Love and sex

For reasons explained in that post, in my reflection for last Sunday's readings, I focused on the first reading from Acts 15, which tells of the result of the council of Jerusalem. I focused on the canons or decrees handed on from those Christian leaders who gathered to consider the burning question as to whether Gentile converts had to be circumcised (their decision on this was no). There were four such canons or decrees.

Three of those had to do with dietary laws (i.e., what one could not eat). Since one of those three is textually suspicious and the other two were dealt with later by Paul, I zeroed in on the Greek word that the NAB(RE) translates into English with the phrase "unlawful marriage." I noted that this word (i.e., porneia) is probably better translated in that context by the phrase (used in other credible translations) "sexual immorality."

I then provided a short list of some of the things the prohbition on sexual immorality included while acknowledging this word can refer to any one of those things, some of those things, or all of them together. Unlike the dietary restritions, what constituted sexual immorality remained consistent in the New Testament and beyond.

In accordance with the matters addressed in Acts 15, ethical concerns predominated in the writings of the Early Church Fathers. At the beginning of the first chapter of his book Reading the Early Church Fathers: From the Didache to Nicea, James L. Papandera notes

Early Christian catechesis focused more on ethical concerns than on theology, and from the very beginning it was extremely important to draw the lines of distinction between Christian morals and the morals of the rest of Greco-Roman culture and society (page 7)

This surely includes sexual morals.

Since posting that I have run across two things that I think are relevant. One of them was a post made to the Facebook account of a group called "Catholic Dress Code." This is a rather conservative group run by Catholic women encouraging women to dress modestly. While I certainly have my viewpoint, I don't wade into discussions of what someone should wear or not wear.

Because of its length, I am not going to post the whole thing. You can follow the link I provided above to read it all. But I am going to repost several paragraphs that I think are the most salient:

No one told me the truth about sex before I had a lot of sex... (reposted)...

They say sex is just physical. But I’ve felt the aftershocks of a single night echo through my nervous system for months. I’ve stayed too long with men who weren’t good for me...not because I didn’t know better, but because my cells already believed we were one thing. Because oxytocin doesn’t understand red flags. Because dopamine will make a prison feel like paradise. Because orgasm isn’t just a climax, it’s a binding contract written in chemistry and signed in vulnerability....

What they don’t tell you is this: sex rewires you. It maps your memory, it softens your instincts, it makes you stay when every part of your logic is screaming “run.” And even if you tell yourself it doesn’t matter, even if you say you’re detached, your body still remembers. There is no such thing as casual when your nervous system is that involved.

And we don’t need to shame the wild. I’m not here to be shaming choices. I believe in sacred chaos. In lust that tastes like lightning. But let’s stop pretending that we can do it like animals and not feel like ghosts when it’s over.

Because sex, real sex in your soul felt sex, isn’t just about climax. It’s about collapse. It’s about letting someone inside your orbit so deeply that your whole inner world tilts. And that? That should be earned. That should be sacred.

So no, sex was never just a handshake. It’s a soul exchange. And if we remembered that, maybe we’d stop giving our bodies to people who haven’t even earned our eye contact [emboldening and italicization mine, not in the original]

One woman wrote a comment that I "Liked" because it echoed my own reaction to this: "This is the first post here i totally agree with. Dont be prudish. Read it again. Emphasis on the last paragraph [what is highlighted]. Then read it again."

A second thing I read on Monday. It is from Zena Hitz's book A Philosopher Looks at Religious Life. "Celibacy" is a section of chapter four: "The Family of Humanity."

I have been severe on sexuality, not out of prudishness, but to counter the overwhelming rhetoric on the other side. We act as if life without sex is impossible, and entertain the thought, even if less commonly nowadays than in my youth, that sex with strangers is harmless. Both cannot be true. Either sex reaches down to the core of our being, and so ought to be treated with reverence and caution, as something which might bear life's meaning for us, or it is harmless, like chewing bubble gum, and can be given up without a second thought. The fact is that the depth and significance of our sexual desires make celibacy very difficult, but it is by no means impossible (page 121)

In short, sex is not love and love is not sex. I could easily move from this to one of the progressive aspects of Pope Saint Paul VI's Humanae vitae (there is more than one!): the unitive purpose (see section 12). By the way, the Holy See's website has a makeover!

Both of these quotes, which are negative in tone (i.e., why not to), are only a starting point. One might add Saint Paul's observation that when you have sex with someone you become one in body with that person (1 Corthians 6:15-20). Of course, the apostle is writing to Christians in ancient Corinth, a port city rife withe prostitution both sacred (pagan) and profane.

In this instance, surely Paul's point transcends the context. And so, something written above becomes an affirmation: "...because my cells already believed we were one thing. Because oxytocin doesn’t understand red flags. Because dopamine will make a prison feel like paradise." Beyond that, as Irish writer John Waters noted, there has to be something after no. But no has its reasons.

Why not Howard Jones' "What Is Love?" as a Friday traditio? While we're at it, let's go with the Big, Beautiful version.

Counsels of a council: principles and canons

Reading: Acts 15:1-2.22-29

Where I live, the Solemnity Lord's Ascension is observed the Sunday following the fortieth day after Easter. Stated more clearly, instead of celebrating "Ascension Thursday," we celebrate Ascension Sunday on what is otherwise the Seventh Sunday of Easter. So, we do not observe the Seventh Sunday of Easter.

As a result, for the readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter the second reading and Gospel for the Seventh Sunday of Easter may be used. This leaves the first reading from Acts 15 as the reading that cannot be replaced.

It is an important reading because it tells of the somewhat anachronistically-named "Council of Jerusalem." While what this reading conveys is something about a council not of the early the Church but the primitive Church, it is not, juridically speaking, a council in the fullblown sense of later Councils, like Nicea and Vatican II. This gathering was certainly synodal in nature.

Being a council (as opposed to a "Council"?), this meeting in Jerusalem, like Nicea and most subsequent Councils, canons or juridical decisions were promulgated. The immediate cause for this gathering was to adjudicate the claim that in order to be saved, Gentile converts to Christianity had to be circumcised. The matter was brought to Jerusalem by Paul and Barnabas.

Presiding over this proceeding was James the close relative of Jesus. He is known as James the Just. During their missionary activity among the Gentiles, among whom they were establishing the Church, so-called "Judaizers" were teaching, contra Paul and Barnabas, both the necessity of circumsision and even full-blown adherence to the Law.

After deliberating, named representatives were sent with Paul and Barnabas from Jerusalem to Antioch to deliver their judgment on this and other divisive matters pertaining to Christian praxis. Before taking up specific issues, a principle is given: not to place on anyone any burden beyond what is necessary. What did they deem necessary?

First, not to eat meat sacrificed to idols. Second, not to eat blood. Third, not to eat the meat of any animal that was strangled. Fourth, not to enter into unlawful marriages.

Now, each of the four canons or rulings are derived from Jewish law. It bears noting that the prohbition against eating the meat of strangled animals is omitted from some ancient manuscripts and sources.

The Greek word translated by the phrase "unlawful marriage" in our lectionary and in the NAB(RE) (the revision of the Revised Edition of the New American Bible consists only of a new translation of the Old Testament) is πορνεία. Transliterated, porneia- the origin of the English pornography. It is a Greek word used to refer to several specific sexual matters or all of them together, making translation very dependent on context.

In this context, I believe the best translation, as found in other versions, like the New International Version, might be "sexual immorality." The reason for this is that covers all the specific things to which the word refers: adultery, fornication, homosexuality, sex with close relatives, even sex with a divorced person, etc.

Whether one likes it or not, one of the things that made Christians stand out from the beginning in the ancient world of the Roman Emprie were strict sexual ethics. While Paul later attenuated the stricture against eating meat sacrificed to idols (i.e., don't do it if you're going to scandalize a fellow believer), he never wavered on matters pertaining to porneia.

Despite being quite easy to demonstrate, such an assertion these days strikes many as controversial. But then, we live in a time and culture that has all but reduced human personhood to sexuality. Calesco ergo sum?

Wisely, the council determined that circumcision, seemingly the most contentious issue, is not required of Christian converts. One can imagine the impact such a requirement might have on evangelization! Elsewhere, Paul takes this issue up with his characteristic directness. He emphasizes that one becomes a Christian through baptism and that baptism is open to men and women, slave and free, and to Jew and Gentile alike (see Galatians 3:27-29).

For Christians, water is thicker than blood- this, too, is a fundamental principle! This principle should be focused on all the more during Easter.

Speaking to Members of Pontifical Mission Societies, Pope Leo highlighted something that dovetails nicely with a reading concerning the intense missionary activities of Paul and Barnabas. After noting that "The promotion of apostolic zeal among the People of God remains an essential aspect of the Church’s renewal as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council, and is all the more urgent in our own day," the Holy Father went on to note "the importance of fostering a spirit of missionary discipleship in all the baptized and a sense of the urgency of bringing Christ to all people."

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Program note: as I mentioned last October when I resumed blogging in earnest here, this will be my primary participation in social media. I will maintain my other accounts almost exclusively for the purpose of posting what I write here. Comments, while moderated, are open. I don't mind comments on my posts on other platforms, which I may or not get to. It is past time for me to make this change. I project one more post during May: Friday's traditio.

"I hope he don't hate us..."

It's Friday. Am I in love? A strange phrase that, "in love." What does it really mean to say "I am in love?" Perhaps, more to the point, what can it mean to say that?

What is love? This gets back to a familiar theme, namely that the English word "love" bears a lot of weight. Frankly, too much. Again, as my readers know Greek has four words to express different aspects this one word.

Of course, we have English words for those Greek words: for philia friendship; for eros, well, eros or erotic, which, in English, tends to be used synonymously for sex or sexual, for agape selflessness, for storge, familial love.

The Sower, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

As a Christian, I believe God- who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- is love.This not, however, reversible. Love is not God. Nonetheless, this is often reversed and to ill effect and bad affect.

Because God is triune, He is love, a relational, self-giving love. God is, in a word, agape.

So, yes, I am in love, always in love. It is inescapable, try as I might to evade or avoid. Evasion and avoidance, like the original people in the garden who, after eating the forbidden fruit, tried to hide. God doesn't seek me in order to punish me. God seeks me to love me. You know what? Sometimes I would prefer punishment.

I heard something recently that struck me. A brother deacon was talking about his experience of Christ during low ebbs, during sinful times in his life. He said that it was amazing to let the Lord "love me through it." He leaned into Christ instead of hiding in the shadows of guilt and shame.

It is unavoidable, you are in God's love. It is marvelous, revelatory to revel in the love of God given us in Christ, which is the work of the Holy Spirit. To live in the awareness of God's love is to live in reality.

Sometimes I don't know if it's harder to let myself be loved than it is to love others. But then, the one necessarily precedes the other. I am not sure I am capable of loving if I don't first experience being loved.

It's very much the case that sometimes I don't want to be loved. Even worse, there are times that being loved kind of upsets me. Beyond that there are times when I want to be "loved" in a manner of my own choosing, which is a stance utterly at odds with love. It's an attempt to take when love can only be received.

Because I suck at relationships I realize the miracle performed by those who keep loving me. It's amazing. I am making peace with the fact that I am not a example of loving well but only of being loved and I am not really great at that either.

Being loved is as risky as loving. In the catechesis for his first General Audience the day before yesterday, Pope Leo taught on the Parable of the Sower found in Saint Matthew's Gospel. He said this, which very much resonated with me, even more than his exposition of Van Gogh's painting of the sower:

We are used to calculating things – and at times it is necessary – but this does not apply in love! The way in which this “wasteful” sower throws the seed is an image of the way God loves us. Indeed, it is true that the destiny of the seed depends also on the way in which the earth welcomes it and the situation in which it finds itself, but first and foremost in this parable Jesus tells us that God throws the seed of his Word on all kinds of soil, that is, in any situation of ours: at times we are more superficial and distracted, at times we let ourselves get carried away by enthusiasm, sometimes we are burdened by life’s worries, but there are also times when we are willing and welcoming. God is confident and hopes that sooner or later the seed will blossom. This is how he loves us: he does not wait for us to become the best soil, but he always generously gives us his word. Perhaps by seeing that he trusts us, the desire to be better soil will be kindled in us. This is hope, founded on the rock of God’s generosity and mercy.

I probably could've just posted that. It's useful for me to work through all of this. I pray there may be some value in it for you, too, dear reader.

Our Friday traditio is Pixies singing their song "The Vegas Suite" I think it kind of gets to our tendency to evade and avoid, inescapability, etc.

Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Readings: Acts 14:5-8; Psalm 115:1-4.15-16; John 14:21-26

Before you can obey the Lord’s commandment you must first know what it is. In context, the commandment to be kept is Jesus’s “new commandment” as set forth in the previous chapter of Saint John’s Gospel. This “new commandment,” as we heard in our Gospel yesterday, is that, as His disciples, we love one another as He has loved us.¹ Esto es claro, ¿si?

Christ’s love, then, is the standard. The Lord’s standard clearly exceeds my ability, even on my best days and even when it comes to my closest relationships. Hence, I must recognize my need for help to love others as Christ loves me. The help God gives me to love beyond my own capacity is grace.

Too often, I am happy whenever I live a day during which I don’t say, do, or in my heart commit some gross violation of the Lord’s command to love. In other words, a day during which there is no egregious sin of commission. Indeed, we spend a lot of time discussing and agonizing over sins of commission.

As a result, we rarely mention sins of omission- those situations in which I could’ve and should’ve done something good but did not. This is reflected in the Act of Contrition that we pray in confession between confessing our sins and receiving absolution: “In choosing to wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you, whom I should love above all things.”

In saying this prayer, we recognize that our sins, all of them, are failures to love God above all things. In failing to do good, maybe it’s the case I love my comfort and seek to preserve it by not getting involved.

As Pope Francis noted in the wake of a very defective public exposition of the ordo amoris, one that sought let us off the hook far too easily:

The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan,”² that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception

This is the fundamental imperative of love: to do good and avoid evil. Focusing exclusively on avoiding evil is like playing not lose instead of playing to win. In 1 Corinthians, Saint Paul urges Christians to “Run so as to win.”³

A secret of the spiritual life, of a Spirit-driven life, is that the more you “do good” out selfless motives, the less inclined you are to “do evil.” “Above all,” scripture teaches, “let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.”⁴

As the Lord intimates, it is not the Holy Spirit’s remit to reveal new things. All that God could reveal is revealed in and through Christ. Jesus Christ is the full revelation, the final word of God to man.

It is the Holy Spirit who seeks to bring us to an ever deeper understanding of the full revelation of God in Christ. He does this by constantly reminding us of “all” Lord has told us. Chief among these is a wholehearted love of God, which results in love of neighbor.

According to the scriptures, my love for God can only be a response to God’s love for me: “In this is love” asserts the inspired author of 1 John, “not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”⁵ Therefore, he continues: “if God so loved us, we also must love one another.”⁶

Loving as Christ loves is what it means to be holy. Becoming holy, quite literally, consists of nothing else. "God is love."⁷ This is what makes the true God different from false, pagan gods, like Hermes and Zeus.

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1 John 13:34.^↩
2 Pope Francis. Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the United States of America, 10 February 2025; Luke 10:25-37.^↩
3 1 Corinthians 9:24.^↩
4 1 Peter 4:8.^↩
5 1 John 4:10.^↩
6 1 John 4:11.^↩
7 1 John 4:8.16.^↩

Pope Leo XIV on the Pontificate- "loving as Jesus did"

In his homily for his Mass of Inauguration for his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV summed up the Petrine ministry beautifully in one short paragraph:

Peter is thus entrusted with the task of 'loving more' and giving his life for the flock. The ministry of Peter is distinguished precisely by this self-sacrificing love, because the Church of Rome presides in charity and its true authority is the charity of Christ. It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did

At least for me, Pope Leo, in addition to being his own man, combines wonderful characteristics of his two predecessors. He has the missionary fervor and deep concern for those on the periphery of Pope Francis. Like Pope Benedict, he speaks clearly and precisely from a deep well of love for our Lord and for His Church. At least in profile, he looks quite a bit like Pope Saint John Paul II.

Love is all you need, but what is love anyway?

Readings: Acts 14:21-27; Psalm 145:8-13; Revelation 21:1-5a; John 13:31-33a.34-35

"Love" is a used and abused word. In English, Latin, and in quite a few other languages, there is one word for love. Hence, this one word does a lot of heavy lifting.

In Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, there are four words for love, each referring to a different kind of love. In Jesus' new commandment- that His disciples love one other as He has loved them- the word is agape. Agape is self-giving, self-sacrificing love. Jesus sets His love for us (collectively and individually) as the standard by which His disciples can be known. Hence, it is a love that requires us to transcend our own limitations.

Elsewhere in the Johaninne corpus this is laid out:

The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth (1 John 3:16-18)

To love like Christ loves is what it means to be holy, nothing else. Literally, holiness means nothing else than loving like Christ loves me (and you, thus us). Yet, it is hard, really hard, to love like Christ loves. It is so hard that to love like Christ loves requires God's grace. Grace is the means by which I am able to overcome my limitations.

"In this is love", pay attention- "not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another (1 John 4:10-11).

Adherence to the Lord's new commandment, which can never amount to stringent rule-keeping but is always a matter of the heart, of what we might call the proper interior disposition, is how the One who sits on the throne makes all things new.

La Jérusalem céleste, extraite de la Tapisserie de l'Apocalypse du Château d'Angers, France.

Salvation history begins in a garden. It culminates, however, in a city, "the holy city, a new Jerusalem" (Revelation 21:2). A city is where people live together. Like a lot of people my age perhaps, when I think of a harmonius city or town, my mind goes to Richard Scary's Busytown. Granted, this is highly sentimental but it gives me a toehold. Perhaps a better and certainly a more theological starting point is Jacques Ellul's The Meaning of the City.

Loving like Christ loves or, stated another way, living out of Christ's for me, is how I am made new. As Saint Paul observed: "So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). This requires me to experience Christ's love, His tender gaze, His unfailing patience, His limitless mercy. Like most people, I respond to tenderness better than I respond to confrontation.

As it turns out, in the end, The Beatles were right, "All you need is love." It bears asking, à la Howard Jones, "What Is Love?" According to the Lord, the kind of love you need requires your all, requires all of you.

Newness brought about by love, by agape, is a rich vein that runs throughout our uniquely Christian scriptures. It is also why, in the words of Paul and Barnabas taken from Acts, "It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). To love the way Christ loves is suffer like Christ suffers. At the end of the day, this and only this is the cost of discipleship.

I will be the first to admit, I have a long way to go. Frankly, I suck at loving others the way Christ loves me. It's so much that I fail as it is that I often outright refuse to love. I don't only do this frequently but daily, even several times a day.

"Swim out past the breakers..."

When I decided to reinvigorate this little piece of cyber space late last year I could never have predicted all the excitement 2025 would bring. What a year so far! We've experienced the good, the bad, and the very ugly. But in the face of this, there is reason for hope. Solidarity seems to be springing up tace not just the challenges but the crises we are living. As Pope Francis noted earlier this year, while speaking in his beloved basilica of Saint Mary Major, where he was laid to rest, “Today, we are not living an epoch of change so much as an epochal change.”

In my view, the first quarter of the twenty-first century has been an awful epoch, a paradigm has emerged that badly needs to be changed. Maybe the next quarter century will be better, a time when we start asking why to technology, regulating it smartly, and rejecting stifling ideologies. Maybe it's time, to quote the late Joe Strummer, "to take the humanity back to the center of the ring..."

In the same speech cited above, Pope Francis noted: “The situations that we are living today pose new challenges which, at times, are also difficult for us to understand. Our time requires us to live problems as challenges and not as obstacles.” Above all, he reminded us, “The Lord is active and at work in our world.” The seemingly hopelessness of death overcome by unexpected resurrection.

Catholic social teaching, which is built on the pillars of human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity, offers a lot in this regard, even for non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-believers. This is why I found the Pope's choice of the name Leo so encouraging.

Speaking of need for change, Fr. Sam Sawyer, S.J., who serves as editor of America magazine, wrote what I think is a great opinion piece for The New York Times yesterday: "Pope Leo XIV May Be a Stern Teacher for American Catholics." I won't rehash Fr Sawyer's short piece. I will just encourage you to read it.

We can all rest easy, Pope Leo is on social media.

With everything going on, I have been "blogging" up a storm. With this, I have posted as many times already as I posted last year. Of course, last year was nearly the end of Καθολικός διάκονος. Hey, it's Easter- Resurrection time!

Καθολικός διάκονος remains for me a labor of love. Writing here is something I want to do, not something I feel I have to do. I re-started in earnest because I was poorer by not doing it. From the beginning, I felt this to be part of my diaconal vocation. It is my prayer that there are others who benefit from what I post, too.

This week's Friday traditio is one of those great '90s grungy kinda ballads" "Santa Monica" by Everclear. Why? In the words of "Bluto" Blutarsky, "Why not?"