Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 464 – Part I.

YOUCAT Question n. 464 - Part I. What good is shame?

(Youcat answer) Shame safeguards a person’s intimate space: his mystery, his most personal and inmost being, his dignity, but especially his capacity for love and sexual self-giving. It relates also to that which only love may see.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2521) Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness. It guides how one looks at others and behaves toward them in conformity with the dignity of persons and their solidarity. (CCC 2525) Christian purity requires a purification of the social climate. It requires of the communications media that their presentations show concern for respect and restraint. Purity of heart brings freedom from widespread eroticism and avoids entertainment inclined to voyeurism and illusion.   

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) Many young Christians live in an environment where it is taken for granted that everything should be on display and people are systematically trained to ignore feelings of shame. But shamelessness is inhuman. Animals experience no shame. In a human being, in contrast, it is an essential feature. It does not hide something inferior but rather protects something valuable, namely, the dignity of the person in his capacity to love. The feeling of shame is found in all cultures, although it assumes different forms. It has nothing to do with prudery or a repressive upbringing. A person is also ashamed of his sins and other things that would demean him if they were made generally known. Someone who offends another person’s natural feeling of shame by words, glances, gestures, or actions robs him of his dignity.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2522) Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love. It encourages patience and moderation in loving relationships; it requires that the conditions for the definitive giving and commitment of man and woman to one another be fulfilled. Modesty is decency. It inspires one's choice of clothing. It keeps silence or reserve where there is evident risk of unhealthy curiosity. It is discreet.    

(This question: What good is shame? is continued)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 463

YOUCAT Question n. 463 - How does one achieve “purity of heart”?

(Youcat answer) The purity of heart required for love is achieved in the first place through union with God in prayer. When God’s grace touches us, this also produces a path to pure, undivided human love. A chaste person can love with a sincere and undivided heart.   

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2250) "The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life" (GS 47 § 1).     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) When we turn to God with a sincere intention, he transforms our hearts. He gives us the strength to correspond to his will and to reject impure thoughts, fantasies, and desires.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2232) Family ties are important but not absolute. Just as the child grows to maturity and human and spiritual autonomy, so his unique vocation which comes from God asserts itself more clearly and forcefully. Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it. They must be convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus: "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Mt 10:37; cf. 16:25).   

(The next question is: What good is shame?)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 462.

YOUCAT Question n. 462 - Why does the Ninth Commandment forbid sexual desire?

(Youcat answer) The Ninth Commandment forbids, not desires per se, but rather disordered desires. The “covetousness” against which Sacred Scripture warns is the rule of impulses over the mind, the dominion of urges over the whole person, and the sinfulness that that causes.

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2528) "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:28). (CCC 2529) The ninth commandment warns against lust or carnal concupiscence. (CCC 2514) St. John distinguishes three kinds of covetousness or concupiscence: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life (Cf. 1 Jn 2:16). In the Catholic catechetical tradition, the ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence; the tenth forbids coveting another's goods. 

 

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) The erotic attraction between man and woman was created by God and is therefore good; it is part of a person’s sexual nature and biological constitution. It ensures that man and woman can unite with one another and descendants can spring from their love. The Ninth Commandment is meant to protect this union. The shelter of marriage and family must not be endangered through playing with fire, in other words, through reckless indulgence in the erotic energy that crackles between man and woman. That is why it is a good rule, especially for Christians: “Keep your hands off married men and women!”

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2515) Etymologically, "concupiscence" can refer to any intense form of human desire. Christian theology has given it a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of the human reason. The apostle St. Paul identifies it with the rebellion of the "flesh" against the "spirit" (Cf. Gal 5:16, 17, 24; Eph 2:3). Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man's moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins (Cf. Gen 3:11; Council of Trent: DS 1515).   

(The next question is: How does one achieve “purity of heart”?)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 461 – Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 461 – Part III. How does art mediate between beauty and truth?

(Youcat answer - repeated) The true and the beautiful belong together, for God is the source of beauty and also the source of truth. Art, which is dedicated to the beautiful, is therefore a special path to the whole and to God.   

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2502) Sacred art is true and beautiful when its form corresponds to its particular vocation: evoking and glorifying, in faith and adoration, the transcendent mystery of God - the surpassing invisible beauty of truth and love visible in Christ, who "reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature," in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Heb 1:3; Col 2:9). This spiritual beauty of God is reflected in the most holy Virgin Mother of God, the angels, and saints. Genuine sacred art draws man to adoration, to prayer, and to the love of God, Creator and Savior, the Holy One and Sanctifier.       

  Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) What cannot be said in words or expressed in thought is brought to light in art. It is “a freely given superabundance of the human being’s inner riches” (CCC 2501). In a way that closely approximates God’s creativity, inspiration and human skill are combined in the artist so as to give a valid form to something new, a previously unseen aspect of reality. Art is not an end in itself. It should uplift people, move them, improve them, and ultimately lead them to worship and thank God.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2513) The fine arts, but above all sacred art, "of their nature are directed toward expressing in some way the infinite beauty of God in works made by human hands. Their dedication to the increase of God's praise and of his glory is more complete, the more exclusively they are devoted to turning men's minds devoutly toward God" (SC 122).    

(The next question is: Why does the Ninth Commandment forbid sexual desire?)

Youcat commented through CCC – Question n. 461 – Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 461 – Part II. How does art mediate between beauty and truth?

(Youcat answer - repeated) The true and the beautiful belong together, for God is the source of beauty and also the source of truth. Art, which is dedicated to the beautiful, is therefore a special path to the whole and to God.   

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 2501) Created "in the image of God" (Gen 1:26), man also expresses the truth of his relationship with God the Creator by the beauty of his artistic works. Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creatures, art is a freely given superabundance of the human being's inner riches. Arising from talent given by the Creator and from man's own effort, art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill (Cf. Wis 7:16-17), to give form to the truth of reality in a language accessible to sight or hearing. To the extent that it is inspired by truth and love of beings, art bears a certain likeness to God's activity in what he has created. Like any other human activity, art is not an absolute end in itself, but is ordered to and ennobled by the ultimate end of man (Cf. Pius XII, Musicae sacrae disciplina; Discourses of September 3 and December 25, 1950).     

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) What cannot be said in words or expressed in thought is brought to light in art. It is “a freely given superabundance of the human being’s inner riches” (CCC 2501). In a way that closely approximates God’s creativity, inspiration and human skill are combined in the artist so as to give a valid form to something new, a previously unseen aspect of reality. Art is not an end in itself. It should uplift people, move them, improve them, and ultimately lead them to worship and thank God.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 2503) For this reason bishops, personally or through delegates, should see to the promotion of sacred art, old and new, in all its forms and, with the same religious care, remove from the liturgy and from places of worship everything which is not in conformity with the truth of faith and the authentic beauty of sacred art (Cf. SC 122-127).      

(This question: How does art mediate between beauty and truth? is continued)