MONTHLY REFLECTION: AUGUST, 2005
"Our own passionate desire to be faithful to the vowed life is challenged by our fear of embracing our sexuality and the gift of celibate chastity." Resolution #1, Acts of the XII th General Cenacle of the Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, 2003.
THE INCARNATION AND OUR SEXUALITY
Fr. Bertin Glennon, S.T.
Sexuality is the way that one is a human being. It is as a human being that we who are religious must respond to Jesus, and our fellow human beings. Sexuality offers significant sensuous rewards in the here and now. We must be attentive to our experience to determine if the rewards unite us to others in a creative way, or divide us from others in an exploitative way. Few people abuse sexuality because of an internal deficit, or a mental health problem. However, all too often people abuse sexuality because of a confusion of power (too much-too little) and a limiting of choices. Sexuality is the call to share our inner self with others in a creative way. For sexuality to be used properly there must be an authentic sharing and a creative newness.
All too often we see sexuality as a physical act, such as intercourse. This is to miss much of the riches that God has created in sexuality. God deemed that in giving of self to others we become creative. One aspect of that is the physical. Another aspect of sexuality is spiritual. One can easily divorce the physical from the spiritual. This is sin. No doubt the most complete from of sexuality is physical sharing of self for the creation of life. When the physical becomes too dominant, it turns the person back unto him/herself. When the spiritual becomes dominant, it denies the fullness of becoming one. There are too many examples of this to be concerned with.
It is sexuality that brings us together as religious. We give ourselves as completely as we can so that together something creative can come about. In the course of giving ourselves as fully as possible we find belonging and creativity. We are part, we belong, and we are soothed because we have become more than we had been alone and that is the nature that God has created us with. When we focus on the physical and the physical expression alone we become isolated. When we eliminate the creative co-responding, we lose the individuality that we were blessed with in creation.
Most of our learning was directed towards avoiding the physical misuse, but perhaps that leads to a loss of the individual gift that we can be. It is of course very necessary to avoid the physical misuse, but to avoid the physical we may have lessned our co-responding to become something new.
Sexuality is a call from God, spoken by Jesus asking each of us to contribute our physical and spiritual self toward the enhancement of life. This call from Jesus asks much of us. For we still come with the basic instinct to control for our own enhancement and to choose to see our own image in life. Creative life asks us to give up our control so that what is new can come about and to choose to share completely and openly so that we are part of what comes. These two aspects of sexuality when misdirected may be where sin enters. We must live with the instinctual process of control and choice in an incarnational way that brings about God's will.
Sexuality is necessary for the religious. It is a call to point toward and witness to the advent of the spirit in the world. The Spirit of God calls us to move to a new level of humanity, beyond the scope of the current, beyond the scope of the experiential. The eternal goal of all creation is to become aware of the incarnation in creation. The incarnation means that Jesus has changed the visible world to an inner world. The external world develops toward the point where Jesus will be all in all. Religious have a special call to point toward the inner world that grace made real.
When a religious seeks to gain control over another, the likelihood of physical abuse increases. When the physical self pleasure is the goal, we must use another for our self-purposes. The other person is there to satisfy the self. This is most easy to see if there is physical action that is not directed toward new life in a committed interpersonal way. The other becomes an aspect of the self alone. To control the other is to bring satisfaction to the self. This is, of course, easy to see in the physical, but it exists even more in other aspects of the self. Religious all too often shift that control to other seemingly more acceptable plains. To seek admiration is to control. To judge others so the conform is to control. To hold others back from what they can become is to control. To make others take care of us is to control. Control of the others is always to bring some satisfaction to self. The more that we seek control the more our sexuality goes awry. The more our sexuality goes awry the more likely we physically abuse our sexuality. There is a robust body of social research that correlates physical abuse to control.
To choose is a creative act. There is freedom that God gives and it always involves choosing. Many factors influence choosing for each person. These factors come from our experience of the environment. The environment for each of us is unfriendly at times. The environment provides limited choices. Some of the limitations are: our history, our society and our relationships.
Our history is a serious limitation for each of us. The way we experienced the world sets up a series of emotional responses, a set of expectations of how we will be treated and memories that never give up their grasp. It is easy to normalize our history. We do not always like to address the past experiences of life, especially when they were painful. It is easier to pretend they are not important. There are clear expectations in each of us. It is very hard to address and even harder to question may of these memories and expectations because they are societally based. We try unconsciously to repeat the good and avoid the difficult. When memories come we have nearly automatic responses that we dare not question. Our life tends to be guided by our experiences, our expectations and our memories. We can only choose to address them properly if we are humbly and openly sharing with others. If we are not choosing to share as completely as possible all aspects of our history, we become enslaved to them. To choose to seek caring, loving, and accepting others is to address our history in all its aspects. Perhaps that is what community is meant to be. Do we choose to engage in it and allow it to open up our history?
To be a sexual person committed to the Incarnation, we must realize that sexuality is an opportunity to integrate control and choice. When control and choice are beyond our awareness, our sexuality tends to be ordered poorly. As people dedicated to the Incarnation, we must be aware of our search for control and the choices we make to hide our experiences. We must seek to orient our sexuality back to the Incarnation.
Reflection Questions:
1. Where are we seeking to control, and how is it controlling us?
2. Are we open to and accepting of the histories of others?
3. Do we choose to share our own history with committed others?