The Distortion caused by Sin The distortion, which comes through sin and lust, is a skewing if not almost a blinding of the ability of man and woman to understand the nuptial meaning of the body. The body no longer naturally experiences a benign sexual attraction that always leads to an affirmation of the dignity of the human person and full communion in conjugal love. In fact, it now is habitually threatened from within, that is in the heart concupiscence and lust. The heart, which is the home of love and affectivity, where man and woman make of themselves a gift in freedom, has now become a “battlefield,” to use the Holy Father’s term. “The more lust dominates the heart, the less the heart experiences the nuptial meaning of the body. It becomes less sensitive to the gift of the person, which expresses that meaning in the mutual relations of man and woman.”[1] In effect, lust instills in the heart of man and woman a desire that disorders the understanding of the body by making it an object of pleasure which can be appropriated for selfish use. If this takes place, then the heart violates the essence of the dignity of the human person. What is more, it creates a barrier to self-realization, for only when a man and a woman make a sincere gift of themselves to the other in reciprocal love and freedom do they find their true selves.[2] Lust attacks the heart of man and woman by depriving it of the dignity of self-giving. It also “depersonalizes man” by making man, male and female, an object for the potential use of the other. Therefore, because of concupiscence, especially the lust of the flesh, the body is reduced to an object for sexual pleasure. Sex now becomes a negative experience when it is motivated by lust in the human heart thereby preventing the person from making of himself a sincere gift to the other. Consequently, there is a loss of the interior freedom necessary for mutual self-giving. The nuptial meaning of the body has been effectively distorted. In order to restore the heart’s experience of the body and free it from lust which distorts the nuptial meaning of the body, man must control the self, that is, master the self, so that the heart distorted by lust does not determine the meaning of the body, but the heart that is chaste and pure. Concupiscence weakens the heart and reduces self-control.[3] Whereas, purity of heart fosters self-mastery and perceives the original meaning of the body that is nuptial. Furthermore, the Holy Father makes a special emphasis concerning the threat to the woman from man on account of concupiscence. Genesis alludes to the effects of concupiscence when it declares that the woman shall desire her husband and he shall rule over her.[4] The Holy Father sees in the creation narrative a task assigned to man. He writes: “From the beginning man was to have been the guardian of the reciprocity of donation and its true balance.”[5] Woman was given by God to man as a gift not to be appropriated but received and reciprocated. The woman was to do likewise, but man was the guardian of the gift because he first received the woman.[6] Now with the look of lust in his heart manifested through his eyes, Jesus says of such a man, “he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”[7] Man has failed in his guardianship of woman. Consequently, it will take the new man, Jesus Christ, who is also fully God, to redeem the fallen Adam and his progeny.[8] He alone can restore balance in the relationship between man and woman and restore mutual reciprocity between the sexes which enables man and woman to rediscover the nuptial meaning of the body.[1] Ibid. 126. [2] cf. GS 24. [3] cf. TB 127. [4] cf. Genesis 3:16. [5] TB 128. [6] cf. Genesis 3:18-25. [7] Matthew 5:28. [8] cf. Sacramentary, Preface of Sundays in Ordinary time III. Article by Fr. Alejandro Valladres, Archdiocese of Mobile |