We do not limit grace.

Saturday was the feast day of St. Mary of Egypt and Sunday – the last Sunday of the Great fast – we remembered St. Mary of Egypt again.

Before her repentance, St. Mary of Egypt was, as Simon the Pharisee observed today about the woman of the city, "a sinner." Though she is often thought of as a prostitute, her sin was not so much prostitution as fornication. Saint Sophronios says that she would not charge her many sexual partners, but survived instead by begging and spinning flax. She was, like so many of us in this hypersexualized culture, consumed and driven "by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion" of lust.  

She went to Jerusalem among the pilgrims, but her reason for going was not pilgrimage. Rather, she went in a large group for the purpose of seducing many partners. Some might question how such a sinner could even think to enter the holy city and its holy places.

But remember the sinful woman of the city in Simon's house (Luke 7:36-38). She goes right up to Jesus himself and, weeping, wets his feet with her tears and wipes them with her hair and kisses his feet and anoints them. Though she is a sinner, she touches Jesus. And Jesus, who is more than a prophet, knows that she has sinned, yet allows her to touch him.

On the other hand, when Mary of Egypt, who is also a sinner, tries to enter the house of Jesus – that is his Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Church of the Resurrection – she is prevented by an invisible spiritual force. 

Why? What's the difference between these two sinful women? Why does Jesus allow one to touch him and kiss while the other is prevented from even entering his house? There is only one difference between them – repentance. The woman of the city in the Pharisee's house is penitent. She is weeping. And she is loving. She does not cease to kiss Jesus's feet. So all her many sins are forgiven because she loves much (Luke 7:47).

Meanwhile, Mary of Egypt tries to enter the holy place of the Lord while yet impenitent. She goes to that holy tomb not seeking to anoint the body of the Lord, but rather while seeking more partners for her lust. The invisible blockade that she experiences is in fact a strong medicine. It's not meant, I don't think, simply to keep the holy separated from the unholy or the clean from the unclean, but it is meant, I think, to reveal to her her situation and to bring her to repentance.

And, gracefully, it has this effect. Seeing outside the church an icon of another Mary – that is, of the Theotokos – she does repent. She weeps and laments, like the woman of the city in the Pharisee's house. And she learns that true love for the Lord surpasses any self-satisfaction gained by indulging in the passion of lust. Trying again, in her new state of penitence, to enter the Church of the Resurrection, she finds no force keeping her out. And she does enter and there she kisses the Holy Cross, just as the woman of the city kissed the feet of Jesus. She who is forgiven much loves much.

Now what might her fellow pilgrims have thought of her at this moment? Seeing this woman who they knew to be among their number expressly for the seduction of their members, now entering the Holy Sepulchre weeping and kissing the Holy Cross, what might they have thought? When Simon saw the sinful woman enter his house and kiss the feet of Jesus, he thought, "If this man were a prophet he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." If Mary's fellow pilgrims were true followers of Christ, then they rejoiced at her repentance. But if they were like some of us, then they probably had thoughts rather similar to Simon’s. They may have thought "Who is this woman to kiss the Holy Cross? She has not embraced the cross by her dissolute living.” They may have judged her and thought her presence among them in this place at this time inappropriate.

I hope not. But if they did, the only true judge knew their thoughts. And if we have thoughts like this about those who come among us, he knows this as well, and we will hear about it. Let's keep our thoughts on our own sins rather than on the sins of those around us.

For things are often not what they seem. A person who seems to us to be a great sinner may, in fact, be awash in the holy grace of forgiveness through repentance.

This was the case with Mary of Egypt. She seemed to be still a great sinner, but in truth, her glorification by grace, by the life of God, had already begun. She went immediately after her eyes were opened to the holy mystery of repentance, was absolved of her sins, and received holy communion. This is the proper, ordinary, and churchly way to begin again the life in Christ after we have sinned. When we fall, we get up again. When we sin, we repent and enter again into communion with the Lord through the mysteries of the Church.

But then Mary did something less ordinary, less usual, and even less churchly by some standards. The next morning, she crossed the river Jordan and then lived the rest of her life – 47 years – in the desert as a hermit. I say this is a less churchly way of life because, for one thing, it is extremely peculiar for a person to be called directly into the anchoritic life – that is, to live alone as a hermit – without first having lived the coenobitic life for a long time in community. (Though, there are other examples of this – particularly in early monasticism – such as St. Antony the Great.) And then, even among anchorites, it is peculiar to live most of life deprived of the holy mysteries, especially the Eucharist. Yet, they say, that this is what Saint Mary of Egypt did. After that first holy repentance and communion, she went into the desert and never communed again, until the day that she died many years later.

A year before she died, St. Zosimos, a priest (whose feast day is Tuesday), came upon her in the desert. She was so rough from her many years of ascetic practice, that from a distance he did not at first know for sure whether she was human. She told him her life story and she asked him to bring her holy communion the following year on Holy Thursday, which he did, on the banks of the Jordan – the same place she had received communion the last time. When she came to receive communion from him, she walked on the water of the Jordan to meet him.

Abbas Zosimas and Mary of Egypt. 17 c. 

Here is a woman who defies all of our churchly expectations. Living apart from church services, even apart from frequent reception of holy communion, and yet living a life somehow filled with grace and faith. I do not recommend that we all imitate Mary of Egypt in her way of life. St. John Climacus (who we remembered on the Fourth Sunday of the Great Fast), warns us, after all, that the avoidance of church services is a sure sign of the deadening of the soul. But I think we can hold up Mary as demonstration that God can and does act as he will. He is not confined by us or by our expectations. We do not limit his grace.

It is good to remember John Climacus' observation when we are tempted to avoid church services. But I think Mary of Egypt is marvelous for us to consider when we are tempted to judge others for the way it seems to us they are living or not living the Christian life. We do not necessarily see their life in Christ or where God is leading them. We do not know what prayers they pray in their closets nor do we see their ascetic practice. Sometimes there is one whom the Lord loves in his own way and for his own reasons, blessed be the name of the Lord.

The Same-Sex Marriage Debate is about Sex

One thing everyone still seems to agree about on marriage: it is inherently sexual. Sex is not the only thing or even the most important thing, but if sex is not involved, then it isn't marriage. There is a great deal of talk about marriage as being an essentially loving relationship - "Everyone should have the right to marry the person he or she loves," say many same-sex marriage proponents - but no one is demanding the right to marry his mother or his brother, even though many people do love their parents and siblings. There are different kinds of love. One difference here is sex. There is a rampant confusion in our culture between sex and love. Sex should be loving, but it is not love itself and love is not always sexual. What gay marriage supporters mean is, “Everyone should have the right to marry the person he or she loves and wants to have sex with.” Couples who don't want to have sex with each other likely don't want to marry.

Sex is for making love, but it is also for making babies. Most human cultures have long understood the intrinsic connection of these two purposes and consequently have frequently opposed or even criminalized sexual acts that are inherently sterile, such as masturbation, the use of contraception, and homosexual acts. The cultural acceptance of all these behaviors is behind the recent growing acceptance of gay marriage. I read that when the last of the anti-sodomy laws were eradicated by the Supreme Court in 2003, Scalia predicted it would lead to the acceptance of same-sex marriage, along with a host of other ills. Really, it is just about consistency. I agree with them: if these acts are okay, then of course gay marriage should be legally recognized. Sexual ethics are the only real reason to oppose same-sex marriage. Opposing same-sex marriage while justifying other sexual immoralities within marriage is hypocritical.

U.S. sodomy laws by the year when they were repealed or struck down.

  Laws repealed or struck down before 1970.

  Laws repealed or struck down from 1970-1979.

  Laws repealed or struck down from 1980-1989.

  Laws repealed or struck down from 1990-1999.

  Laws repealed or struck down from 2000-2002.

  Laws struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2003.

If homosexual acts were still illegal, as they were in every state before 1970 and in some states until just ten years ago, then the suggestion of legally recognizing gay marriage would be absurd. The debate over gay marriage is not at its heart just about love, as its supporters wish to claim. It is also necessarily about sex, and homosexual acts should not be legal. Homosexual acts, along with other inherently sterile sex acts, should be legally punished as misdemeanors, not honored with legal privileges.

Edited 7/2/2013 1:45 PM:
 I changed the title and added the following :
"Sex is not the only thing or even the most important thing, but..."
"Sexual ethics are the only real reason to oppose same-sex marriage. Opposing same-sex marriage while justifying other sexual immoralities within marriage is hypocritical."

Edited 7/6/2013 10:15 AM:
I changed "The difference is sex" to "One difference is sex."

Marriage and Holy Orders

St. Nonna, wife of the Bishop of Nazianzos,
St. Gregory the Elder,
and mother of St. Gregory the Theologian

As Church discipline developed, it increasingly prohibited the ordination of married men in both East and West. Initially, as in the case of Gregory the Theologian’s father, bishops were often married.* Eventually, both East and West forbade episcopal ordination of married men, as they do until this day.

Though East and West both esteemed virginity, the Latin Church grew more stringently to oppose the ordination of sexually active married men. Though the popes of Late Antiquity never forbade the ordination of married men, it is not surprising that their insistence on perpetual clerical continence soon evolved into required clerical celibacy for the Latin Church. The Eastern Church also recommended that married priests practice an ascesis of continence  - but temporary continence prior to the celebration of the Eucharist. Just as the Eucharistic fast from food was not expected to be perpetual, neither were married priests expected to practice sexual continence perpetually.

Neither approach strikes me as necessarily superior to the other. Rather, with Patriarch Photius (before 866), I regard each as legitimately distinct disciplines.** Discipline is subject to change and it is up to the Church in each age to respond effectively to the needs of her people and to demonstrate with her disciplinary decisions respect for both virginity and marriage, preferring neither.
_____________________________________________________
* 1 Tim 3:2; Peter Gilbert. “Introduction.” On God and Man: The Theological Poetry of St. Gregory Nazianzus. Trans. and Ed. Peter Gilbert. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001, 23. 

** Peter L’Huillier. “The First Millenium.” Vested in Grace. Brookline: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001. 34. 

7) The Morality of Birth Control - Commonalities

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There are a few teachings about birth control consistently maintained by the fathers of the Church, the contemporary Catholic Church, and the contemporary Eastern Orthodox Church: 1) Procreation is a good and essential purpose of married life. 2) There are times for avoiding conception. 3) Abortion by any means is an immoral method of birth control. For the fathers of the Church, the only moral means of birth control is total abstinence. Current Catholic teaching would also permit periodic abstinence. The Orthodox are less clear, but, in addition to periodic abstinence and total abstinence, they would overwhelmingly also permit non-abortifacient contraception.

1) Those who would enter into Christian marriage must never do so with an attitude completely closed to having children nor indeed without the hope of having children. Without some desire for children in a marriage, there is arguably no reason to marry. Loving each other is enough, but marital love necessarily includes the desire for children.

2) Every month in the life of a marriage between the physically healthy and sufficiently young presents an opportunity for conceiving a child, if one has not already been conceived. The couple, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and their spiritual fathers or mothers, must prayerfully and reasonably discern whether they are called to seek the fulfillment of that opportunity each time it is given. In making this determination according to the dictates of their consciences, they must seek to live in the balance between generosity and responsibility.

One recognized method of avoiding conception for
the unmarried is to wear standard issue BCGs. 

While the married should sometimes avoid conception, the unmarried should always avoid conception. The moral teaching of the Church has always required the unmarried and the celibate to practice the most effective form of birth control - complete continence.

3) No one should ever resort to an abortion regardless of the difficulty of the situation, whether they are married or unmarried, whether they are rich or poor. If a conception has taken place, the question about whether or not it was God’s will to conceive a child has already been answered. God creates no children that he does not love and want to live. It is therefore the couple’s moral responsibility, after conception has taken place, to love and provide for the newly conceived person even as Christ has first loved them.

6) The Morality of Birth Control - Eastern Christian perspectives

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While in most issues Eastern Orthodox theologians pride themselves on their consistency with the patristic witness, current disregard of patristic teaching against most forms of birth control is at least as widespread among Orthodox as among Catholic theologians. Some, if not most, of the Orthodox do permit most forms of contraception, so long as the motives are not selfish and the marriage as a whole includes the desire for children.

Paul Evdokimov holding a cat.

Eastern Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov presents an argument in favor of contraception in his work on marriage, The Sacrament of Love. His support for birth control in general is based on the point that love, and not procreation alone, is the primary reason for sex. Catholic teaching would agree with him, I think, up to this point. He rightly writes, “All reduction of Eros to procreation lowers it to the animal level,” and, “Love includes procreation, but the latter neither defines it nor in any way depletes it” (178). Since there is more to sex than making babies, it is morally licit, at times, for a married couple to have sex without directly intending the conception of children. At times “the intention of limiting birth is right” (178).

In discussing the moral means of controlling birth, however, Evdokimov sees an equivalency between what Catholics call NFP and forms of contraception. Of methods similar to NFP, he writes, “The act that becomes ‘safe’ by means of a computation of days or a by a mastery of the will is in every instance not natural, unless one plays with words” (177). He refers to methods similar to NFP as “mental contraceptives” and states, “The problem is not one of methods, but of the spirit with which one employs the methods” (177-178).

Interestingly, this is in agreement with one aspect of patristic teaching. The fathers oppose having sex without intending conception, regardless of the means used to avoid it. For them, it is not about means, but intentions. If we now say that it is morally permissible to have sex without directly intending conception, why should we introduce a distinction between means that the fathers would not have recognized? Augustine directly opposed what we now call NFP because he consistently opposed sex without the direct intention of procreation. If we now permit the use of NFP, why should we not accept other means of limiting birth while still having sex? These are questions Evdokimov raises, which challenge a Catholic reader. I believe the Catholic teaching given in a previous post has good answers to these questions, but they are coming from a different premise. While the Catholic teaching has maintained a prohibition of contraception and behavioral methods of birth control that the fathers would have approved of, the Orthodox teaching has maintained a patristic understanding of the equivalency of means. The contemporary teachings of neither the Catholic Church nor the Orthodox Church represent the patristic teaching on this issue. I doubt there are many Christians of any kind who believe and live as the fathers taught on this issue. Teaching about birth control has clearly developed in the Church over time.

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev in his study

Not all of the Eastern Orthodox accept Evdokimov’s view. There are some few Eastern Orthodox opponents of contraception. For example, Bishop (now Metropolitan) Hilarion Alfeyev of the Russian Orthodox Church, in his Statement to the World Council of Churches in Geneva, on 13 February 2008, mentioned contraception among a list of evils such as abortion and euthanasia. Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon, an archpriest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, has made unambiguous statements against contraception (see video above). There are others opposed to it as well, but they seem to be in the minority.

More prevalent is the perspective expressed in the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) document, Synodal Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life. It agrees with Catholic teaching, up to a point, when it states,
"The procreation of children is not in itself the sole purpose of marriage, but a marriage without the desire for children, and the prayer to God to bear and nurture them, is contrary to the 'sacrament of love'" (Orthodox Marriage Service; St. John Chrysostom, On Ephesians, Homily 20).

However, the teachings diverge when it comes to the issue of which means are morally appropriate for the responsible regulation of births. The document states, “Only those means of controlling conception within marriage are acceptable which do not harm a fetus already conceived.” On face value, this statement would appear to permit abstinence – periodic or total, behavioral methods, most forms of contraception – including some kinds of abortifacients, and sterilization. It would appear to forbid only direct abortion. However, I do not think that this is its intention. Elsewhere the document states, “Sexual love in marriage is to be chaste and pure, devoid of lewdness, lechery, violence, and self-gratification.” This may well be taken to exclude at least some behavioral methods of birth control and sterilization – which is a kind of violence to the body. However, this is an interpretation, and the document does not clearly prohibit these practices. The document’s use of the term “fetus,” which is usually understood as a person about eight weeks after conception, combined with its failure to identify conception as the beginning of human life brings into question whether or not it intends to forbid abortifacients along with other kinds of abortion. Concerning abortion, the document states,

Orthodox Christians have always viewed the willful abortion of unborn children as a heinous act of evil. The Church’s canonical tradition identifies any action intended to destroy a fetus as the crime of murder (Ancyra, Canon 21; Trullo, Canon 91; St. Basil, Canon 2).

Again, the persons protected by this statement are described as “fetuses.” If the OCA also morally opposes the willful destruction of embryos and zygotes, as I suspect it does, greater clarity on this teaching would be helpful.

The Russian Orthodox document, Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, presents a clearer total opposition to abortifacients: “Some contraceptives have an abortive effect, interrupting artificially the life of the embryo on the very first stages of his life. Therefore, the same judgments are applicable to the use of them as to abortion” (XII. 3). This seems to be a more complete expression of the Orthodox teaching on this matter.

Regarding non-abortifacient types of contraception, this Russian Orthodox document agrees with the OCA document that they are permissible and “cannot be equated with abortion in the least” (XII. 3). However, it uses stronger language in support of the essential relationship between marriage and procreation and it particularly recommends periodic abstinence as a means of birth control.

This document further emphasizes an important aspect of moral behavior in this area of life, perhaps neglected by official Catholic teaching: “Clearly, spouses should make such decisions mutually on the counsel of their spiritual father” (XII. 3). Spiritual direction has an essential role to play in the application of objective moral standards regarding birth control to the myriad subjective situations in which spouses find themselves. It is spiritually and morally unhealthy to “go it alone” on such important moral issues and it is necessary to seek personal spiritual guidance from the pastors of the Church. While the CSDC may be right that only the spouses themselves can ultimately make decisions about the proper use of birth control in their particular situation, the Eastern tradition is also right to point out the essential relationship spouses must maintain with the Church community in every aspect of their lives, even the most intimate. If our communion with the Church is not with us at all times, even in our bedrooms, then we are not truly in communion with the Church.

While there is much information from the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic perspectives on this subject, there is none, that I have been able to find, from a specifically Eastern Catholic perspective. On an issue like this, where there is such significant disagreement between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics, this is a problem. Many times in my experience, the Byzantine Catholic faithful do not know who to listen to on this issue. In my opinion, the pastors of the Byzantine Catholic faithful owe it to those faithful to be conversant in both viewpoints on this issue, while also needing to defend the Catholic teaching faithfully.

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5) The Morality of Birth Control - The ends

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Having discussed the morality of various means of birth control, now it is necessary to discuss which reasons for limiting births are morally legitimate. Paul VI identifies “physical, economic, psychological and social conditions,” as in need of attention by spouses who would become responsible, prudent, and generous parents. The Compendium of Social Doctrine of the Church (CSDC) clarifies, that in weighing these issues,

The judgment concerning the interval of time between births, and that regarding the number of children, belongs to the spouses alone. This is one of their inalienable rights, to be exercised before God with due consideration of their obligations towards themselves, their children already born, the family and society (234).

Spouses are not to make this decision on this issue on whims or personal preferences, but according to “objective criteria” (GS 51.3). The question of what particular quantity or frequency of births is both responsible and generous is, however, particular to circumstances and so spouses must consider this prayerfully and under the guidance of their spiritual fathers or mothers.

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4) The Morality of Birth Control - Periodic and total abstinence

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5) Having acknowledged that the practice of periodic abstinence (NFP) to avoid conception does not square with patristic teaching, how are we to understand the Church’s current promotion and acceptance of the practice? In 1968, a Catholic commission examining married life and birth regulation awaited the publication of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae. Speculations ran wild. Catholics of a traditional mind knew that the Pope could not contradict the teaching of the Church. Catholics of a progressive mind hoped for a sweeping reform of Catholic sexual ethics. This is what they received. So outraged were some that artificial contraception was not permitted that they failed to observe that this document does indeed represent a development of the Church’s doctrine about sex. What Paul VI approved, which we now call NFP, was specifically condemned by early Church teaching. Regarding NFP, Paul VI writes,

 Pope Paul VI in 1977

"If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births…, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles" (HV 16).

Furthermore, his acceptance of such a method is based in part on his new emphasis on the goodness of marital sex as a means of unification and an expression of love, which was not often recognized in the early Church with its overemphasis on ascetic renunciation of pleasure for the sake of freedom from the passions. Such renunciation is laudable provided that it is freely undertaken and provided that it is not done in the spirit of condemning those who enjoy certain pleasures in this life. In recognizing the goodness of marital sex as a pleasurable expression of love, the Church has recovered the scriptural understanding of sex as having good ends other than procreation.

If the Church now acknowledges these good ends, why does she persist in forbidding artificial contraception? NFP is permissible while artificial contraception is not because NFP does nothing against the created nature of sex. Artificial contraception, regarded by its users as a form of health care, treats human fertility as one would disease, illness, or injury whereas NFP acknowledges the basic goodness of the created human physiology with all of its natural functions unimpeded. If contraception were health care, that would mean that natural human fertility would be an unhealthy state. NFP leaves intact and unaltered the healthy functioning of the human body whereas contraception attempts to interfere with natural and healthy human fertility. Periodic infertility is a healthy part of created human nature.

6) The most effective method of birth control – total continence – has never received criticism from the Church. All those in an unmarried state are morally obligated to practice total continence (CCC 2349). Furthermore, the Church has always acknowledged that some are called to perpetual continence in celibacy – which is recommended by Paul and exemplified by Jesus himself (1 Cor 7:8, 27, 38). Even within marriage, indefinite periods of continence are permissible – for prayer, as Paul writes (1 Cor 7:5). The Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, of course, were perpetually continent within marriage. Other married saints in the history of the Church have decided, after having had children, to live the rest of their lives in continence.

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3) The Morality of Birth Control - A patristic understanding

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Contrary to Eastern Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov, who writes in his book The Sacrament of Love, “In the age of the Church Fathers, the problem of birth control was never raised,” a study of the teachings of the early fathers of the Church quickly reveals that this controversy is nothing new and that the teachings of the Church on this issue have evolved over time (174). Sex, from a patristic view, is for making babies. For many of the fathers, this is not only its primary end, it is its sole purpose.

This utilitarian understanding of sex may have roots in the Old Testament's emphasis on procreation as well as in Stoic philosophy. At any rate, the patristic understanding more strongly echoes Stoic philosophy than it does Paul. (On this topic, see Roy Ward’s article, “Paul, How he Radically Redefined Marriage.” Bible Review 4:4 (1988) 26-31). When Paul writes, "It is better to marry than to burn," he is not talking about having children, but about having sex (1Cor 7:9). He never mentions children in this passage. Given the imminent eschatology of this letter, it is clear that Paul is not here concerned with progeny or posterity. This reveals that there is more to sex, in his view, than making babies. It keeps us who are weak from burning, whether this is from burning in sexual desire or burning in hell or both, he does not say. The point is that sex, for Paul, is a good thing in service of an end other than having children. The fathers of the Church did not maintain this New Testament understanding.

Icon of St. Justin Martyr, also called the Philosopher,
in the Katholikon of the Stavronikita Monastery.

With a clear preference for celibacy, St. Justin Martyr (c. 160) writes, “If we marry, it is only so that we may bring up children” (ANF 1.172, emphasis mine). Similarly, Lactantius (c. 304-313) writes, “Whatever is sought beyond the desire of procreation is condemned by God” (ANF 7.143). Among these fathers, then, the distinction between artificial contraception and NFP is therefore moot. While they would generally prefer that people remain virgins and therefore not have any children, these fathers oppose any form of birth control within a sexually active marriage. At face value, Justin’s claim that marriage has no purpose other than the begetting and rearing of children would even render total abstinence within marriage an unacceptable behavior (the example of Mary the ever-virgin spouse of Joseph notwithstanding).

Other fathers may not oppose total abstinence within marriage as a means of birth control, but they do oppose limiting abstinence to the periods of fertility, à la NFP, and even require abstinence during periods of infertility. For example, Athenagoras the Athenian (c. 175) forbids sexual activity during the infertile period of pregnancy. Referring to this, he writes,

After throwing the seed into the ground, the farmer awaits the harvest. He does not sow more seed on top of it. Likewise, to us the procreation of children is the limit of our indulgence in appetite” (ANF 2.146).

In reference to the same issue, St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 195) writes, “To… a spiritual man, after conception, his wife is as a sister and is treated as if of the same father” (ANF 2.503). Two activities recommended by some NFP teachers are having sex during menstruation and during pregnancy, both of which the earliest extant Church canons, the Apostolic Constitutions (compiled c. 390), specifically condemn:

When the menstrual purgations appear in the wives, their husbands should not approach them, out of regard to the children to be begotten. For the Law has forbidden it when it says: “You will not come near your wife when she is in her separation” [Lev. 18:19]. Nor, indeed, let them have relations when their wives are with child. For [in that case] they are not doing it for the begetting of children, but only for the sake of pleasure. Now a lover of God should not be a lover of pleasure (ANF 7.463).

It is interesting to note here that the two reasons for having sex acknowledged by the Apostolic Constitutions are procreation and pleasure, as opposed to contemporary Catholic theology, which generally recognizes unification and procreation as the two purposes of loving marital sex. There is no mention at all here of the expression of marital love as a purpose for sex. St. Augustine (c. 388) also understands sex in this manner. He offers a fairly accurate description of what we would now call NFP in his opposition to calculating and limiting sex to the infertile periods of a woman’s cycle, which was apparently a practice promoted by the Manichæans. He writes,

Is it not you [the Manichæans] who used to counsel us to observe as much as possible the time when a woman, after her purification, is most likely to conceive, and to abstain from cohabitation at that time…? This proves that you approve of having a wife, not for the procreation of children, but for the gratification of passion (NPNF 1.4.86).

Augustine here understands sex as done for pleasure only - “the gratification of passion” - if it is not done for procreation. This is typical of some of the fathers. He offers no mention of love or unification as aspects of the sexual embrace. Again, this is typical. For him, the pleasure of sex is tolerable only because of the good end of making babies. If that end is not present, sexual pleasure is reprehensible and he seems not to recognize the possibility of having sex with one’s spouse as an expression of love. The Church’s teaching about sex has evolved and, I believe, deepened.

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2) The Morality of Birth Control - The means

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The means, techniques, or methods of birth control include 1) abortion and abortifacients 2) sterilization, 3) artificial contraception, which includes barrier methods such as condoms and hormonal methods such as “the pill,” 4) behavioral methods that limit sexual activity to infertile acts such as onanism, oral sex, et cetera, 5) periodic abstinence, the most effective method of which is known as natural family planning (NFP), and 6) total abstinence.

The Catholic Church has undertaken to evaluate morally each of these means of birth control. The Second Vatican Council, in its document Gaudium et Spes (GS), defends the competency of the magisterium of the Church to make this evaluation, stating: “Sons [and, presumably, daughters] of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law” (51.3). The teaching of the Catholic Church on the immorality of certain means is clear in forbidding all but the last two of the six methods listed above.

Drawing from a 13th-century manuscript of Pseudo-Apuleius's Herbarium, 
depicting a pregnant woman and another holding some pennyroyal. 
Pennyroyal was historically used as an herbal abortifacient.

1) Direct abortion is the willful taking of an innocent human life which began at conception and is an “unspeakable crime” (GS 51.3; CCC 2271). In his encyclical Humanae Vitae (HV), which, from a Catholic point of view, is a foundational document on the issue of birth control, Paul VI writes “Direct abortion... [is] to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children” (14).

2) He continues, “Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary” (HV 14). Sterilization, which mutilates a healthy body with the intention of disrupting its natural healthy functions, disrespects bodily integrity and consequently is against the moral law (CCC 2297).

3) Regarding artificial contraception, Paul VI unambiguously writes, “Sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive [is] intrinsically wrong” (HV 14; CCC 2370). The primary reason that these acts are immoral is their deliberate disruption of one of the two primary ends of sex in marriage. There is an “inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act” (HV 12). Contraception is a deliberate denial of the procreative significance of sex. While it is true that sex is not only for making babies but also essentially for making love, it remains true that it is also essentially for making babies and that God created it for this great purpose also. For this reason, “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life” (HV 11).

4) Recent documents of the Church have said little about behavioral methods of birth control. However, for exactly the same reasons as those presented against contraception, the consistent teaching of the Church opposes these methods as well. Their clear prohibition extends from biblical times into the twentieth century, as Pius XI demonstrated in 1930 in his encyclical Casti Connubii. Referring to patristic interpretation of the story of Onan in Genesis, he writes,

Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, "Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it" (Casti Connubii 55; Gen 38: 8-10).

Some exegesis is necessary at this point. The story of Onan is the only direct description of birth control in scripture, and the method described is behavioral: “when he went in to his brother's wife he spilled the semen on the ground” (Gen 38:9). The story gives us both Onan’s means – coitus interruptus, sometimes also known as onanism – and his ends: “Onan knew that the offspring would not be his,” so he avoided conception, “lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he slew him also” (Gen 38:9-10). Why did the Lord kill Onan in this story? Both St. Augustine and Pope Pius XI believe that Onan’s crime was his means of avoiding conception. However, Onan’s reason for doing so was also immoral – he did not want to fulfill the conditions of a levirate marriage. He selfishly did not want to sire heirs for his deceased brother. So perhaps this was his crime. I think, however, that it is most reasonable and consistent with Christian tradition to consider that both his reason and his means – “what he did” – were immoral and that the Lord punished him for both of these reasons.

In its prohibition of these four methods of birth control, the Catholic Church is completely consistent with the fathers of the Church, who are universal in their opposition to such acts. However, the fathers went further than the Church does today and would also condemn what we now call 5) NFP. For the fathers, the only moral means of birth control was 6) total abstinence. I will examine the patristic thoughts on these issues in the next post.

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1) The Morality of Birth Control - Introduction

Some ancient readers of this blog may remember my earlier writing on the morality of birth control. The next several posts will be a massive reworking of my original posts which have been deleted as my understanding of this has significantly evolved over time.

There are few issues so disputed within the Church and between Christians of all kinds as the morality of birth control. Most commonly, the dispute is about whether or not artificial contraception is a morally licit means of regulating birth, but birth control is not exactly synonymous with contraception. Birth control is the regulation of the number and/or frequency of births. This is done for numerous reasons and by numerous means, both of which need to be evaluated morally. The debate among Christians extends beyond the means of birth control to which, if any, circumstances justify its use. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teachings on this issue differ on significant points, which presents unique pastoral problems to Eastern Catholics. This is in addition to the many problems universal to any who would take a moral stance on this issue.

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Heavenly Marriage

11th century Georgian miniature of St. John Chrysostom

          In his earlier letters to Theodore, John Chrysostom mourns for the soul of one who has decided to marry. In his later letter to a young widow, he counsels an end to mourning for the body of a good husband who has died. These situations are opposite in many respects. He addresses his former letter to a young man planning marriage – his latter to a widowed young woman. Each reflects considerably and distinctly on the theme of marriage. He writes the former letters as an ascetic monastic with limited experience – the latter as a cleric with more experience. A comparison of these letters does much to show both the evolution and the consistencies of Chrysostom’s thought and ministerial approach.

Chrysostom’s earlier letter to his friend Theodore is more accusatory and harsher in tone than his more temperate and gentle letter to the young widow. For example, he accuses Theodore of opening his mind, which “the devil has now set on fire… to all manner of soul-destroying and shameful thoughts.” However, he does not write to condemn. In an effort to strengthen Theodore against despair, he gives many examples from scripture of figures that have fallen and repented, returning to their former glory. He then threatens Theodore with a long description of the fires of hell and the torments of the damned, tempered somewhat by an attempt to inspire him with a description of the blessedness of heaven.

Only after thirteen long pages of such bulwarks and admonishments, does Chrysostom get to the point

After the Likeness

God made us in His image and after His likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). Already this confession acknowledges that there is in humanity from the moment of creation both similarity and dissimilarity to God, for we are “in” His image, but we are “after” His likeness. The word “after” can be understood to mean “in pursuit of” or “moving towards” or “following.” God created us in a state of growing in likeness to God – in an eternal ascent of our created nature toward the uncreated Lord. Our likeness to God is not and cannot become an absolute likeness to the essence of the One-Who-Is, but is rather an ongoing process of deepening union with God – of becoming an ever-clearer divine image.

Necessarily, we must understand the likeness of humanity to God in tension with God’s absolute transcendence. Dynamically, mysteriously, “man, this mortal, passible, short-lived being [is] the image of that nature which is immortal, pure, and everlasting,” as St. Gregory of Nyssa writes in his work On the Making of Man. It is difficult to understand how the one could image the other.

11th century mosaic icon of St. Gregory of Nyssa

God is not passible and does not change, but is “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13: 8). According to Gregory, “Human nature is the mean between” divine nature and animal nature – between a purely spiritual nature and a purely bodily nature. Humanity, precisely in its mutability – which is a characteristic of its flesh, as opposed to a purely spiritual or angelic nature incapable of change – has the opportunity to recover from its separation from God and to unite, with and by grace, itself with God. Passible – i.e. impassioned or subject to the passions – as we know we are, we must change (μετάνοια) and grow toward impassibility or dispassion (ἀπάθεια) to recapitulate our likeness to God.

Soap Bubbles

Being out of soap, today I was forced to bathe with my beloved wife's "Sensuality Bath and Shower Gel." That's right folks, not only is this cleansing gelatin sensual, it is Sensuality itself.

CCC 2727:

We must also face the fact that certain attitudes deriving from the mentality of "this present world" can penetrate our lives if we are not vigilant. For example, some would have it that only that is true which can be verified by reason and science; yet prayer is a mystery that overflows both our conscious and unconscious lives. Others overly prize production and profit; thus prayer, being unproductive, is useless. Still others exalt sensuality and comfort as the criteria of the true, the good, and the beautiful; whereas prayer, the "love of beauty" (philokalia), is caught up in the glory of the living and true God. Finally, some see prayer as a flight from the world in reaction against activism; but in fact, Christian prayer is neither an escape from reality nor a divorce from life.

Passion

Passion (Gr. pathos), I think, is the second most misunderstood word in the English language. By the word "passion," most mean "strong feeling" or "fervent commitment." Some mean "sex." Nearly everywhere, the term is used positively. We are told by every third advertisement to follow our passions, act on our passions, or live for our passions. Rekindling passion, we are advised, is the way to save a failing marriage. Fiery passion is admired. The meaning of our life, some claim, is our life’s passion.

The Early Fathers of the Church, on the other hand, have a generally negative and more useful definition of the term "passion." The passions are that which assault us – that which we must endure (compare to the word "passive"). They are products of our fallen nature – perhaps with a good original purpose now corrupted – that lead us into a life of sin. They must be transformed for us to live in Christ.

The following definition is helpful. Probably written by Bishop Kallistos Ware, it comes from the glossary in the English translation of The Philokalia:

Passion (pathos): in Greek, the word signifies literally that which happens to a person or thing, an experience undergone passively; hence an appetite or impulse such as anger, desire or jealousy, that violently dominates the soul. Many Greek Fathers regard the passions as something intrinsically evil, a 'disease' of the soul: thus St. John Klimakos affirms that God is not the creator of the passions and that they are 'unnatural', alien to man's true self (The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 26...). Other Greek Fathers, however, look on the passions as impulses originally placed in man by God, and so fundamentally good, although at present distorted by sin (cf. St. Isaiah the Solitary...). On this second view, then, the passions are to be educated, not eradicated; to be transfigured, not suppressed; to be used positively, not negatively.

As with other temptations, God permits corrupting passions to exist but does not desire them. By prayer of the heart and invocation of the Holy Name of Jesus, we can be free of them. Dispassion (Gr. apatheia) is an attribute of the holy. More than the absence of passion, dispassion is a transfigured self. It signifies purity of heart, spiritual freedom, and detachment from earthly cares.

The teachings of Early Fathers of the Church on prayer of the heart and overcoming the passions have changed my life and freed me in a way I never thought I could be free. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Those old men who sat in their desert cells nearly two thousand years ago – there battling powers and principalities – have all the answers we need. Who would have thought? Let us strive to hear their quiet voices over the worldly din – whispering truths that do not change despite the passage of eons.

“The assaults of my passions disturb me; they fill my soul with great discouragement. O Maiden, preserved from all stain, restore the balance of my soul through the peace of your Son, through the peace of your God!” (Paraklis, Ode 1).

Jesus Would Discriminate

The heretics and blasphemers who brought us the “Would Jesus discriminate?” yard signs have become more aggressive. Perhaps the yard signs were only the preamble to their intended coup-de-grace. The day before yesterday I saw a new sign which read, “David loved Jonathan more than women. II Samuel 1:26,” and last night I saw a billboard very near my erstwhile house proclaiming to all, “Jesus said some are born gay. Matthew 19: 10 – 12.”

I would prefer the exhibition of gay pornography on a billboard to this, printed as it is next to an image of O.L.G.S. Jesus Christ. That, at least, might offer an honest image of active homosexuality. Pornographers and sodomites ought to be briefly imprisoned. Blasphemers ought to be shown the implements of torture, in an effort to inspire repentance. Failing that, they ought to be burned at the stake. Probably I overreact. Do I? Only, who would do the torturing and burning but some other sinner?

At the very least, some vandal ought to spray paint a meaningful alteration to this billboard - perhaps inserting the words “did not say” over the word “said,” or inserting the word “eunuchs” over the word “gay.” I would suggest setting fire to the whole thing, only we must not disrespect Christ’s image. Meanwhile, the written lie stands, even as I write this, disrespecting Christ’s image.

The best remedy to blasphemy is to glorify the name of the Lord. If we speak the truth unfailingly, maybe we needn’t destroy those who speak falsehood. I shall try to let these scriptures speak for themselves.

II Samuel 1:26:

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother! most dear have you been to me; More precious have I held love for you than love for women.

Matthew 19: 10 – 12 (NAB):

His disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered, “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Matthew 19: 10 – 12 (Douay-Rheims):

His disciples say unto him: If the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry. Who said to them: All men take not this word, but they to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mother's womb: and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it.

Would Jesus Discriminate?

Several months ago, blue and white yard signs began to dot lawns and street corners all over Indianapolis bearing the words, “Would Jesus discriminate?”

Though I am aware that “discriminate” is a buzzword, I did not immediately think of it in this context. Immediately, visions of sheep and goats filled my mind, as well as wheat and chaff, publicans and Pharisees, the Final Judgement, heaven and hell (cf. Matt 25:32-33, 3: 12; Lk 3: 17, 18: 10-14). I thought, too, of Jesus dining with sinners (cf. Matt. 9:11). Yet even these sinners whom He came to call, He came to change. To sinners he says, “sin no more” (Jn 5:14, 8:11). For this reason He dines with them: to discriminate against their former way of life. Yes, I thought to myself, if anyone would discriminate it would be Jesus.

Soon, of course, it occurred to me that not only was this yard sign asking me a rhetorical question, but that its answer was meant to be “no.” Many of our age “put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Is 5:20). Discrimination, our buzz-catechism teaches, is the greatest of all sins – and surely Jesus is guilty of no sin. What point the authors of this sign were making, I wasn’t sure.

I was unsurprised to discover, upon exploring the website given on the yard sign, the following:

“Would Jesus discriminate? Instinctively, we all sense that the answer must be a resounding No! Yet we live in a time when many churches are leading the effort to deny gay and transgender people equal...”

Hmm… “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Is 5:20). Instinctively, my answer was a resounding Yes!

Discrimination is a quality of any intelligent mind. An undiscriminating chef, for example, would put rats pellets in a stew when he ran out of peppercorns. An undiscriminating husband would sleep with his secretary when he was working late and couldn’t get home to his wife. The inability to discriminate is a mark of madness. The unwillingness to discriminate is a mark of evil.