Saturday, May 11, 2013

487. What responsibility do human persons have in regard to their own sexual identity? (part 2 continuation)



487. What responsibility do human persons have in regard to their own sexual identity? (part 2 continuation) 

(Comp 487 repetition) God has created human beings as male and female, equal in personal dignity, and has called them to a vocation of love and of communion. Everyone should accept his or her identity as male or female, recognizing its importance for the whole of the person, its specificity and complementarity.
“In brief”
(CCC 2393) By creating the human being man and woman, God gives personal dignity equally to the one and the other. Each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.
To deepen and explain
(CCC 2334) "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity" (FC 22; Cf. GS 49 § 2). "Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God" (MD 6). (CCC 2335) Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24). All human generations proceed from this union  (Cf. Gen 4:1-2, 25-26; 5:1).    
Reflection
(CCC 2336) Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God's plan strictly: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27-28). What God has joined together, let not man put asunder (Cf. Mt 19:6). The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompassing the whole of human sexuality. [END]

(Next question: What is chastity?)

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