Day 304: Male and Female (2331-2336)

• It’s Day 304!!

• ARTICLE 6: THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT

• YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY

• “MALE AND FEMALE HE CREATED THEM…”

• This is common to a lot of animals and unique to human beings

• It reveals something about what the human person is and what the human person is made for

• There is something about the complementarity of the sexes

• God could have made us like the angels and they don’t reproduce

• BUT…

• When God made human beings and this planet, He made creatures male and female

• God made us in His own image, male and female

• God has give us sexuality, which is remarkable

• It did not have to be this way

• It is this way, so what does it tell us to be made in God’s image and likeness and to be made male and female?

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we give you praise and we thank you. I thank you for bringing us to this day. Thank you for bringing us to this moment. Thank you for bringing us to this sixth of your Commandments. We ask that you please open our hearts, open our minds to be able to accept, to receive your teaching, to receive your commands, to receive your guidance, and to receive the wisdom of what it is not just to be human, but to be male and female. What it is to have a body and to live in that body. Lord God, we ask you to please pay attention to our prayers. Pay heed to our prayers. Lord God, meet us especially in places of woundedness and places of where we have failed, in places where we need your grace, whether that be your grace of mercy and forgiveness, or your grace of just strengthening, encouragement. Hope in the midst of encouragement. Lord God, meet every person who is listening to these words right now. Meet them with your grace, and give them yourself. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2336 says, “The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompassing the whole of human sexuality.”

• Paragraph 2331 says, “‘God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image…God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.’ ‘God created man in his own image…male and female he created them’; He blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’; ‘When God created man, he man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.’”

• VOCARE is the term that means TO CALL

• God has made us in His image and likeness

• God is love

• Therefore, our vocation is love

• Because you are made in God’s image, you have the capacity to love

• You also have the responsibility of love

• The love of male and female coming together will create more life

• Paragraph 2332 says, “Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.”

• If you are a man, you have only experienced life as a man

• If you are a woman, you have only experienced life as a woman

• St. Pope John Paul II said, “The body…” 

• SQUIRREL!!! 😉

• How do you know if you are a man or a woman?

• It is not how you feel

• It is the fact that you have a body that is either male or female

• Your body matters

• The human being is a body and soul composite

• It is either an embodies soul or an an ensouled body

• Therefore, your body is either male or female

• In VERY RARE CASES, there is the occasional body that may be sexually ambiguous

• Such persons can identify their sex with medical assistance based on the totality of their specific physiological situation

• Such persons are still human persons

• EVERY human person is either male or female

• Even these ambiguous individuals

• Eyes are for seeing

• Ears are for hearing

• There are people who have eyes that cannot see

• There are people who have ears that cannot hear

• That doesn’t mean there is no such thing as sight or hearing

• It just means that some eyes are not capable of doing what they have the potential to do

• Some ears are not actually doing what they have the potential to do

• The reason why you know you are a man is not because you feel like a man

• It is because you have a MALE BODY

• The reason why you know you are a woman is not because you feel like a woman

• It is because you have a FEMALE BODY

• Paragraph 2333 says, “Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented towards the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.”

• In our culture these days, these words get thrown around

• “What is your sexual identity?”

• Your sexual identity is if you have a male body, you are a MAN

• If you have a female body, you are a WOMAN

• This extends to the WHOLE of a person

• Even though the soul is not biological, the soul is so deeply united to the body that gender cannot be separated from the whole person

• A person’s gender is derived specifically from his or her biological body that they are born with

• That extends to the whole person

• Some people struggle with accepting and acknowledging their sexual identity

• This has come into the culture writ large in the last couple of years

• Difference and complementarity are good

• Men and women are not simply different in isolation

• They are different AND complementary

• This is literally written in the human body

• If you look at a man’s body or any woman’s body, all the biological systems are complete on their own, like the cardiovascular system 

• EXCEPT FOR ONE

• The reproductive system cannot perform the function it is made for on its own

• There is a difference between male bodies and female bodies

• BUT…

• There is a complementarity there as well

• If your cardiovascular system is in working order, it works on its own

• BUT…

• Every person’s reproductive system can’t do what it is meant to do without the presence of another COMPLEMENTARY human body

• Two male bodies does not complete and bring about the purpose of the reproductive system

• Two female bodies does not complete and bring about the purpose of the reproductive system

• You have to have complementarity

• This is the truth, not an argument or a fight

• THE TRUTH IS BEAUTIFUL!!

• God has made us male and female 

• God has made us different but complementary

• Paragraph 2334 says, “‘In creating men ‘male and female,’ God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity.’ Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God.’”

• Paragraph 2335 says, “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.’ All human generations proceed from this union.”

• My brothers, you are an image of the power and tenderness of God

• My sisters, you are an image of the power and tenderness of God

• You are all equal in dignity in a different way

• Men, you are good as you are made

• Women, you are good as you are made

• ALL HUMAN BEINGS proceed from the sexual union of man and woman

• We experience this union in a broken way where we are made to love each other, but we are tempted to use each other

• We are made for love, but we often choose lust

• We are made to be self gifts to others, but we sometimes choose to dominate others

• In the beginning, it was not so

• There was this union between human beings and God, a union between man and woman, a union even in and of themselves

• And we broke the world

• Paragraph 2336 says, “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.’ What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompassing the whole of human sexuality.”

• Jesus can still redeem us, not only our hearts and souls, but He can redeem our sexuality

• Jesus can redeem our relationships

• Jesus can redeem it all

• We walk forward in confidence with what Christ’s plan in our lives is

• And Christ’s plan for the salvation of the world 

• It happens in redeeming our sexuality, redeeming our brokenness, and restoring creation to the purity of its origins

• This is the challenge and the invitation

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…