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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 7 NOVEMBER 1984
At the general audience in the Paul VI Hall on Wednesday, 7 November, Pope
John Paul II continued his analysis of the virtue of continence and its role in
the spirituality of marriage and the family. Following is our translation the
Holy Father's address.
1. We are continuing the analysis of the virtue of continence in the light of
the doctrine contained in the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. It is well to
recall that the great classics of ethical (and anthropological) thought, both
the pre-Christian ones and the Christian ones (St. Thomas Aquinas), see in the
virtue of continence not only the capacity to contain bodily and sensual
reactions, but even more the capacity to control and guide man's whole sensual
and emotive sphere. In the case under discussion, it is a question of the capacity
to direct the line of excitement toward its correct development and also
the line of emotion itself, orienting it toward the deepening and
interior intensification of its pure and, in a certain sense, disinterested
character.
Not an opposition
2. This differentiation between the line of excitement and the line of
emotion is not an opposition. It does not mean that the conjugal act, as a
result of excitement, does not at the same time involve the deep emotion of the
other person. Certainly it does, or at any rate, it should not be otherwise.
In the conjugal act, the intimate union should involve a particular
intensification of emotion, or rather the deep emotion, of the other person.
This is also contained in Ephesians in the form of an exhortation directed to
married couples: "Defer to one another out of reverence for Christ"
(Eph 5:21).
The distinction between excitement and emotion, noted in this analysis, proves
only the subjective reactive-emotive richness of the human "I."
This richness excludes any unilateral reduction and enables the virtue of
continence to be practiced as a capacity to direct the manifesting of both the
excitement and the emotion, aroused by the reciprocal reacting of masculinity
and femininity.
Natural method
3. The virtue of continence, so understood, has an essential role in
maintaining the interior balance between the two meanings of the conjugal act,
the unitive and the procreative (cf. HV 12) in view of a truly responsible
fatherhood and motherhood.
The Encyclical Humanae Vitae devotes due attention to the biological
aspect of the question, that is to say, to the rhythmic character of human
fertility. In the light of the encyclical, this "periodicalness"
can be called a providential index for a responsible fatherhood and
motherhood. Nevertheless a question such as this one, which has such a
profoundly personalistic and sacramental (theological) meaning, is not
resolved only on this level.
The encyclical teaches responsible fatherhood and motherhood "as a proof of
a mature conjugal love." Therefore it contains not only the answer to the
concrete question that is asked in the sphere of the ethics of married life but,
as already has been stated—it
also indicates a plan of conjugal spirituality, which we wish at least to
outline.
Maintains balance
4. The correct way of intending and practicing periodic continence as a
virtue (that is, according to Humanae Vitae 21, the "mastery of
self") also essentially determines the "naturalness" of the
method, called also the "natural method." This is
"naturalness" at the level of the person. Therefore there can be no
thought of a mechanical application of biological laws. The knowledge itself of
the rhythms of fertility—even
though indispensable—still
does not create that interior freedom of the gift, which is by its nature
explicitly spiritual and depends on man's interior maturity. This freedom
presupposes such a capacity to direct the sensual and emotive reactions as to
make possible the giving of self to the other "I" on the
grounds of the mature self-possession of one's own "I" in
its corporeal and emotive subjectivity.
Communion of persons
5. As we know from the biblical and theological analyses we have previously done, the human body in its masculinity and femininity is interiorly ordered to the communion of the persons (communio personarum). Its spousal meaning consists in this. The spousal meaning of the body has been distorted, almost at its roots, by concupiscence (especially by the concupiscence of the flesh in the sphere of the threefold concupiscence). The virtue of continence in its mature form gradually reveals the pure aspect of the spousal meaning of the body. In this way, continence develops the personal communion of the man and the woman, a communion that cannot be formed and developed in the full truth of its possibilities only on the level of concupiscence. This is precisely what the Encyclical Humanae Vitae affirms. This truth has two aspects: the personalistic and the theological.
Taken from: L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO - English Edition -- Reprinted with Permission -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana - The Holy See