgotten during the act, and forgotten outside of the act, disorder grows, and selfishness thrives. Without spoiling the content of this letter to you (for that is how I like to see these, letters to friends), I will say that there is a forgotten spiritual aspect that many seem to leave unthought, the idea that sex is just a physical act. This could not be further from the truth. But before explaining why this is a falsehood, that sex is no more than physical fun, I must have you read on past this introduction where I address it in several places.

And as for the question of those celibate - not those yet unmarried, but those having been given or having chosen the life of celibacy, you are not forgotten. I write to you as well. Your calling is different, and is something that I have been reflecting on of late. It is true, yes, that we are "meant for marriage" since you can see that in our bodies, and see that in our souls. We are made incomplete, in that both a man and woman are required to create a life, this is our only bodily function that we cannot do alone. But, with all of that being said, abstaining from marriage - and marriage being a very good thing, a thing which we are made for - to abstain from this vocation is not a bad choice, and it does not make the vocation you have chosen something lesser. On the contrary, there is an understanding which says that demons hate to see beautiful souls, and a soul is made beautiful when it chooses to make a sacrifice for the glory of God. If you choose to sacrifice what your body was made for, and instead make your life an offering to God, how beautiful your soul will be. You sacrifice what is natural to you for the supernatural to be nearer to God and serve Him all the more. Choosing marriage gives glory to God in one way, choosing to live a celibate life gives Him glory in another.

To begin to conclude this introduction so that we may move onto the actual content, I wish to say that I of course do not intend for you to wholly buy into all of which I speak. I am no saint of the Church to reveal the truths of God to you. But - but - I have been reading and observing, and I am finding these things which I present before you now to be truths which can be deduced upon your own. Rather than my own authority, or the authority of a saint, I appeal to the authority of your reason. I also have evidence for what I propose which I present throughout, found in Scripture and writings from great men, but rather than just say "a smart man believed this, and so you should too" I wish for you to see why this makes sense on its own, a conclusion which you could reason to yourself had you spent the time just to think about it. I still encourage you to contemplate the realities of marriage, but here I am simply sharing my discoveries.

That is my invitation to you in this letter, to reason with me. Journey with me in uncovering that which makes sense but we have missed. Dive into the an understanding of marriage which the ancients had, and learn the merits of their perspectives. Learn alongside me.

Renewal of vows

The four F's

"How do the four criterion of marriage apply after the wedding day?"

This was briefly covered in the first essay on marriage, but it was not fully addressed since it was not proper in that bit of writing. Here I believe the four F's should be spoken of more, specifically in regards to fulfilment of marital vows. Or, as it is often called, the renewal of the marriage covenant, which takes place each time the couple reunites physically.

I feel I need to refresh you on what I spoke about in the other essay regarding the four F's to continue. To become married you must Freely choose to marry the other, you must enter into the marriage Fully without holding anything back, and you must enter into the covenant with the intention of being Faithful to your spouse and your vows, and with the hope and desire of being Fruitful. Free, Full, Faithful, and Fruitful, those are the four requirements for a marriage to be valid - if either member of the party does not meet all four of these criteria when they are being wedded then a marriage does not take place, they are not bonded, these two just happen to be living together now since the bonding of marriage did not take place.

Something that many people seem to miss is that this four-fold promise of surrender to your spouse does not just apply to your marriage day. Tell me, do you only put in gas the first time you buy a car, or do you have to refill it regularly? How often do you have to change the oil in your car? Or take a really good pair of leather shoes or boots as an example, do you ever need to apply more polish, shine, and seal them after you buy them? Or, how about food - do you feed yourself just once in your life, every couple of months, or is it perhaps closer to multiple times in a day?

You see my point. This commitment in marriage is not just once at the beginning, it is constantly renewed each year, month, day, hour, minute, and moment. Putting it crudely, your relationship requires maintenance. I am not just speaking about sex, though I will focus on that in these coming paragraphs, because your marriage is made up of more than just your physical bodies given to each other. You should also be kissing, holding each other, but then also growing in intimacy through spoken words, time spent together, memories made, experiences shared, and so on. Sex is part of it, but not all that we should speak on.

But, because this essay is more specifically on sexual conduct we must speak about sex, and so we shall. In this section I wish to speak on how it relates to the four F's, and why it is important to think of it through the lens of these implicit vows. We'll start with Free. Obviously the embrace must be freely given, anything else would be rape. But there is more to it than just saying "yes" to a few hot minutes with your spouse, it's also about making yourself available to them.

What I do not mean is making it so that your spouse understands you are frequently available for the embrace - though you should be doing that - but more in the way that you aren't caught up by other things, that you are free to give yourself in some way in any moment to your spouse. Think of it in the sense of "free time" - if anybody during your free time asked you to do something you could say yes, because you have no commitments to speak of - you're free. In a way this is how you should be with your spouse. Obviously children, schedules, appointments, housework, family, and other things will pull one or both of you away from free time - but, how much free time do you allow for each other? How often can you two just spend time together? What windows of time can your spouse call on you and engage in quality time where you can drop what you're occupied with and meet them where they're at? Are you allowing yourself to fulfil this vow of your covenant with your spouse?

And back to the spousal embrace, how free are you? Do you make yourself free, available? Not just that it is possible, but that your form is available to your spouse to be loved and to receive and return affection? Do they know that you are available as a gift to them? Are you a gift to them?

There is also the aspect of being free where you are attractive and not a burden. If you have a poor attitude and repulse your spouse then you bring a cost to the embrace. You tax them - think of this in the symbolic terms of actual transactions, where when I am speaking of a cost, and a tax in an almost literal sense. There may never be an expectation of exchange where "if I do this, then I get that" is part of your mindset. Whether it is "if I do this, then I'll get sex" or "if I have sex, then I'll get that" that is disordered and wrong. It is a perversion of a Free gift of yourself. You are meant to give of yourself freely - no taxes associated, no further commitments, no loans to be paid back, no cost associated with it whatsoever; this is to truly be a gift, but without the return receipt.

Also being free - is being free. You should not use it as a bargaining tool, or bargain to get it, which was already spoken on in part. But more than just that, you should not bring cost to the free gift of yourselves. What I mean is, does it cost your spouse to pursue you, and to be pursued by you? Are you truly loving in the way you speak, the way your pursue your love, and in the way you embrace your other half? Or, is it taxing to love you, to be around you? Put simply, are you a difficult person? If you make it difficult for your spouse to ask for sex, or to give it to you, then you are choosing to abdicate your vow to be a Free gift to your spouse. A Free gift to your love - do not make yourself difficult to love or to be loved. A gift is given, it is free, it is simple, it is meant to bring joy to the other. If you, and your body, are not these things then you are not making yourself a Free gift.

And now in regards to the Full entering into the act. You should be holding nothing back from your partner, you should give all of yourself at all times, but most especially in the intimate renewal of your vows. Now, I am not talking about "trying things" - I will not speak for or against these things now in this essay - what I am saying is that you must be fully engaged in the act without holding anything back. Without getting into the intimate specifics, when you are uniting with your spouse it should be the most raw form of yourself, the most open form of yourself. You must avoid hiding anything from your spouse in sex; be both naked in your body, and naked in your soul in this moment of connection with your beloved.

You should be fully a participant, a leader, and a partner in your embrace. To be more specific, it should not be just one of you putting in the effort. It should not be just one of you initiating the embrace. It should be both of you attempting to romance each other constantly, each day, in each and every moment.

And for this next part I am about to say, allow me to nuance it a bit after I make the statement, give me a moment of grace to explain myself. The statement is this: you should become so comfortable and surrender so well in the act that you become animal in your passions, lost in the embrace of your spouse. Now for the nuance - sex should never be animal, in the way that animals seek self-gratification in the act, or in the sense that it is merely functional for the generation of children and you ignore the aspect of pleasure (which would be difficult to do of course). And neither do I mean animal in the sense of surrendering to the hormonal pulls of the moment, becoming subject to the chemistry of attraction between the two bodies. No, no, I mean that you two - both of you - should not worry about embarrassment that could arise, but rather you should, in a sense, silence your minds for the embrace. All that should occupy your mind is receiving well what your spouse is giving you, and giving as much of yourself to them as you can.

And now, to be Faithful. In regards to the unitive act of intercourse, to fulfil this part of your vows you should be faithful to your commitment to unite with your spouse. This is meant in the sense of regularity, and not in the way of scheduling time to reunite as one body, but moreso where reuniting is not a rarity in your marriage. To be Faithful means much more than choosing not to fornicate with others, it is not simply choosing not to stray into things outside of your marriage. No, it is a vow to also be faithful to your spouse within your marriage.

Elsewhere, in another essay, I could speak about all of the ways in which being Faithful applies within a marriage, such as date nights, continuing to discover the other person, fostering romance, assisting in the daily duties, and so on. But at this moment I am focused on speaking about physical intimacy, so that shall be left for another day. This faithfulness in these non-intimate acts is an important thing to touch on, to cover, and yet I will not here; not because it is unimportant, it is absolutely essential to a good marriage. No, because though I would like to talk about it here I see so many conversations between couples derail from speaking about the importance of being Faithful in physical affection into speaking about something else altogether. The conversation pivots to something else, then this physical intimacy which should have been addressed is left unresolved and festers between the couple. And so, I will speak no more about this and instead continue with the original intention of this essay, remaining on the intimate dimension of this vow to be Faithful.

It is easy enough to make the promise to your spouse that you will not cheat on them, that you will not fornicate with a friend or stranger in abandonment of your vows - but, what is difficult and oft forgotten is that you should be Faithful in continuing what you had before, and in continuing to pursue your spouse. If you are faithful to your commitment to exercise, faithful to the diet you have yourself on, faithful to the TV show you enjoy watching, faithful to your favorite sports team - you are committed to these things by maintaining engagement with them, and why should being Faithful to your spouse be any different?

If you are unmarried now and reading this, think on what promises you are making with your body with those whom you go on dates with. When you in a romantic relationship with a person and you kiss, you are promising an intimate part of yourself to that person - I am not now going to lecture you on what kind of kissing is proper and when, that is not where I am going with this. No, instead think on this: what are you promising this person for the future? If you are kissing frequently before marriage, what expectation do you think your spouse will have once you are married? What will your expectation be? You marry, on the wedding night you become one flesh, and for the next several months the two of you are passionately affectionate with each other. But then things die down, the excitement is not there as it was before, and one or both of you start to withdraw and show less affection than you did before.

Many will be upset at me saying this, but I wish to be blunt - why were you lying with your body before you got married? If you make a promise with your words and with your body, why are you not fulfilling them? Marriage is not a place for an animal unleashing of carnal desires, but rather it is supposed to be the safe ocean in which you may freely swim in them as one. Where before marriage you had limitations around what would be and would not be appropriate shows of affection, now within marriage you may roam freely, without limit in showing love to your spouse. Why is it so often that once the emotional high of marriage dies down marriages become affectionless and cold?

I am not saying the relationship cannot evolve and that affection may not change, but why is it so often that affection lessens? Perhaps you find other ways to physically appreciate your spouse - this is good. But why the dying off of physical love? You tell me that you were that way because your emotions were high, that it was exciting, but that you still love your spouse now. But do you? If you are so truly subject to your emotions then how long is it until you no longer love your spouse because it is no longer convenient to do so? You have made promises with your bodies to each other, and you should carry them out. If you allow these promises of physical affection to be merely guided by your degrees of infatuation you have for your spouse rather than it being an active choice - how is that love?

For you to be Faithful to your spouse you should be maintaining the promises you made with your body before marriage once you enter into the covenant. To cease, to cut off these affections which you had previously given to your spouse after your wedding, this is depriving your spouse not only what is right to give to them, but what is good for them; what is both good for them, and good for yourself. Just as the Manna given to the Hebrews in the wilderness was a foretaste of the Eucharist which we have now, it is an increase or fulfilment of what we were given before, it's not as if it went away. Your affections before marriage should remain after marriage. God has not given us something in the Old Testament and deprived us of it in the New Testament, rather He gives us a fuller and greater reality from what we had before. So should you bless your spouse, making even more a gift of your affections after you are united in the Sacrament.

Affection should lessen - no, actually it should evolve over time, but it should take years to do so. And many years at that. Libido decreases in time, your bodies age and lose the raw beauty they had before, and you tire more easily. Yes, affection will not exist in the way it used to, but this is for when you grow old. Your lives should change as you age, bring children into the world, as your habits and your lifestyle shifts, but you should still be Faithful to your spouse.

Remain faithful to your spouse in how you were before you were married, and how you were at the start of your marriage. Become one flesh often, kiss, hold hands, cuddle, embrace, and foster all of these methods of physical touch for each other. If you are unmarried now, do not make the person that you are now a liar in the future. If you are married now, do not have the promises you made with your body in the past be turned into lies. Pursue your spouse, and give your spouse the satisfaction of allowing yourself to be pursued. Seek them, and allow yourself to be sought after. Be Faithful in your love to your spouse. This promise is not simply a conviction that you will not commit adultery - it is not a promise of abstinence of sin, but rather a promise to commit yourself to your spouse. Remain Faithful to your commitments.

I do not believe this deserves to be its own section, and I think it ties in with this section on faithfulness, so I will put it here as a final thought. Those in religious life, those celibate vocations, can be released from their vows, but those who are married cannot be released from their vows. A priest, a nun, a monk, and others can be, and have been, laicized due to them being unable to fulfil the vows they made. But for married people there is no release - "What God has joined together, let no man separate." If you fail to be faithful to your vows as a religious then you may be released from them, though of course that is not a good thing and is not something we should advocate for; rather, we should be encouraging those in these vocations to fulfil their vows and we should pray for them. But the married people, there is no "option" for them to fail, they must be faithful. Your souls are bound, your bodies have been united, you are one now, and this is how you will remain.

I have no more to say on this, I will be reflecting on this more. I think, at the very least, people should reflect on this in light of the sacredness of marriage. Choose to be faithful to your commitments to your spouse, for your actions will have a heavy influence upon your relationship with your spouse.

Fruitful, I believe, is pretty self explanatory. There is the immediate, and very obvious angle to understand this aspect of the marital gift, which is the pursuit of the growth of the family through conceiving a child. Each time that you embrace as one flesh you should have the end in mind for the act; which is to say, the biological purpose of sex is to generate life. Each time you come together you should be ready for that possibility, and you should be open to that possibility.

Sex is not simply one thing, though. The physical purpose of it is to create life. The emotional purpose of it is to create pleasure. The spiritual purpose of it is to strengthen your connection. This physical intimacy is not simply for the begetting of children, and so you cannot see it as simply this alone.

To be Fruitful you should be giving of yourself. I wish for you to think of fruitfulness in the sense of how people speak about a conversation being "fruitful", or an activity being "fruitful"; that is, the act which you participated in was "productive" towards its end. One of the definitions of the word means "abundantly productive", and I wish for you to reflect on this vow of marriage in this sense. Are you being Fruitful in your embrace?

The sexual act is a binding one, it ties together two bodies and draws the two souls closer into being one. Each time that a husband and a wife unite in this act they should be drawn more deeply into each other's lives. In the physical sense yes, you should be close, obviously - but you should become more comfortable and more vulnerable with your spouse in all ways because of this intimate act. Your physical flaws should concern you less when you are near your spouse and you should be less insecure of them with the one you love.

Intimacy should also be fun, to say it simply. You are meant to enjoy it. It always should be, when done properly, one of the most enjoyable "activities" that you do with your spouse. You should be looking forward to it, your spouse should be looking forward to it, it should be enjoyable in the moment, it should be enjoyable leading up to your intimate connection, and holding each other afterwards should also be enjoyable.

Is your embrace with your spouse bearing fruit? Once again I do not mean in the sense of producing children, so many others will speak on this regularly so I will leave that be. Rather, does your relationship flourish from your embracing of each other? Are you growing closer with one another? You should, because of this seeking out of the other person you should be coming nearer to each other in every way, you should enjoy time spent with your spouse even more, you should be a better person to your spouse and to others that you know. By bearing fruit, I mean that you should see good things come about because of what you are doing - both of you should see good results from it. Obviously marriage is not about results, but you would expect fruit from a fruit tree, yes?

Covenant renewed

"What is the significance in calling marriage a covenant?"

Sex is understood in both the East and the West (but especially in the West) as a renewal of the covenant of marriage. Or, you could perhaps call it a re-sealing of the covenant, and a reconsecration of the marriage. Perhaps these terms do not mean much to you, but in a moment they will. But you are not alone, as we are not so familiar with the idea of a covenant as our ancestors were. And so, before talking about the renewal of our covenant with our spouses, we will learn what a covenant truly is.

Let's define our terms before moving on. There are a number of definitions you could find for what a covenant is, but I'll share with you the ones which will be helpful for the following conversation. From one source the definition is:

A binding promise of far-reaching importance in the relations between individuals, groups, and nations. It has social, legal, religious, and other aspects.

Another definition is this one:

An agreement or promise, usually formal, between two or more people or groups to do or not do something specified.

Now these are good starting points, but they lack much. In a sense a covenant is "a divine pledge which binds the life of a person or party to another person or party". But still, it is much more than that. In the Old Testament when you made a covenant with another you would cut an animal, or multiple animals, in half, lay the halves apart from each other (Genesis 15:9-10) creating a path, and then those responsible to uphold the covenant would walk between the carcasses (Jeremiah 34:18-20). Perhaps we could go into the history behind this - but rather than do that suffice it to say that the idea is that if you break the covenant with another that you deserve to be like the animals which you walked between.

You'll find other language of covenant, a type of swearing which invokes covenantal power that is a vow before God. The saying is "God do so to me, and more also, if I fail to fulfil this vow." 1 Samuel 3:17, 1 Samuel 14:44, 1 Kings 2:23, 1 Kings 19:2, 1 Kings 20:10, and 2 Kings 6:31 are just a few examples. Rather than making you explore all the links, the example from 1 Samuel 3:17 says "Eli said, ‘What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.’" The implication in all these verses, and many more which I did not list here, being, "may God split me in two, and do more, if this vow being made is not fulfilled". This is the strength of a covenantal bond, and the consequences of it if unfulfilled.

Now what does all of this history about covenants and cutting up animals have to do with marriage? Well, to understand the covenant of marriage you need to know what it means to be in a covenant, which is why we had to do a deep dive as we did. The covenant made between you and your spouse is the same as of old, a binding of two persons together. In Genesis 15 we see that God makes a covenant with Abraham and He walks between the animals, and God does not break His promises; then we see in Mark 10:9 that God declares marriage to be unbreakable, just as the covenant made with Abraham is unbreakable. It's not that marriage shouldn't be broken, it's simply that it can't be. As God made a covenant with Abraham, so does He make a covenant between a man and a woman in marriage, binding the two together, body and soul into one.

"What does all this have to do with sexual conduct?" you may be wondering. That is, after all, the umbrella idea of this essay. Follow me for a moment. As those in a covenant pass between animals, so do we pass between the pews of people on our way to make our vows. The vows we make to our spouse is the same as those that would be made in a covenant of the Old Testament, promises which bind souls together in the presence of God. And within the covenant there is a sacrifice, perhaps with the addition of burnt offerings, but at the very least the animals sacrificed and cut in half are the sacrifice - and it is the two separate bodies of the man and woman which are sacrificed in the marriage ceremony to be made one through this covenant. The deaths of the animals are made now the deaths of the man and woman - where they entered the church as separate people they now become united as one.

Christ's body was a sacrifice for the Church. He processed up the road to Calvary between crowds of people mocking him, those dead in sin, dead like the animals sacrificed in the covenant. He then elevated Himself upon the cross between two men killed for their sins - more covenant imagery - and allowed His side to be split and His heart pierced, from which flowed blood and water. And just as the Hebrew people walked on dry land in the Red Sea with two walls of water on either side of them (Exodus 14) as a new covenant with the Lord without being washed away by the torrential waters, so do we have the blood and water from Christ flow but it does wash us away and cleanse us of our sins. The Red Sea was a prefigurement of baptism, but also of this moment, as the name implied - Red being like blood, and Sea being the water, that which protected the Israelites on either side but did not drag them into the depths, we now have the fulfilment of that in the sacrifice of Christ and His blood and water do wash over us.

The Lord made Himself a sacrifice upon the altar for us, His covenant with us is renewed at each sacrifice of the Eucharist. It is not that He continues His sacrifice, but that it is, in a sense, reconsecrated with each consecration of the Eucharist. Just as God renewed His covenant with His people in the Old Testament, so does Jesus renew His covenant with us each time we participate in the Eucharistic celebration.

And so, this is the point I have been working towards. The covenant of marriage is reconsecrated each time that you reunite as spouses on the altar of marriage, which is the marriage bed. A covenant has to do with the slaying of animals, and in marriage you have made the promise to die to yourselves for the benefit of the other - you are the sacrifice in this covenant. Each time that you reunite as one flesh you sacrifice your individuality in order to reenter and renew the covenant you've entered into, each time you embrace you re-covenant your marriage. You enact a death of self, and a death to self, where the "I" becomes "we" and your experiences are no longer about just you, it is also about the two of you who have become one.

All throughout marriage, but especially in the sexual embrace, you will have to give up what you want if you want things to "work". What I mean is, sex doesn't work when one or both people are trying to take from the other person. A relationship is a simultaneous giving and receiving done at the same time at all times. When a relationship becomes imbalanced in one direction or the other then it veers into disorder.

Covenants are about giving, not about taking; they are about sacrifice, not about consumption. A Sacrament is a thing which fills you, penetrates you so that you become permeated with goodness and holiness. Marriage is a Sacrament, and a covenant, with your spouse, and so you should be allowing yourself to be filled with the blessings of God and the gifts of your spouse in this holy bonding, as well as giving all of ourself to the Lord through your vocation and pouring into your spouse in your every action. This is in regards to your marriage as a whole - but when it comes to the unitive act, receive what your spouse gives to you, and hold nothing back when you give of yourself to your spouse. Finish the act drained of all things, lay them upon your spouse, and receive all that your spouse has to give to you, so that when you hold each other there is nothing left unexposed by either of you - in both the physical sense and in the spiritual sense.

To treat your spouse well

Abstaining from abstinence

"What are the merits to NFP? Are there any, really?"

And now briefly I wish to address something controversial, for which I am sure I will get in trouble for, but I care not. There are those Christians who abstain from the idea of regulating how much they engage in sex within a marriage, eschewing the Church's recommendation of the natural family planning method (abbreviated as NFP) and rather prefer the idea of "letting God determine what their family will look like" in regards to the number of children and the time between the births of the children. I want to first recognize the theoretical beauty behind this idea, because it could mean that the couple is fully surrendering to the will of the Lord when they could instead enforce their own will and mold the family to an image they have in their minds. The full surrender to God is a wonderful thing when it is chosen, and surrender is what we should all strive for in our relationship with our Lord.

Having said that, those Catholics who refuse NFP in favor of what I would call an abstinence-averse mindset miss what marriage is about. Marriage is not just about sex, it is not just about making children, though those are important aspects of the Sacrament. Just as two bodies are promised to each other, so are two souls. If you choose in your marriage to lean into the carnal connection without those periods of abstaining from sexual intimacy then you miss the point of marriage - something both carnal and spiritual.

God has built into the woman a cycle which would, in theory, enforce periods of time where you two invest in spiritual bonding with each other. We should reverence this. Think, why do we not reverence these moments in which the body of the woman renews itself for the potential of a child? Rather than seeing the menstruation of the woman as it being angry, or as a failure on the part of the couple to produce a child, why do we not see it as the renewal of life that it is? All things die, and God has made it so that there is a resurrection within the body of the woman each month. This period of time where the woman can foster a life within her should be reverenced, as should the period of renewal afterwards when no child grows within her.

And the moment when the woman is fertile, ready to receive the seed of her husband, are we going to reverence that as well? She is a garden, not a field meant to be ploughed, seeded, and harvested in each moment where the opportunity for fruit is presented. Think of the many flowers and plants within a garden, how they are there simply for appreciation. Yes, the purpose of a flower is to fertilize or be fertilized, but that is not its only purpose. A flower is made beautiful so it can be admired, appreciated, and loved. The fertility of the woman should be cared for, loved, and not simply made an opportunity to impregnate.

This is part of the issue that I have with many of those forgo NFP, it fails to elevate the spiritual relationship between the two and instead leans into the carnal. Some may say that they are further elevating the woman's fertility than I would give them credit for since they do not seek to limit the conception of children to when a couple "decides it is the right time" to bring about more life, but I contend. Receiving the Eucharist six times in a day does not mean you elevate it, which is partly why the Church has a limit on how many times you can receive the body and blood of our Lord in a day. Eating ten chocolate bars in a day does not mean you reverence it more than someone who only eats one in a day. The consumption of, or engagement in something to greater frequency, or with less attention paid to the intricacies of the item or activity, does not elevate that thing. The one who instead says that "this is a good thing, but it is not good that I engage in this at the whim of my feelings" is the one with prudence, the one practicing chastity, the one exercising discipline.

And we return again to those who abstain from NFP. In theory I say again that this is a beautiful thing of surrender to the will of God. But, I have not yet seen an example that I would look to with admiration which meets or surpasses that of the couples who practice NFP. Why do I say this? Because in part there is too much familiarity these couples have with their desires and not enough reverence in their spouse and the intricacies that make them who they are. The most intimate relationships I know of, that I have encountered in married couples, come from those who practice less sexual intimacy than those who abstain from NFP. Their sexual connection is still strong and frequent, because it is absolutely necessary in a good, healthy marriage - I do not say that these relationships only have occasional sex, no, they still unite as one flesh very frequently - but it is paced, with the understanding that discipline is necessary in deciding when and how often to become one flesh again. These couples are not too familiar with each other, they still have much to learn spiritually and sexually of each other. Think of the story of Uzzah in the Old Testament, and how he was struck down. The story is found in 2 Samuel 6:1-7 and 1 Chronicles 13:9-12, where the Ark of the Covenant was on a cart and the oxen pulling it stumbled, and Uzzah placed his hands upon the cart to prevent it from falling, and he was immediately stuck dead. There is a lot that you can glean from this story, but what people often miss is that you hear in 2 Samuel 6:3 that the Ark was stored in the house of Abinadab, and his sons were Ahio, and Uzzah. The man Uzzah was living next to the Ark, and it became less of a thing to reverence and more like a piece of furniture. Next, Scripture does not say that the Ark was falling, just that the oxen stumbled, and so his touching of the Ark was both lacking reverence and unnecessary. And finally, you see in Exodus 25:12-14 and Numbers 7:9 that the Ark was only to be carried on poles, never to be placed in a cart, and so these men disgraced God by tossing Him into a wagon. And again, this comes back around to Uzzah living with the Ark in his house, next to him, and he forgot that this was a thing that was holy and due reverence, which is why he placed it into a cart and thought to keep it from tipping like a couch falling over.

One way in which you give a thing reverence is by employing degrees of scarcity between you and it. "Familiarity breeds contempt" is something many have heard before. "Distance makes the heart grow fonder" is the antithesis to this, implying that the less you allow yourself to be used to a thing the more you will appreciate it. And so I say, if you feel that you can expect sex from your spouse at any and every moment, you will grow to appreciate it less. If, rather, you know there are periods of time where you will not unite as one flesh, you will be forced to prioritize other forms of intimate connection with your spouse, which will truly draw the two of you nearer.

Just as having an abundancy mindset for spousal physical unity is in theory great, so is the idea of feasting at all times. Is this not also a great idea in theory? Constantly praising God, and appreciating all the things He gives to us. But, we all know in reality that constant feasting is not a good thing, as well we have no command from God to feast constantly. What is commanded by our God is to feast and to fast at different points. In the Church we have seasons of celebration and feasting, and we have seasons of penance and fasting - we are meant to engage in both.

The one who feasts constantly becomes a glutton, living an unregulated life without discipline. Our Lord Himself says in Matthew 6:16 "when you fast". Do you think fasting applies only to food? Some of us should fast from talking also, from indulgence, from too much leisure, from work, from certain thoughts, and from our own desires. Fasting is not just avoidance of food, it is the deprivation of a good which you take upon yourself for the benefit of your soul and the glorifying of the Lord.

Uniting as one flesh is such a good and beautiful thing that spouses can do to glorify God. It is something that a husband and wife should come together in often, but always with reverence. The couple which believes that sex may be had at any time seems to think that they are exempt from fasting, or that this act is somehow exempt from discipline. Surrender your will to God in this way is a wonderful thing in theory, but sex is a feast celebration of the uniting of two persons, and our lives are not made to be constant feasting. Rather than surrendering to the will of God, you end up simply surrendering prudent use of will altogether. In order to partake in the feast of the Eucharist we must fast from food beforehand - if you are engaging in bodily union with your spouse often, as you should be, when are you fasting?

Once again, fasting is that you happen to not partake in a thing, it is rather the intentional deprivation of a good. And so, when you two are in separate physical locations this does not count as fasting from sex. Living in the same home but not actively pursuing sex is not fasting from it. Having the desire to be united again, but making the choice to abstain, that is fasting. Will you fast, or will you make yourself an exception and continue to indulge in this thing? Is marriage the one place fasting is not required? Is marriage the space where you need not say no to your desires? Is sex the single thing in which you may always indulge in? Careful now, that sounds an awful lot like the secular world around us, and it sounds like addiction.

Sex is a thing meant to be pleasurable. It is unitive and procreative and pleasurable. Adam was given a wife, then the two were given the command to be fruitful and multiply. The first man was given companionship, and then he was told to allow for life to come from that companionship.

Reflect with me for a moment this order of events. Adam was told by God to look after the garden which He had placed the man into. He did his work, Adam named the animals and looked after the plants, but he saw that the creatures around him had complimentary matches to them, they had companions. In Genesis 2 it says "but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner." God acknowledges this, then gives him his wife, Woman, whom after the fall he would rename Eve. The woman is given to the man in marriage and was made to assist in the goal of tending the garden, and then God gives the command to be fruitful and multiply.

What is the purpose of me saying all of this? The sexual embrace is far more than a procreative act. In the case of Adam it is a reunification of the human person, he in some sense becomes whole again. Part of him was removed from his body, and in the sexual embrace that part is returned to him. That is what it is for all of us - a unification with our companion, the binding of two body-souls together.

Built into the act is a pleasant feeling. Yes there is the bodily pleasure which I speak of, but not just that. While not saying too much, you should derive enjoyment from seeing your spouse feel good. You should also feel joy from the fact that you and your spouse "know" each other better than anyone else can in this moment. In the Biblical sense of "knowing" someone it is sexual, yes, but more than that it is the idea that you have the most intimate knowledge of a person in a marriage. When you unite as bodies, you also unite as souls. Your hearts should be as one, your minds should be as one, you should be so synced with your spouse that the both of you truly act as a singular person. Obviously you should like having sex. Tell me, what is wrong with wishing to engage with your spouse in this renewal of marriage vows just because you want to? Sex was made to be pleasurable, and there is nothing wrong in wanting to unite as spouses to experience that pleasure.

You can't separate the procreative dimension from the conjugal union, of course. You cannot remove the opportunity for life, but it does not mean that you must engage in the generation of the life of a child each and every time that you come together. Yes this is speaking to a smaller subset of people, I know that most people will not engage in the marital act for the sole purpose of creating a child, but I believe it touches on the issue being addressed in this section. Those couples which only come together to create life remove both the unitive and pleasurable aspects of the act. And then those whom I have been speaking about in this section, those who elevate the procreative facet of sex above the other facets of the act, they degrade the other purposes of sex, and therefore pervert it altogether. It should be engaged in as a whole, an entire giving of self with an understanding and love for all of its end. Do not deprive yourself or your spouse of a good due to undue elevation of one aspect of the act, or of lessening of other acts - sex is good, and it should be appreciated in the way God made it to be.

To nourish your spouse

"What do I owe my spouse?"

Now to continue on with the idea of spousal unity. In light of Aquinas' statements on the marital debt which I addressed in the previous essay, I wish to state and make it clear that you are not the master of your spouse, they are not your slave. There is proper leadership, love, and respect due in a relationship. You must give the respect due to their spouse since they are still a person; you two may be one now, but you must not forget that the other is still due the love they deserved as an individual before your marriage. I believe this is addressed well in Ephesians 5, a famous or infamous passage for marriage depending on how you look at it.

21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Saviour. 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendour, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. 33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

I will speak on the commands given in this passage in a moment, but first I want to look at a specific part of the passage: "He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church". Both spouses should take this as a callout for themselves in their relationship. Do you always subject yourself to your desires when they arise? If yes, then you are a sloth, a sluggard, who needs to learn discipline. If you subject your spouse to your desires any time that they arise, even if you "have a right" to ask such things of them, then you are a sluggard still. You should not subject your own self to your every whim and desire, and neither should you subject your spouse.

Meditate with me for a moment on the parable of the servant who owed an insurmountable debt to his king but had it forgiven, who then turns around and demands a much smaller debt from a fellow servant (Matthew 18:21-35). The king then revokes the forgiveness of the wrothful servant's debt and he is imprisoned. Do you see the parallel in debts here? Be careful of "demanding" a debt from your spouse and make sure that you are on good standing with "your fellow servant" of the Lord, and with the Lord Himself. If you stand before the King at your judgement and complain of your spouse not "paying their debt" to you, do not expect pity from Him when you have a significantly larger - nay, insurmountable debt to Him.

Now, having said all that, I would like to clarify that this is meant to be applied to "demanding" the debt, the right to the body of your spouse. There is a debt of sorts, a perpetual one, which you should be working towards fulfilling. The debt, in part, is that the two bodies and souls are promised in the marital unity to be one, and since you two are still separate you owe it to your spouse to be one as much as possible - both body and soul. Marital hypostasis is what is "right", and so the one has the right to demand all of the heart, soul, mind, body, strength, and will of the other. The fact that the two of you are not fully one is the debt, something you must work towards remedying. The, in a sense, imperfection of you two moving about the world as separate body-souls is the debt which you must strive to resolve.

Once you wed yourself to another, the fact that you remain your own person is, in a sense, wrong. Two become one in a marriage. Just as Christ's divinity does not make Him any less of a man, and His humanity does not make Him any less divine, so does it follow that a marriage does not make either of the spouses less themselves. But just as Christ is one, so are you two one, but in a less perfect way than the hypostasis of Christ. And yet there is a hypostasis of the spouses, making you into one.

To begin to finish what I started to speak about on Ephesians 5, there are commands given to the spouses in Ephesians 5, and perhaps you have noticed that the man and the woman have been told different things. And you must wonder, why would the commands given to husband and to the wife be different? Why is the wife not commanded to lover her husband? Why is the husband not commanded to respect his wife? Is it not necessary for the spouses to treat the other in the way which is not commanded? No - the reason for men being given one command and women another is because they are being told to do something which does not come so naturally to them.

Men naturally seek out respect and honor, and the way that a man knows he has a good relationship with another man is when respect is communicated to him by the words or by the actions of the other. Respect is what men desire, it is what we need. And for women, they need love. This is what they wish to give, this is what they wish to receive. These are the things natural for men, for women. In the letter to the Ephesians we see that Paul is aware of this, and this is why he tells them to do the thing which does not come naturally.

Scripture does not tell us to stay in our comfort zones, it calls us out of them. "You're good at this thing, keep doing it, wallow in it" - that's not what Paul says, because he knows we will lean into what we're good at. Scripture is calling us to step into what does not come so naturally. Wives are told to respect their husbands in the way that he may receive it. Husbands are told to love their wives in the way that she may receive it. Some men may think that the respect they give is a form of love, and some women may think the love that they give is a form of respect - but this is how so many issues arise. "I feel respected when-" this isn't about how the wife feels respected, this is about how the husband feels he is respected. See how fellow men respect him, see how good wives in good marriages respect their husbands, see how others give respect, not how you think it should be done.

And men, I think you get the idea. Don't give her love in the way you think it should be, give her love in the way that she feels she needs it. This is not about you, it is about her.

Whether the other is deserving of love or respect does not factor in to your obligation. Whether or not you think the other "deserves" to be treated well, it does not matter. Notice in Ephesians it says "wives, respect your husbands" and "husbands, love your wives" - there is no mention of conditionality. "I will give her love when she starts showing me some respect." Do you not see how you've failed to see the purpose of this passage? You are commanded to fulfil your role that is given in these verses regardless of how the other person conducts himself or herself. If "but she-" or "but he-" comes out of your mouth, you are in the wrong. You are not accountable for how your spouse conducts themselves, you are responsible for the commands you've been given. Take heed to the words said by St. John Chrysostom in his homily on Ephesians 5 quoted below. I will not share the whole homily of course, only the portions of it which are very impactful.

For there is no relationship between man and man so close as that between man and wife, if they be joined together as they should be.

You have seen the measure of obedience, hear also the measure of love. Would you have your wife obedient unto you, as the Church is to Christ? Take then yourself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Yea, even if it shall be needful for you to give your life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever — refuse it not. Though you should undergo all this, yet will you not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ. For thou indeed art doing it for one to whom you are already knit; but He for one who turned her back on Him and hated Him.

But what, one may say, if a wife reverence me not? Never mind, you are to love, fulfill your own duty.

[N]ever call [your wife] simply by her name, but with terms of endearment, with honor, with much love.

And here are a few quotes from Chrysostom in his other works which are edifying and you should take into your heart. I do recommend reading the writings of this saint, as he has great insight into the minds and hearts of the spousal life. Chrysostom is not his given name, but is actually a title which means "golden mouth", which speaks to his ability to preach beautiful truths. Read him, and be enriched.

The marriage should be a union of equality. The husband and wife should each be equal in dignity and honor. The husband and wife are responsible for the well-being of the house and each should love one another. The wife’s place in the house should not be inferior to her husband’s, as Paul writes.

Husbands, suffer anything for the sake of your wives, and never disgrace her, for Christ never did this with the Church.

A husband should not mind if his wife demands more of his time, because this shows her love for him. A wife should not nag her husband for not making enough money, but should value his company....A husband and wife should consider both their bodies and all their possessions common property. Neither one should speak of "mine" and "yours."

Husbands, love your wives more than your own bodies.... If you love your wife, you will not be harsh with her, but will prefer to suffer anything for her sake.

In Ephesians 5:22 other translations render the passage as saying "Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord." If a woman does not subject herself to God, she does not love Him, and if a wife does not subject herself to her husband, she does not love him. Christ loved His Church even though She reviled Him, persecuted Him, and killed Him.

And so man is commanded to love his wife, regardless of her fulfillment of her duties, for he is to reflect Christ's love for the Church. And woman is called to be subject to, and to respect, her husband regardless of his fulfillment of his duties, for this is a reflection of her honor, love, respect, and submission to God. A man cannot be a good husband if he does not try to love his wife the way Christ loves His Church, and a woman cannot be a good wife if she does not submit herself and give respect to her husband in the way that she is due to give to God.

With that said, I will add some nuance. It is difficult to love someone well when they do not respect you, and it is difficult to give someone respect when they do not love you. If you do not give perfect love it is not as if you are a failure, you are simply imperfect. The environment, and the treatment you receive, will influence just how well you can fulfil your obligations. You must do your best, and that is all. We are all imperfect, in truth, and perfection is not the standard you will be held against in the end - else we would all end up in the fires of Hell. Rather, the standard is what each of us can do, our limited and fallen ability as humans, the best of ourselves is what we should be striving for. This is not to give excuse anyone from failing to love or respect their spouse because the other is not fulfilling their role well, I am simply saying that it is understandable to find it difficult to give the other what they are due when they fail to give what you are due - but the obligation for both still remains.

I would like to pivot a little bit in this section, first to speak of a husband's duty, because it is spoken on so much by saints such as Chrysostom. He will speak sometimes of the responsibilities of a wife to her husband, but I see much more from this Saint John about what a good husband does for his wife. I have been coming to realize the reason for this, and I will explore this here.

There is this ancient understanding in our faith that the husband has a greater responsibility and weight in spousal life, and in parenthood, than does the woman in her role as a parent and spouse. This next part is speculation, but I wonder if this idea in our faith originates from Paul's writings where he tells the wife to be subject her husband as the Church is subject to Christ, and Paul tells the husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. Do you see the imbalance here? I will be honest, it makes me very uncomfortable, which is the very reason I did a deep-dive into researching the idea. The fact it made me uncomfortable convicted me, and the result is that I have come to agree with the ancient idea. Men do seem to be held to a higher standard than women are, and this is how God has set it up.

I will explain more. What exactly is the imbalance, you wonder? To make it plain, the husband is supposed to be as Christ, and Christ died for love and sacrifice of the Church - what's more, He lived a life of sacrifice, constantly choosing what would bring His bride nearer to sanctification, living and dying for Her. The wife's standard, however, is that of the Church, which is not always faithful to Christ. She has not strayed from Him, yet at His sacrifice on the cross She largely abandoned Him, the leaders of her body (priests, bishops, the Pope) many times choose worldly pleasures over the good bridegroom, and daily the Church fails to be perfect as Her spouse is perfect. The Church is us, we are each the bride of Christ, and we do not love Him as well as we should, and we betray His love for us often. And so, this is where the idea comes from for the disparity in expectations of the spouses; the husbands are held to the perfect standard of Christ, and wives are held to the imperfect though still very good standard of the Church.

I love the book of Sirach (also called Ben Sira) with all of its wisdom made available to us all. Tradition says that this was written by a wise man for his son to guide him through life, and the author's grandson copied it and shared it with others because he thought it was valuable enough to do so. Throughout this book, like in Proverbs chapter 31, you will find descriptions of what a good woman is, as well as warnings against a bad woman. But, almost the whole of this book is dedicated to describing what a good man is and how he should conduct himself, how he should treat others. This is a theme throughout a lot of Scripture, instructions being given to men on how they should and should not conduct themselves. Perhaps the reason for this is because of the physical prowess possessed by the man, and he therefore is given more instruction on how to behave himself well; or, it could be related just to the passage in Genesis 3 where the woman is told "your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." "He shall rule over you" is another way of saying that the woman will be subject to him, and you should be very careful what you subject yourself to. Be careful who you choose to captain your ship, since it is up to him whether or not you reach your destination. If a woman chooses to wed herself and subject herself to a good man who has his destination set on Heaven, then she has chosen well. As for the woman who wishes to go to Heaven and chooses a man whose course is not set on Heaven, she will be forever trying to wrest the control of the ship from its captain to direct it to where she wishes to go, and that is a life headed towards wrecking.

Now that I have laid out the idea, I wish to expound on it for you. Look again at the last quote from Chrysostom which I will put again below.

Husbands, love your wives more than your own bodies.... If you love your wife, you will not be harsh with her, but will prefer to suffer anything for her sake.

John is commanding the husband to choose what is good for his wife over himself. He does this in many other places as well, but I find this one the most compelling. And I wish to bring in another above quote once again.

Husbands, suffer anything for the sake of your wives, and never disgrace her, for Christ never did this with the Church.

Husbands are called to be gentle towards their wives, to treat them with care, to protect them. A husband is soft with his wife, he is careful, he loves her. The Christian form of being a husband is that of a strongman against the world, and a gentle lover to his wife. In Colossians 3, which I will quote from below, we see another example of this idea. A wife should subject herself to the authority of her husband, and the husband should be gentle with his wife. If you wish to be a good Christian woman then you must be subject to the Lord, and if you wish to be a good Christian wife then you must be subject to your husband; if you wish to be a good Christian man then you must love the Lord, and if you wish to be a good Christian husband then you must love your wife.

18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.

I have little more to say on this topic. I just wish to say that a woman should be very careful who she chooses to be the head of her household, what man will lead their marriage. More important than choosing a smart man is choosing a righteous and God-fearing man. A good captain can lead a ship through troubled waters and great storms, and a poor captain drags the ship into the deep. Be smart in choosing the captain of your ship.

As for the men, a question. How well will you captain your ship? Can you lead a home well? You are imperfect, obviously, and I am not asking after your perfection - I am asking you whether you have the knowledge to navigate, the strength to lead, the courage to do what is difficult. Answer me this, can you love a woman gently? Can you both be soft with your wife, and strong against the world? You must meet the needs of your family, of your spouse, and according to the Church those needs are both a gentleness and a strength. If you are unable to promise those things to a woman, and to the Lord, then you must examine why and rectify this lack in you, else you are unfit for marriage.

Intimate exchange

A constant gift

"Why is it called a 'gift of self' when referring to sex?"

I could speak about how you should in all ways make a gift of yourself constantly, but this essay is on the sexual embrace and things related to that, and thus this section shall be focused on that aspect of intimate self-gift within marriage. Specifically, I wish to speak on the gift of making love to your spouse - now isn't that romantic? The idea that you are making love through the naked embrace of one who loves you and whom you love in return, do you see the beauty? Truly you are making love, because in the moments which you embrace your spouse you both reflect and participate in God's nature - that is, to love, and to grow love. Whether or not a child results from intercourse, you are still bringing together "the elements" necessary to create life, and that is what God does, He creates. You create love, you make it incarnate with this act of reflecting God. Love becomes present in that moment, because of what you are doing.

This follows the ancient idea of why you should not say the name of the Lord your God in vain - for it was thought that if you spoke the name of a Heavenly being that the being would then be drawn to you and become present before you. Saying God's name would, in a way, summon Him, so they thought. And so, God commanded that His people should not speak His name in vain for their own sake, for if they "summon" their God He may render judgement on them once He arrives and condemn them. This is still believed in one way or another today, as we believe that saying the name of Christ brings about His presence and dispels whatever evil may be present.

How is this related? How does "making love" follow this idea of calling God down to us? Because, just as God is an exchange of love, and He creates because He loves to do so, we then reflect God and create love in the act we refer to as making love. The making of children has been called a participation with God's creativity, which it is, but along with this it is returning to being "made in the image of God" where three persons are present in one in some way. The husband and wife become one flesh, becoming one person, and through their uniting another person is made, and the act then reflects the Trinity. Three, in one.

And now, why it is a gift. There could be so much written here, and others have already written volumes on this topic, but I wish to be more succinct with my exploration of this idea. Sex is a gift of self because you are giving away who and what you are. You surrender your masculinity as a man, or your femininity as a woman, your individuality, your separateness, when you unite. Your reality of being two unique persons is eroded away when your bodies become one, when you fulfil your marriage vows. Your wants, your desires, your ambitions, your worries, your strengths, your weaknesses, these must all dissolve away and leave only the most raw and vulnerable part of yourself if you wish to encounter the raw and vulnerable reality of your spouse.

For sex to be good, for it to be as it was meant to be from God's inception of it, there can be no taking involved in it. For sex to be good - in two senses I mean this, the first meaning good as enjoyable, the second being good as virtuous - for sex to be good it must all be a gift. A gift is given, it is not taken. A gift is also received, but that is a passive or active "taking in" what has been presented to you, rather than a grasping at the thing. But it remains, that you cannot take a gift - if a thing is not given to you, then it is not a gift to you, it is more like a payment when you take a thing which you believe you deserve.

It is just the same as the marriage vows. In Christian marriage you may not be forced into a wedding, you cannot be forced into becoming a spouse. This is so in the Sacraments, where we are given them by our Lord and we receive them when they are given to us. We laypeople cannot consecrate the Eucharist, we cannot take a Confession, we cannot administer Baptism unto ourselves - no, we must receive these things from another. Why? Because these things are gifts. And so is sex, it is a gift - a blessing from God in which we will be able to participate in creation and in reflecting Him, as well the gift your spouse makes of themselves unto you. Your gift of your body is truly that, a gift, but only when you make it into an honest gift. When either you or your spouse begin taking from each other in the act it perverts the enjoyability and sacramentality of sex.

I wish to say something more about taking compared to receiving sex in the context of marriage. When I am speaking of taking, I do not mean it in the sense of rape as through physical force or through emotional manipulation trying to cause sex to take place. This is of course horrible, but this is not what I am speaking of. While that is terrible on the surface where everyone can see why it is wrong, I speak of the act of taking from your spouse which is below the surface, which rots the roots of your relationship and kills it slowly over time. While rape is as an axe to the trunk of the tree which immediately brings about death, a rot beneath the surface which kills the tree in an unseen way is what happens when you do not treat sex, and the entire being of your spouse, as a gift. It is a slow death, which may take years to be realized, but it kills the tree just the same. Both perversions are a refusal to acknowledge the nature of what sex is, which is surrender, and in this perversion the offender acts as the master declaring that payment is due from the slave in his possession. The spouse acting out of perversion both acts as the master over their spouse, and as the slave to their own animal whims. The spouse which takes, rather than receives their beloved as a gift, abuses both themselves and the one whom is meant to be most loved by them. Why is this so? Why such bold language? To say it once again, this is because your spouse is a gift to you, and you should act as such. We call one who takes something which is not theirs a thief, and so you are if you take from your spouse. You wife, or your husband, are not yours in full, in permanence, but rather your spouse is a constant gift from God, and they are a gift of themselves to you. If God wishes then He may at any point take this gift away from you and bring your spouse into the Kingdom, and you would then see that your spouse was never completely yours since God was the one giving them to you. Then what will you be? Still a thief, for having taken that which is not truly yours, but with nothing to show for it since what was meant to be given has been returned to the one who had the true right over the gift in the first place.

A constant gift, that is what marriage, affection, and sex are. It is not a one-time act in the wedding ceremony, the reception, and at the wedding night. It is constant, ever-flowing, never ending - if these things do end then you will have failed in your marriage. A gift given once can be received but once, but the living gift of the body, heart, mind, and soul of your spouse requires constant gift and constant reception. Just as the worked muscle grows strong and the neglected muscle atrophies, so will it be within your marriage; the neglect of making oneself a gift, and the neglect of receiving your spouse, will atrophy your relationship, while the constant gift to and reception of the gift of your spouse will strengthen your relationship.

And now some may be wondering, how does one give and not take in marriage and in sex? This is more difficult to articulate, since it has an abstract degree to it. I would propose that it is a mindset, it is your mentality in your relationship which would determine whether you are taking or receiving your spouse. I suppose you could summarize it in this way: how do you see your spouse? If you see your spouse as a privilege to you, the person you are trusted to look after, a blessing unto you, a gift which is actively being given to you, then you will be more likely to properly give to and receive from your spouse in the way which is proper. The orientation of your heart, the disposition of your soul will cause you to love your spouse, or to use them. So that is my advice to you, view your spouse as a blessing to you, and in having this mentality you will be more likely to love your spouse as you should.

I have heard for years people coming out against the idea of marriage being 50/50, where both spouses are putting in equal amounts of effort, and I am always happy to hear this idea shot down. There are so many flaws in this mentality, namely that marriage should be proportional in effort, and unless your spouse is putting in exactly equal amounts of work into your relationship and your lives then something is very wrong. It is a very utilitarian mindset, and very much against the teachings of the Church.

There are two articulations which I like in regards to putting effort into marriage that I wish to speak on. The older one is that marriage is 100% effort and dedication from one spouse and 100% effort and dedication from the other spouse as well. It is not proportional, it is a total surrender. All of you should be dedicated to your relationship, there should be nothing reserved from it. Your spouse deserves every mite of you, and so you should give all of yourself to your beloved.

The second articulation of marriage effort is this: marriage should not be 50/50 in effort, it should be 60/40, and both the husband and wife are striving to be the 60. The difference between the previous idea and this one is surrender versus competition, and there is merit that I see in both. In the absolute surrender and total effort given in marriage you dedicate all that you have, you make of yourself a sacrifice; this, I believe, is a good explanation of the first idea. But this second one is similar and different; the difference that I want to point out is that it is a competition between the spouses, where both are striving to be a better servant than the other, both are trying to out-serve their spouse. A competition not in the sense of either of them winning, because there is no trophy at the end for either of them; but rather in the actual sense of their marriage winning the prize at the end, this prize being that they love each other well.

The competition is not doing the dishes more than the other person, or saying kind things more often, but in loving as a good servant. As Christ loves us, so should we love one another. To seek out the goal of loving your spouse well you should not be seeking a higher quantity of tasks to do for them which may enrich their lives, but rather you should be seeking out more ways to make yourself a gift unto their heart. It is not about doing more than your spouse, or about simply doing a lot, but about doing as much as you can to love your spouse.

I acknowledge there is a flaw in this idea of 60/40, because in truth you are not in competition with your spouse. Your true opponent against which you race is the person you were yesterday, and are a victor against this opponent when you become better than your past self. This is ever-ongoing, as there will always be a past version of you, and so you always have something to strive to be better than. There is always the opportunity for you to love your spouse. Seize upon these opportunities.

In the vein of making your body a gift, I will present you with a basic rule for loving your spouse. That is, the three F's - different from the four F's, as this is more of a guideline rather than a facet of the Sacrament. The three F's are: frequent, fun, and free. What does this mean exactly? I will spend some time speaking about this principal in all parts of marriage but in regards to the sexual act it means that a married couple should engage in it frequently, it should be a fun thing for them, and it should be free of cost for both of them. These are the standards that a couple should strive for in their marriage.

I wish to focus on the last aspect first and explain more what is meant by it. For sex to be "free" for your spouse I mean that it should be without cost. Your spouse should not have to do anything beforehand as a task in order to be allowed to make love with you. "We can have sex only if you do the dishes beforehand." A gift does not come with any strings attached.

For it to be a free gift in your marriage it also means that it should not have an internal cost to it, and by this I mean that it should not be a burden to either spouse. Sex should be something both of you look forward to. There should be no bargaining for it, there should be no avoidance of it. If you love your spouse, you should want to have sex with them.

Also in regards to the idea of sex being "free" in your marriage, is it taxing to woo or be wooed? Efforts should be made, obviously, but is the effort too much? What is being demanded by either spouse to engage in this fleshly union? For example, in your marriage, does it take a lot of romancing in order to "get your spouse in the mood" for sex? Also, on the other end, does one spouse put in very little effort in romancing and expects their beloved to be okay with this? Let me ask you this question - I keep using this term for your spouse, which is "your beloved", and this is intentional - I ask, are you treating this person so near to you as beloved? Effort is of course essential in a relationship, but your marriage should not be "work". To love and to be loved should not be a task - it will require effort of course, but it should not be a job. To be married will require dedication, but loving your spouse and fulfilling their needs should not be some kind of task that you check off a list. It will not always be convenient, it will not always be easy, but even when it is not easy you are called to love your beloved.

To expand more on this and begin to wrap up my thoughts on this, what I am trying to say is that effort and easy should be semi-proportional in your marriage. The effort that one spouse puts into romancing the other should be similarly proportional to the ease at which the other is romanced. And I do mean this for both the man and the woman. Although it would be typical for the man to put in less effort in romancing his wife than he should, and it would be typical for a woman to be unreceptive to his romancing and require him to put in even more effort, this is not always the case. I am a firm believer that a man should be making effort to seduce his wife every hour of every day and I strive to maintain that mindset, but so often it is the case that the woman is unreceptive to her husband's attempts to love her and so requires him to put in even more effort, which makes romancing a chore and unappealing. On the other hand, some women try to be receptive to their husband's advances, but he puts in so little effort into wooing her that the embrace loses its zeal. There is failure from both sexes, and we both have growing we need to do.

I say these things to point out the stereotypes which are so often true, but it is not always the issue. A woman should make advances towards and attempt to seduce her husband, and a man should learn to be receptive of her advances. Perhaps sex does not feel so "free" anymore because it is always so one-sided, where the man is putting in all of the effort to romance his woman; or, it could feel this way because the woman is putting in effort but the husband doesn't allow for the process of romancing and wishes to jump right to the sex, or he is dismissive of her advances altogether.

My point being, make sex free with in your marriage. It is a choice. If you would like to have a healthy relationship, if you wish to reflect God as He intended for you through this reflection of the Trinity, then remove the barriers which you bring to this intimate encounter with your spouse and allow them to love you, and for you to be loved.

You thought we were done, didn't you? That was just one of the three F's of the principals of happy sex, now we need to get onto the other two. I started with "free" because I believe the most needed to be said about that aspect of it, and now we shall move onto the others.

Next we will speak of fun, something which should be easy enough to understand. Put simply, sex should be fun for the both of you. Affection shared with your spouse should be enjoyable. It is up to both of you to make loving and being loved enjoyable, and it should be something which you should both look forward to. Keep it exciting, keep it desirable, keep it fun.

And finally, to close this out, frequent. I have this abstract standard for how often a couple should be having sex, which is this: in the context of a relationship that it's appropriate to disclose this to, when you are asked how frequently you and your spouse make love, at every point in marriage your answer should elicit the response "Wow! Really? That frequently?" One of the results of a good marriage, and becomes a sign which helps you to know what a good marriage should be like, is that the sex is good, the couple looks forward to the sex, and there is sex often. Yes, this is a restatement of the frequent, fun, and free principal, but the aspect of it being frequent is both a result of intentionally focusing on the other two criteria as well as a driving force to improve those other two criteria. The more free and fun sex is then the more frequent you'll want it to be, and the more frequent sex is the more likely you are to figure out how to make it both more free and fun for each other.

Now, my standard of "Oh wow! Really? That's a lot." for the frequency of sex is a sliding scale which decreases with time. The standard of what exactly "frequent" means as you grow old will be less compared to when you were in your twenties, but it should still draw a surprised response from anyone who learns of it. Just as you would be happy to hear how surprised someone else is at how affectionate, loving, and caring you or your spouse is to the other - buying flowers or other gifts, small gestures, kind words, engaging in the interests of the other, and more - you should also strive to surprise another because of your frequency of affection. This is not your goal of course, since you should be loving your spouse simply for the sake of loving them, but I say all of this because a good sign that you are loving your spouse well is when the world looks at you and is surprised at how wonderful your relationship is.

To protect your spouse

"What about a spouse who has wounds? What are we to do with them?"

One of my favorite stories in Scripture is that of Tobias and Sarah. All Apostolic Christians have the Book of Tobit in their canon of the Bible, but it seems as if Western Christians (perhaps because of Protestant influence) have forgotten about this book. It is a worthy read in its entirety, but I will mostly focus on just one portion of the book, which will be very relevant to this essay.

Before we get there, I want to introduce you to the characters of our story, Tobias and Sarah. The book is named after the man named Tobit, who is the father of Tobias. Tobias has been tasked by his father, who was blinded in the story, to go retrieve what would be his inheritance from an old friend of his father, and so he goes on this journey. Tobias meets this man and also meets the daughter of this man, Sarah is her name. The short version of Sarah's story is that she had been married seven times before, but each time she was wedded and it was time for the marriage to be consummated on the marriage bed a demon which jealously possessed her would take possession of the husband and slay him.

I would love to write an entire book on the Book of Tobit, but I can't do that here so I will make the last points I need to so that I can move onto the purpose of this section. There is an angel named Raphael present in this story and he gives to Tobias the cure to Sarah's ailment before they even met the woman; on the day of their wedding, when they go into the bedroom for the evening Tobias used the cure, which is the guts of a fish, throwing it into the fire and chasing the demon away by the smell of it. And so, now the couple is safe, and able to become one flesh without fear. But, instead this happens - read the below passage from Tobit chapter 8.

4 When the parents had gone out and shut the door of the room, Tobias got out of bed and said to Sarah, ‘Sister, get up, and let us pray and implore our Lord that he grant us mercy and safety.’ 5 So she got up, and they began to pray and implore that they might be kept safe. Tobias began by saying, ‘Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors,     and blessed is your name in all generations for ever. Let the heavens and the whole creation bless you for ever. 6 You made Adam, and for him you made his wife Eve     as a helper and support.     From the two of them the human race has sprung. You said, “It is not good that the man should be alone;     let us make a helper for him like himself.” 7 I now am taking this kinswoman of mine,     not because of lust,     but with sincerity. Grant that she and I may find mercy     and that we may grow old together.’

Tobias was given a cure for the ailments of his wife, but rather than just trusting in an incense driving away her demon, he invoked the Almighty and had both of them pray in obeisance, asking for His protection of them. They were saved at this moment, but they still chose to give thanks and supplication to God. Just like the story of the ten lepers (Luke 17:11-18) where all were healed, but only one came to give glory to God. All were given healing, but the one who was healed was given praise, for he was the only one to give God what is His due. Here in the Old Testament we see Tobias and Sarah giving God what is His due.

If you look at the next two verses you will notice something striking if you are paying attention. I have wondered at this for years, but have finally come to understand what is taking place. It says that the newlyweds ended their prayers, then they went to sleep for the night. They are newly married, and alone in their wedding bed, so you would usually expect these two virgins to engage in the climax of the wedding night. But instead of this what happens? Immediately after the prayer they lie down to sleep for the night, holding each other in comfort. Rather than Tobias asking what would be his right as understood in the old law, having the act of marriage acted out in fleshly union, he instead just holds his new wife, comforting her. It is very likely that Sarah is fearful of losing her new husband, just as she lost her previous husbands before the consummation could take place. We see Sarah earlier on in the book pray to God for death because she cannot stand this life anymore, distraught by each of her marriages ending in death on the day of the wedding because of a demon which did not wish to share her with anyone. She is afraid, she does not have the assurance that Tobias does, she has seen her husband die too many times, she is likely fearing the moment that they are going to come together as one flesh as being the moment she is yet again made a widow. Tobias sees this, he knows that she will not be able to enjoy and fully enter into the marital embrace, so he simply holds her, he comforts her. They lie down together, and he engages in a different kind of embrace with her, a simple but prolonged hug which lasts all night long. This husband sees what his wife needs, and he meets her there and cares for her.

We should be mindful of the wounds which have taken hold of our spouse. I use that language specifically, "taken hold of", because often that is what happens. Think of a broken bone, torn muscle, a damaged joint, each of these will cause limitations in the movement of a person and disallow them from the activities they had previously enjoyed so easily - but these wounds do not "hold them" at all, they have altered the person. The wounds of which I speak that have taken hold of a person, these are things which can be recovered from, but the wounded one is not taking the steps to be healed.

To continue with the analogy of external wounds I will use myself as an example. I had a bone tumor on my left thigh area removed when I was a young man, and because of this surgery I was limited in my mobility for the months following. My leg atrophied from this time of inactivity, and so when it came time for me to start walking again it was physically painful for a time. But then, after the pain started to subside, it became painful in another way; I saw that I could no longer move as quickly as my friends could, I was slower. In either of these stages of pain, the external and the internal emotional pain, I could have wallowed and allowed these wounds to take hold of me and determine what I could and could not do. But no, instead I continued walking, I was intentionally active, and now I can move similarly to my peers once again. I still cannot bend the leg the way I used to, and were I ever to feel the desire to become an athlete of some sort I would be severely limited in ability, but that is natural for what was done to my body. There is a permanent scar which affects me, but I do not allow any scars to hold me down. Where for a while I was unable to do certain activities when I was wheelchair-bound, then also in my recovery afterwards, I knew that I did not have to allow myself to be limited to this level of immobility forever, it would take willpower and dedication and then I could return back to something which is normal.

Obviously this is not some great tragedy of my life, but I think it is an apt example. There are two wounds which affect a person forever: the one which cuts deep and leaves a mark, and the one that the person has not let go of. Oftentimes these two are connected, though not always. You must be conscious of what wounds your spouse has, and what wounds you have, else you will likely cause more. Treat your spouse with care.

These things of the past, these hurts, will affect what kind of intimacy and what degree of intimacy the two of you can share in the marriage. It should, ideally, be overcome with time, but you cannot rush it. Just as I have difficulty sitting on the floor for a long period of time because of my leg, so will it be with your marriage - some marks from the past will cause the two of you to conduct your marriage differently than the marriages of those around you. This is simply the reality of things, there is no way around it.

You will encounter moments in your relationship in which you see that your intimacy is limited, whether it is a voluntary choice or something involuntary. In the story of Tobit we see Sarah was involuntarily limited in the kind of intimacy she could have. There was nothing she could do about it, not until God sent someone with the cure for her ailment; I mean this cure to be both literal and metaphorical, because we see that Tobias brings to her the thing which will drive away the demon which has taken hold of her, but then we also see that he does not consummate the marriage but instead gives her the thing which she has craved for so long and has until now been deprived of: a husband able to just hold her. Sarah has been healed of the external ailment, and her internal wounds are also being addressed by the man she loves.

Tobias came into Sarah's story as a protector and provider - ridding her of her torment by giving her what she has been needing for so long. Her husband, her liberator. The one which she was was awaiting, he had not yet been sent by God, but when he did come the tools were given to him to free her of her chains.

Though this may not happen for everyone, a spouse should be ready to rescue their other half from their past. If God wills it, He may use you to heal them of wounds and hurts from their past - or perhaps He will not ask this of you. Whatever is His will, reside in it. You should be ready to protect your spouse from their past, and from your own.

What do I mean by this? Protect your spouse from their past? And from your own? What is in the past is gone, but its marks and memories remain. I am not telling you to reach back through time to fix things for your spouse, I am saying rather that the things of their past still have a hold on your spouse and you will need to protect them from that. In some instances you may have to sever that connection to free your spouse from chains of the past, other times you might need to cradle your spouse to give protection from unseen blows, and sometimes you will have to simply be present while your spouse relieves themselves of the burdens he or she has been carrying for so long.

And as for protecting your spouse from your past, I mean that you must defend your spouse against the disorders which you have gained in your lifetime. By defend I do not mean lock away, which would be a hiding and covering up of yourself. No, rather I will tell you to expose your past to your spouse and reveal the ways in which you cause hurt to yourself and to others. You must inform your spouse how it is you are wounded, where you are maimed, and what your spouse needs to do to protect themself from your hurts that cause you to hurt others, and what your spouse needs to do to help you heal. Equip your spouse with what is necessary in the days to come, in your marriage, so that they may be prepared for the coming days to love you as well as they can.

These things I say in the context of a marriage which already exists, but I of course do not believe that these conversations of wounds should only exist within a marriage. The difficulty of past scars should be brought up and dealt with long before your wedding day, put simply, so that your prospective spouse knows what they are getting into.

Let us speak about rape again in brief. If your spouse, or you, have been a victim of this assault of dignity then it is very likely that there will be difficulties brought into your sexual relationship as a husband and wife. This is the nature of things - actions have consequences. An action you choose, or in this case an action that is chosen for you. This wound, this deep-cutting scar, will be carried with you, and I promise you that you will not be able to hide it from your beloved. Not out of obligation, not out of fear, not out of warning should you tell this to your spouse, but rather out of love of the one you hope to marry one day should you share a wound such as this. Not on the first date should you divulge this, not in the first month of being together, but before you marry, so that they may know what you have been through, how strong you are for having survived, and how you should be cared for.

There is symbolism in this story that I wish for you to see and understand. But first, I want to make you aware of something so that you may see the potency of the poetry in this book. You may take the story of Tobit literally if you wish, but because of its writing style it has understood by some as a non-literal story, almost a parable of sorts. Some stories in Scripture which you hear talks on will say "this symbolizes this thing" and that may sometimes be true, but sometimes a story is just a story, and what is being told is just a documentation of what a person said, did, or thought. Sometimes history is just history.

The Book of Tobit, on the other hand, is to some degree history, but it is also parable, which is a type of poetry. And so, when read from a poetic book you should be looking out for symbolism everywhere, ready just in case there is a meaning hidden in the writings. For those ready to object, yes it is true that sometimes the door being red just means it's red, it does not symbolize anything more than what it is in itself. But, this is Sacred Scripture, and there are imprints of God's storytelling here, and there is a specific thing that I wish to draw your attention to. Being Scripture, there are references that go forwards, and backwards. "The Old Testament is fulfilled in the New, and New Testament is revealed in the Old" it is said, and I believe that to be true especially with what I am about to show you.

God created all things in six days and rested on the seventh, so says Scripture. Seven is the perfect number in the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant. But we are now in a New Covenant with the Lord - Christ is the New Covenant (Luke 22:19-20) which saves us. Now look forward with me at the day which our Lord returned from the dead to proclaim His victory and our salvation. A Sunday - not the seventh day of the week, but instead on the first day of the week. If you look at the writings of those intellectually and spiritually adept in our faith you will see that they noticed this and they say the reason for this is because the Lord has brought us into a new creation. In Him we are a new creation. The number eight is a precious number for us as Christians (though it does not get much attention) because this signifies our entrance into the New Covenant. We are redeemed in the eighth.

When you read the Book of Tobit you see that Tobias is the eighth husband to Sarah, and he is brining about new life for her. This eighth man is a sign of new life, new opportunity, for redeeming love which will bring this woman out of her old life of suffering and pain and sorrow. This story, a type of parable, is telling this tale so to invite those with dark pasts into healing. In this story you are being invited to welcome change, and to allow for healing to take place.

Tobias, being the eighth man, brings Sarah healing. God gave the angel Raphael instructions to redeem the families of Tobias and Sarah, and he helped enable these two to do this through their marriage. A good marriage can "save" a person. A good marriage to a good spouse can redeem you, heal you, it can bring you closer to God. A person with whom you can be absolutely vulnerable with and expose your heart, your body, your soul, and your mind to, this person can be the balm which brings about the recovery of your soul.

I say all of this, but do not look for marriage with the intention of the other person healing you. Every time a marriage takes place where one person is looking for their spouse to heal their wounds, the spouse meant to do the healing becomes a used tool. When you look to be healed by your spouse you ignore their humanity and instead wish to get something out of them, which is selfish, and selfishness cannot exist in a marriage which is intended to last. What I am saying in reality is that your spouse can heal you, if you allow them. Through the power of God the one whom you wed can be the remedy that you have needed, but only if you are not seeking to make your spouse into your remedy.

In the story with Sarah we can assume that she hoped Tobias would not die as the others did, and we see that he did survive the night. But, we see that it was not through his own power that Tobias lived, but because God willed it and gave the man the tools which he needed to bring about Sarah's healing. Tobias did not heal her, God did. Recall this in your marriage, whether you are married now or intend to marry one day. Look back at this story and see that Tobias acted as God wanted him to - and after doing as God asked the two kneel together, at the behest of Tobias, and they pray to God for deliverance, and protection, and for a good marriage. Tobias was faithful in applying the medicine to heal Sarah, but God gave to him the medicine, and He gave Tobias the knowledge on how to use it. It is not too much to assume that the men Sarah had married before Tobias had come with potential solutions to her ailment, but these would have been remedies concocted by humans, and they died because their faith was not in God. So will your marriage die if you put faith in the skills of your partner to heal you, rather than in the healing power of God.

So, what is the purpose of this whole section? What does it have to do with marital sexual conduct? Namely this: I share with you this story of Tobias and Sarah so that you may remember that people are wounded, they carry scars, and we must treat them with care. Of course those with wounds are still expected to be a good spouse, there are obligations which they must fulfil, but this passage in Tobit that we've been reflecting on should be a reminder to you that gentleness is necessary in a marriage, and is a meritorious act.

Healing is necessary, you must heal if you are to live, else you will die of your wounds. Heal, then as Sarah's father did in chapter 8, you should celebrate. Let not your marriage be one of sorrow. Joy is an active decision from both of you, and it is up to you how often you choose it.

To return to sexual intimacy, the underlying idea of this essay of mine, there may be healing which you or your spouse must go through before being able to fully surrender all of yourselves to each other and truly unite in your marriage. It is not up to you to heal the wounds either of you have, only to be attentive to the Lord and be an instrument of His will, which may result in healing. Sex is the most intimate act a man and a woman can engage in, and you should be ready to give all of yourself in the act - your virtues, your strengths, your weaknesses, and your wounds. All should be a gift unto your spouse. In order for a person to be truly vulnerable they must feel safe and cared after, you must prove yourself worthy to be trusted. You must become a safe place for them, you must be a place of rest for your lover. You must love your spouse, and seek to make them feel that they are loved, and then they may hopefully begin healing.

To reverence the body

Proper touch

"If there is inappropriate touch outside of marriage, is there inappropriate touch within marriage?"

Most will already be familiar with the concept of appropriate and inappropriate touch, though not all are familiar with how it applies within the context of marriage. More often than not I have heard the sentiment that once you're married it's "no holds barred" as far as affection goes now that the shackles of singleness have been shed. You've read enough of my writing now to see the pattern of how I present things and know that I am going to tell you that this opinion of "anything goes" is incorrect. I become predictable, but at the same time you are coming to know me. You are becoming more familiar with how I write, how I present ideas, who I am through how I do things. And that, that is the very idea I wish to use to explain what is appropriate and what is not - familiarity, knowledge, and then with these the proper reverence of another person which is brought about through knowing them.

Put simply, without delaying it any further, inappropriate touch is when you connect with a body and do not properly reverence the body. Inappropriate touch is the pagan desecration of the holy temple where the presence of God resides. I am speaking poetically, as I love to do, but you need a concrete example, and it is exactly that which I have been building towards. Let's return to the story from Uzzah, the man who touched the Ark of the Lord and was struck down. Where before in this essay I wished to simply touch on the story, here we will dive into it. Below is the passage of 2 Samuel 6:1-7.

1 David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2 David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who is enthroned on the cherubim. 3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart 4 with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark. 5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. 6 When they came to the threshing-floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. 7 The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.

To briefly speak on this point again, Uzzah was was not the one meant to touch the Ark, he was not permitted to, he was not the one given that privilege by God. I can very easily see a homily being written about this passage with the bend of inappropriate touch outside of marriage, and it could be a good homily. But, I think there is more to be gleaned from this passage.

This is a metaphor for how our bodies should be reverenced. Only certain, dedicated people are allowed to come into contact with it. And there are certain ways in which we should come in contact, as the precepts of the Levites show. According to the law handed down by God, nobody was to touch the Ark, and it was due more dignity than being thrown into the back of a cart. The Ark was meant to be carried by the men dedicated to God, using poles of wood and gold these men would travel with the Ark upon their shoulders, an intentional and reverent act. Just as a king or queen would be elevated upon a horse or a palanquin as they travel, so should our Lord be elevated in reverence. And so in similar manner should we elevate our spouse when we are with them. Though your spouse is not superior to you, you should seek to elevate them whenever possible, as your spouse should always seek to elevate you. Within your marriage there should be mutual veneration of each other.

We should give honor to our spouse in the way that the Hebrews did to the Ark, plating it in gold. We should be beautiful, we should want our spouse to be beautiful - not because to be beautiful is desirable, but because beauty is a good thing, something which is a witness to a thing's goodness. We should be beautiful, because it is good to be so.

We should treat the body in the way it cries out to be treated, which is with love. Not in the way the Ark was treated, tossed into an ox cart like luggage to be transported, not touched like a block of wood, but lovingly, with grace, with compassion, and only if it is granted to us to touch it so.

As the priests incensed the Ark, so should we incense ourselves. The Ark was adorned, so should we adorn ourselves. But not for the viewing of everyone else, not as a public spectacle. The Ark was kept in the Holy of Holies, the private chamber of the Lord's dwelling place, somewhere meant for only one man to come into contact with. Your beauty, your strength, your mysteries, they are meant only for one other. Be beautiful at all times, give glory to God at all times you men and women, but reserve the best for the one allowed into your private chambers.

In 2 Samuel, David later has the Ark brought into Jerusalem where it makes its home, and David dances before the Lord. He makes sacrifice, and celebrates the coming of the Lord. David shows proper reverence to our God, and he is blessed for it.

Your body was made for just one other person, and it was made to be treated in a specific way by that person. I wish to focus again on what I said earlier, that inappropriate touch is when you connect with a body and do not properly reverence the body. Appropriate touch is just the opposite of that, which is connecting with a body in a way which properly reverences that person. I don't believe I need to write extensively on this, and so I will attempt to make this a shorter sub-section.

To reverence the body properly within marriage is to touch your spouse in ways that both glorify them, and in ways which makes your spouse feel loved. What is proper touch? It is reverent physical contact in both a manner and in a space that edifies your spouse. To be specific, slapping the butt of your spouse is not something you do in the public space, but if it is a sign of affection that you both enjoy then you may do this act in a more private place. Or a kiss, such as a peck on a cheek may be suitable for almost anywhere, but kissing the neck of your spouse would be inappropriate within a church.

Do you see it now? I hope that you understand what it is I am trying to communicate. What I am calling "proper touch" is affectionate loving of your spouse in appropriate circumstances in a way your spouse is able to receive it. If touching your spouse here and they dislike it then it would be inappropriate for you to continue doing so. If your spouse is able to receive you touching them there then it is good for you to do so, again I say so long as it is in the proper physical location where you are not scandalizing others by your conduct. The hand on the neck, playing with hair, holding the hand of your beloved, hand on a thigh, touching their back, and so on - these are what I am speaking of.

The making of man

Genesis

"Why do you habitually reference Genesis when speaking about marriage?"

Because that is the original, perfect form of man, the way God intended for him to be. That is my answer to the above question. There's a saying which goes something like "you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been" and I believe that has truth to it. Often, in the case of relationships, that saying is used to point out how you need to know where your wounds and your beliefs come from, and so you look to your past to see how you are applying these things now, and you take stock of what you carry in order that you can know what to keep and what to throw off as you continue on your journey. I think you can also apply this statement to my referencing of Genesis, at the first marriage of man: "you can't know what marriage is until you understand what God made marriage to be from the beginning."

If you've already read my first essay on marriage you will see there is old theology on a married couple not only becoming one flesh, but also one soul. I will not rehash all of that here, so I will leave reading the precursor of this article up to you if you wish to understand what I am about to say. I will repeat what I said in the introduction, when God creates man and forms woman from his side one becomes two, and through the sexual union the two become one again.

I will share some quotes in a moment which emphasize more this idea, but there is something funny that many people miss in Genesis in regards to the creation of humanity. In Genesis 1:26 God says "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness", and in verse 27 it says "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Notice, the Lord says man and woman will be made "in our image, according to our likeness", but once He created the two it says that we were made in His image, but does not say we were then made according to His likeness. If you read some of the commentaries on Genesis from the Church Fathers on this passage you will see they say we were made in the image of God, and capable of His likeness. Though we were not made innately with His likeness, that is something that could be achieved eventually.

As you see in the quotes above there are ways in which this has been understood and explained before. The question that remains, I think, is where is this "likeness" which God said He would make us with? You will find different thoughts on this, but I would propose my own; which is, being made in his "likeness" is not absent from verse 27, we've just missed it. "Male and female he created them." God is relationship, God is love, God is three persons in a constant exchange of love in community and communion, and so when He created humanity He made us in this way.

We could not be made whole as a man or woman, because that would be a false representation of God since He is relationship. We are not whole in ourselves - capable of generating life, and fully representing what God is like - because that would be a falsehood, we would not be like God. He is relationship, He is a community of persons. If man alone, or woman alone, were capable of doing all things then we could not be "like" God. It is through our "inefficiency" as a man or a woman, incapable of representing God in all ways and reflecting what He is like in all ways, that we see our need to be together, to be united as a man and woman.

We are meant to be like God, as God is, and so uniting as body-souls and living as one, creating life, caring after things and people, this is what makes us like Him. The passion of the male, the mercy of the female, the strength of the male, the beauty of the female, these are reflections of God Himself.

Allow me to propose an idea to you. The likeness of God that we are speaking about, that means "to be like Him", yes? If that is so, I would propose that when the husband and wife are united as one flesh and one soul in the sexual act working towards generating life, at this moment we see humankind obtain this "likeness" we heard about in Genesis. If sex is successful to its purpose in the life-generating sense and results in a child, then in those moments of unity between the spouses you have three persons in one; the husband and wife bound in flesh, and the third person, a child, created from their unity, also present in the act. When sex is realized in the way God intended for it to be, we see a reflection of the Trinity. This, I propose, is the likeness which God spoke about when He made us.

Look at the passage again. "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." He made male and female in His image, and in the preceding verse humankind was made "according to our likeness", and to be like God is to reflect Him. Again, in the sexual act, we do this through participation with God's creation of life. To make love with your spouse is to reflect the Trinity, to create a child is to participate in creation, to be a family is what God wanted for us.

Closing thoughts

I will, of course, have missed some things in writing this essay. I can promise you, dear reader, that if (or perhaps it is more true to say "when") I rewrite this essay in the future there will be things I change because I have learned more, or because I know better. My thoughts rest for now, and I am satisfied with what I have written so far.

My mind has been on the mystery of marriage for a number of months now for many reasons, but among the first that activated my desire to do a more mystical study of matrimony was my transition from Western Christianity into Eastern Christianity. I am not divulging to you the mystical understandings of marriage from the East, I am instead uncovering for us both the understands from the West and the East because there is much richness in our entire Catholic tradition. These things I am divulging to you are not exclusive to one tradition or another, and they are not exclusive to one period of time either. St. JPII helped uncover the mysteries of marriage through his Theology of the Body talks that he gave in the Wednesday Audiences. We are continuing to discover God's plan and intention for ourselves, for our bodies, for each other.

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing and researching for this essay, and am a bit saddened to be bringing it to an end. There were several sections that I ended up deleting because I did not believe it necessary to this essay, or because I was not inspired to actually flesh out that section, or because I decided it was irrelevant to what I had written. I am happy, though, that I still have additional essays on marriage to work on writing. And I do have an inkling that I will return to this one day, hopefully with greater knowledge and wisdom, having gained more of these two things from life and interactions with others. My hope is, in the interim between then and now, that you will be able to look past the parts that should be fleshed out more, and forgive my shortcomings, and perhaps glean something beneficial from having read this essay of mine. I can only hope.

Written for VME Catholic, by Ethan Hall