Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 419.
(Youcat
answer) A Christian married couple has as many children as God gives them and
as they can take responsibility for.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 2373)
Sacred Scripture and the Church's traditional practice see in large families a sign of God's blessing
and the parents' generosity (Cf. GS 50 § 2).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) All children whom God sends are a grace and
a great blessing. That does not mean that a Christian couple is not supposed to
consider how many children they can raise responsibly, given the health of each
spouse and their economic or social situation. When a child comes
“nevertheless”, that child should be welcomed with joy and willingness and
accepted with great love. By trusting in God, many Christian couples find the
courage to have a large family.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 2378)
A child is not something owed to one,
but is a gift. The "supreme gift of marriage" is a human person. A
child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged
"right to a child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses
genuine rights: the right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the
conjugal love of his parents," and "the right to be respected as a
person from the moment of his conception"
(CDF, Donum vitae II, 8).
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 418.
YOUCAT Question n. 418 - What is the significance of the child in a marriage?
(Youcat
answer) A child is a creature and a gift of God, which comes to earth through
the love of his parents.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 2378)
A child is not something owed to one,
but is a gift. The "supreme gift of marriage" is a human person. A
child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged
"right to a child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses
genuine rights: the right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the
conjugal love of his parents," and "the right to be respected as a
person from the moment of his conception"
(CDF, Donum vitae II, 8).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) True love does not desire a couple to be
self-contained. Love opens up in the child. A child that has been conceived and
born is not something “made”, nor is he the sum of his paternal and maternal
genes. He is a completely new and unique creature of God, equipped with his own
soul. The child therefore does not belong to the parents and is not their
property.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 2398)
Fecundity is a good, a gift and an end of marriage. By giving life, spouses
participate in God's fatherhood.
(The next question is: How many children should a Christian married couple have?)
Monday, February 26, 2018
Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 417 – Part III.
YOUCAT Question n. 417 – Part III. What significance does the sexual encounter have within marriage?
(Youcat
answer - repeated) According to God’s will, husband and wife should encounter
each other in bodily union so as to be united ever more deeply with one another
in love and to allow children to proceed from their love.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 2366)
Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage,
for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful. A child does not come from
outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs
from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the
Church, which "is on the side of life" (FC 30) teaches that
"each and every marriage act must remain open per se to the transmission of life" (HV 11). "This
particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is
based on the 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; cf. Pius
XI, encyclical, Casti connubii).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) In Christianity, the body, pleasure, and
erotic joy enjoy a high status: “Christianity … believes that matter is good,
that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to
be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our
happiness, our beauty and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more
than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world
has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad,
Christianity contradicts him at once” (C. S. Lewis). Pleasure, of course, is
not an end in itself. When the pleasure of a couple becomes self-enclosed and
is not open to the new life that could result from it, it no longer corresponds
to the nature of love.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 2367)
Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God
(Cf. Eph 3:14; Mt 23:9). "Married couples should regard it as their proper
mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should
realize that they are thereby cooperating
with the love of God the Creator
and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with
a sense of human and Christian responsibility" (GS 50 § 2).
(The next question is: What is the significance of the child in a marriage?)
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 417 – Part II.
YOUCAT Question n. 417 – Part II. What significance does the sexual encounter have within marriage?
(Youcat
answer - repeated) According to God’s will, husband and wife should encounter
each other in bodily union so as to be united ever more deeply with one another
in love and to allow children to proceed from their love.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 2364)
The married couple forms "the intimate partnership of life and love
established by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the
conjugal covenant, that is, in their irrevocable personal consent" (GS 48
§ 1). Both give themselves definitively and totally to one another. They are no
longer two; from now on they form one flesh. The covenant they freely
contracted imposes on the spouses the obligation to preserve it as unique and
indissoluble (Cf. CIC, can. 1056). "What therefore God has joined
together, let not man put asunder" (Mk 10:9; cf. Mt 19:1-12; 1 Cor
7:10-11).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) In Christianity, the body, pleasure, and
erotic joy enjoy a high status: “Christianity … believes that matter is good,
that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to
be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our
happiness, our beauty and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more
than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world
has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad,
Christianity contradicts him at once” (C. S. Lewis). Pleasure, of course, is
not an end in itself. When the pleasure of a couple becomes self-enclosed and
is not open to the new life that could result from it, it no longer corresponds
to the nature of love.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 2365)
Fidelity expresses constancy in keeping one's given word. God is faithful. The
Sacrament of Matrimony enables man and woman to enter into Christ's fidelity
for his Church. Through conjugal chastity, they bear witness to this mystery before
the world. St. John Chrysostom suggests that young husbands should say to their
wives: I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life
itself. For the present life is nothing, and my most ardent dream is to spend
it with you in such a way that we may be assured of not being separated in the
life reserved for us.... I place your love above all things, and nothing would
be more bitter or painful to me than to be of a different mind than you (St.
John Chrysostom, Hom. in Eph. 20, 8:
PG 62, 146-147).
(This question: What significance does the sexual encounter have within marriage? is continued)
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 417 – Part I.
YOUCAT Question n. 417 – Part I. What significance does the sexual encounter have within marriage?
(Youcat
answer) According to God’s will, husband and wife should encounter each other
in bodily union so as to be united ever more deeply with one another in love
and to allow children to proceed from their love.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC 2362)
"The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the
spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of
these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy
and gratitude" (GS 49 § 2). Sexuality
is a source of joy and pleasure: The Creator himself… established that in the
[generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body
and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and
enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same
time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just
moderation (Pius XII, Discourse, October 29, 1951).
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) In Christianity, the body, pleasure, and
erotic joy enjoy a high status: “Christianity … believes that matter is good,
that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to
be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our
happiness, our beauty and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more
than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world
has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad,
Christianity contradicts him at once” (C. S. Lewis). Pleasure, of course, is
not an end in itself. When the pleasure of a couple becomes self-enclosed and
is not open to the new life that could result from it, it no longer corresponds
to the nature of love.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC 2363)
The spouses' union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the
spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values
of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life
and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family. The
conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of
fidelity and fecundity.
(This question: What significance does the sexual encounter have within marriage? is continued)
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