Ok, there are a few things I’ve been wanting to post on for the past week. Since they’re all related to love, marriage and sex, I thought I’d throw them all together in one post instead of trying to make separate posts out of each of them.

1. Andrew Haines has a good post at Ethika Politika on Dealing with ‘Purpose’ in Sex and the modern contraceptive mentality that sex can and should be separated from its most basic and natural function. It’s a bit lengthy, but worthwhile. The only thing I would add to it is that contraception doesn’t just separate sex from one of its three main functions. While obviously… marital act from procreation, it also destroys unity (total mutual self-giving) and some forms of contraception have been known to decrease pleasure as well. Haines’ post reminds me of one of my favorite passages from Humanae Vitae:

To experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. Just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, and with more particular reason, he has no such dominion over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source (HV, 13).

2. Msgr. Charles Pope boldly goes where few priests these days dare to tread in this frank discussion on masturbation and why it is wrong. Helpful for parents who don’t exactly know how to approach the subject with their children.

3. The Ruth Institute, which is a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund has issued a “Reel Love Challenge” asking college students (18-24) to answer the question “how is lifelong love possible?” That can’t be an easy question for these kids growing up in a society with such a high divorce rate to answer! I couldn’t name one kid in my grade/middle school class who had divorced parents. Now, I’m told by the new principal of my elementary school, divorced parents are the norm. How sad it is to see so many children growing up without good examples of lifelong marital love in their lives. Video responses to the Reel Love Challenge will be accepted from now until February 11 next year.

4. Vancouver man sacrifices self to save pregnant wife – a tragic, yet hopeful story of self-sacrificing love. It had me thinking of this post of mine from earlier this year.

5. Finally, conservative funny man Steven Crowder has a very nice column up on FoxNews about abstinence in which he reveals that he himself is in a long-term “abstinent” relationship and explains how that is the secret to their success:

I can tell you beyond any doubt, that my lady is able to control herself and stick to her values regardless of circumstance. Just as surely, she can say the same about me (Ben&Jerry’s benders notwithstanding). It is that display of self-control, that tangible example of living your principles through your life’s walk that ensures her that I won’t be jumping on the first well-proportioned opportunity that comes my way.

By the same token, I can rest easy knowing that my dame won’t be trying to bed Jersey Shore’s “The Situation” anytime soon. — Though he does have great abs.

Real chastity is not “puritanism” or a rejection of sex and the body, but a life-affirming “self-mastery” that helps free us from our selfish desires and makes us capable of that self-giving love that is the very meaning of our existence.