In Matthew 19:8, Jesus replies to some Pharisees about Moses allowing divorce, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”  Pope John Paul II speaks about three experiences in particular defining the human person back in the beginning: solitude, unity and nakedness.

   Original solitude:  Man is alone because he’s the only bodily creature made in God’s image and likeness.  He has freedom.  He is somebody. Unlike the animals, he’s invited to enter a covenant of love with God.  This experience of love leads him to want to share this love with another person. In his experience of solitude, Adam discovered his fundamental vocation: love of God and love of neighbor.  That is why it’s “not good for the man to be alone.”

    Original Unity: “It is not good that man should be alone” (Gen 2:18).  The Pope says: that man only completely realizes his essence by existing with and for someone; that man can find himself only in the disinterested giving of himself. At many of the weddings I preside at I make a point of emphasizing Gen 1:27 “God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.”  These words emphasize the dignity with which we have been created and the unity that God intended to be present from the beginning.  Among the Jewish people, flesh and bones signify the whole human person.  As the Catechism states: “In marriage, the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion.” (CCC n.2360)

   Original nakedness:”The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Gen. 2:25).  The pope picks this as the key for understanding God’s original plan for human life.  Since Adam and Eve were filled with God’s love, they were entirely to be a gift to one another.  Only a person who is free from the compulsion of lust, from the compulsion to grasp and possess, is capable of being a true gift to another. It is this freedom that allows them to be naked without shame.  They knew their goodness.  They knew God’s love.  They saw it inscribed in their bodies and experienced it in their mutual desire. 

  The Pope speaks about this in these words: “The first situation was that of original innocence, in which man (male and female) was, as it were, outside the sphere of the knowledge of good and evil, until the moment when he transgressed the creator’s prohibition and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge.  The second situation however, was that in which man, after having disobeyed the Creator’s command at the prompting of the evil spirit, symbolized by the serpent, found himself, in a certain way, within the sphere of the knowledge of good and evil.  This second situation determined the state of human sinfulness, in contrast to the state of primitive innocence.   Which state of man is most important?  The Pope has this to say: Therefore, right from the beginning, the arising of sinfulness as a state, a dimension of human existence, is in relation to this real innocence of man as his original and fundamental state, as a dimension of his being created in the image of God….  Every point of his historical sinfulness is explained (both for the soul and for the body), with reference to original innocence.” ”He speaks of shame as a form of self-defense against being treated as an object for sexual use.

   In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:27-28)  As Pope John Paul observes, a man commits adultery in the heart not only by looking lustfully at a woman he isn’t married to, but precisely because he looks at a woman in this way.  In other words, marriage does not justify lust.  It doesn’t make using your spouse okay.  Why do so many wives claim to have a headache when their husbands want to have sex?  The Pope speaks of shame as a form of self-defense against being treated as an object for sexual use.  If a woman is being used by her husband, it’s totally understandable for her to recoil.  The sexual image is meant to image and express divine love.  Anything less is a counterfeit that not only fails to satisfy, but wounds us terribly.

   The pope describes original sin as “the questioning of the gift.”  From the beginning God had granted man and woman a sharing in his own life and love as a totally free gift.  In a sense God had initiated the gift of himself as “bridegroom” and man (male and female) were to receive the gift as “bride”.  Man and woman were to re-image this same exchange of love through their own marital self-giving and unity.

   Then comes the temptation from the serpent to ‘be like god’.  The temptation is to grasp at our own happiness and turn away from God.  Adam and Eve gave in to this temptation and so do we.  Instead of being gifts to one another they begin to blame – the woman you gave me – the serpent.  Recognizing their nakedness leads to shame.  Shame has a double meaning; the losing sight of the nuptial meaning of their bodies as well as a need to protect the nuptial meaning of the body from the degradation of lust.  As Jesus stresses in the Sermon on the Mount, lust is first and foremost a problem of the heart, not the body.  Until we address the disordered desires of our hearts, we will never be able to live as the men and women God created us to be.

   The good news is that the gospel doesn’t give us more rules to follow.  The gospel is meant to change our hearts so that we no longer need the rules.  We don’t experience the commandments as an imposition because our hearts already conform to them.  When Christ says “You have heard the commandment… but I tell you”; he indicates that we need something more than mere precepts can offer.  We need to surrender our disordered desires to Christ and let Him transform them.

   When we desire what is true, good and beautiful, then we are free indeed.  As Christopher West says: “Those who toss off the law in order to indulge their lusts may imagine themselves free, but like an alcoholic who can’t say no to the bottle, a person who can’t say “no” to lust is enslaved.

   Back in the 1990’s the beautiful Sistine Chapel (next to the Basilica of St. Peter’s in the Vatican) was restored.  During the restoration Pope John Paul ordered the removal of several loincloths that previous popes had ordered to be placed over Michelangelo’s original work.  During the homily rededicating the restored frescoes, Pope John Paul proclaimed the Sistine Chapel “the sanctuary of the theology of the human body.” In speaking about the difference between pornography and a proper portrayal of the human body, the pope spoke about how the pornographer seeks only to arouse lust while the true artist helps us see the whole personal mystery of man.

   Some people responded to this idea by saying the naked body will always arouse lust in the heart of man.  The pope responded with this beautiful declaration of redemption, “Of which man are we speaking?  Of man dominated by lust or man redeemed by Christ?  This is what is at stake: the reality of Christ’s redemption. Christ has redeemed us! This means he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being; he has set our freedom from the domination of lust”.  The pope says elsewhere, “Deep in the heart we learn to distinguish between what, on the one hand, composes the great riches of sexuality and sexual attraction, and what on the other hand, bears only the sign of lust.”

   In the 8th chapter of the gospel of John we read about the woman caught in adultery.  We could say she went looking for love in all the wrong places.  She is brought before Jesus by a crowd anxious to stone her.  But he has come not to condemn but to save.  When he says to her “Go, and do not sin again”, did she respond “Who is this man to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body!” or did she leave transformed and renewed because she had found the love she was searching for.  As the Pope says, “Christ, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear.”  That supreme calling is to be part of the communion of saints.

   In a series of talks he gave in 1982, the pope talks about the celibate vocation.  He writes that the fidelity and “total self-donation” lived by spouses provide a model for the fidelity and self-donation required of those who choose the celibate vocation.  Both vocations involve the total gift of oneself..  He says that the fruit of children in married life helps celibate men and women realize that they are called to a fruitfulness as well – a fruitfulness of the spirit.  Christopher West says; “If our sacrifice is to mean anything, we must sacrifice something of real value.  The Church values celibacy so highly precisely because she values what it sacrifices – sexual union and all that is connected to it – so highly.”  The idea of sacrifice can also be seen in these words: “If there are warped men who are willing to kill in order to indulge their lusts (behind virtually every abortion is a man of lust), we, instead, must be men who are willing to die rather than ever indulge our lusts.”

   In St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he writes “Wives be subject (or submit) to your husbands as to the Lord.”  Another way of saying this is: Wives, be submissive to your husband - put yourself under the mission of your husband Well, what is the mission of the husband?  How about these words from St. Paul “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church.”  How did Christ love the Church?  He came not to be served but to serve and to lay down his life for her.  Therefore, the mission of the husband is meant to be love and service.  Yes, what would happen if wives put themselves under this mission of their husbands?  Yes, what would marriage be like if husbands were willing to die rather than to violate the dignity of their wives?

   Concerning contraception the Pope states: “Contraception is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified.  To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.”  For the Pope contraception is fundamentally sacrilegious because it falsifies the sacramental sign of married love.  Rather than proclaiming that “God is life-giving love”, it is proclaiming that “God is not life-giving love.”   Christopher West says “Contraception was invented because of our lack of self-control; contraception was invented to serve the indulgence of lust.”   As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.  As Pope John Paul says: “For couples who engage in their sexual embrace as an expression of ‘life according to the Holy Spirit,’ rendering their union sterile becomes unthinkable.  They understand that their union is meant to signify Christ’s life giving love for the Church.”

    We often speak of the souls in heaven, but the souls currently in heaven remain in an “inhuman” state until the resurrection of their bodies.

   Many ask, will there be sex in heaven.  Well, sex is not first what we do but who we are as male or female.  In that sense, there will be sex in heaven.

   Pope John Paul spoke often about the New Evangelization.  What is new about it is that it is directed in large part towards baptized non-believers, men and women who are “culturally Christian”, but haven’t yet experienced a conversion of heart to Christ and his teachings.  According to Pope John Paul: “The core of the Gospel is the proclamation of a living God who is close to us, who calls us to profound communion with himself… It is the affirmation of the inseparable connection between the person, his life and his bodiliness.  It is the presentation of human life as a life of relationship… The meaning of life is found in giving and receiving love, and in this light human sexuality and procreation reach their true and full significance.”