The Sexy Religion

Since the popularization of Blessed John Paul's "Theology of the Body" and the attendant proliferation of talks and study guides attempting to unpack it, there have been endless debates among intelligent, well-meaning Catholics about "how far is too far" when it comes to the goodness of sexual pleasure within marriage, and the appropriateness of sexual language and imagery in the spiritual life. Most recently, Catholic blogger Heather King, author of "Shirt of Flame", which is syndicated by Fr. Robert Barron's "Word on Fire" blog, has received no small amount of criticism regarding her latest piece, "The Yes of Erotic Catholicism". I encourage all to read the piece themselves, as well as the comments to it. I offer my own thoughts here.

I have long suspected that the subtle poison of puritanism has found its way into the Body of Christ, a suspicion that has been confirmed by the emphatic rejection of any kind of sexual language or imagery as applying to the spiritual life. This attitude seems to be that the spiritual life, one's relationship with God, is holy and pure, and sensual pleasure is somehow less so. Further, the suggestion that a clear analogy obtains between the spiritual union of God and Man and the corporeal union--even orgasm--of sex is at best suspect, at worst positively dangerous. But whence does this attitude come? More to the point, is it consistent with traditional Catholic teaching regarding human sexuality and the spiritual life?

As to the provenance of this attitude, one can only speculate. Let us suppose that the anti-erotic party are an intelligent, psychologically well adjusted, well meaning lot (and a cursory glance at the "Comments" box below King's post suggests that they are). Precluding any deficiency in these areas, one can only say that, somehow, the prohibitions of the Catholic sexual ethic ("Thou shalt not commit adultery [or] covet") have so superseded its prescriptions ("Be fruitful and multiply") as to obscure them altogether. And this attitude we call puritanism.

This poses a problem in that in Scripture the prescription, the "Yes", precedes the prohibition, the "No", and is in service to it. God made Man in His own image, to be a communion of persons whose physical and spiritual union participates in the generative power of God Himself. Only much later does God give to Moses the Law by which Man is to live in accord with the divine will. But to suggest that "the chill bonds of law and duty and custom" (to use Waugh's phrase) is the beginning and end of the Church's sexual ethic is to tell only half of the story.

Perhaps more to the point, ours is a tradition that celebrates, within the limits of temperance and prudence, human sexuality, and the erotic generally. The Song of Songs proposes the intensely erotic love between King Solomon and his young bride as an apt metaphor for the love of God and His people, and the prophet Hosea recounts God's heartbreak when Israel is unfaithful to its divine espousal. The Church's rich literary and artistic tradition, too, is full of erotic imagery and language, from Bernini's sculpture "The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa" to Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "Pied Beauty". Even the Liturgy is sexually suggestive, as every Easter Vigil the Pascal candle is repeatedly plunged into the Baptismal font, the "womb of the Church". Blessed John Paul has stated that a husband and wife are most fully an icon of the Trinity when they are sexually intimate.

To be absolutely clear, nobody is suggesting that God's relationship to the individual consists in explicit genital stimulation, as in the old Greek myths and fertility cults; that is quite obviously a perversion. Rather, we are made in the image and likeness of God, the God who became Man in the person of Jesus Christ, who entered into the fullness of human experience, including human sexuality. Our Church therefore celebrates erotic love, even as she struggles to keep that love pure, holy, and life-giving.

La Santa Madre

I recently read an excellent biography of the great saint and Doctor of the Church, Teresa of Jesus, by Cathleen Medwick. Ms. Medwick, while neither a Spaniard nor a Catholic--she is, in fact, an American Jew--captures perfectly the flavor of 16th century Spain, as well as the wit, determination, and chutzpah of la Santa Madre in Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul.

I must confess that, when it comes to all things Teresian, I am very biased. Teresa is my best friend in heaven, the true companion of my soul. Still, I think that Medwick's book is as thorough and honest a reading of the life of the revered saint as one may find outside of her own autobiography, the Vida de Teresa de Jesus ("Life of Teresa of Jesus"), perhaps more so given Medwick's unique perspective. After all, Teresa was herself ethnically Jewish; her grandparents were conversos, Jews who were baptized in the Reconquista of Ferdinand and Isabella. (In an interesting turn of providence, three great Carmelite saints and spiritual masters, Teresa of Jesus, John of the Cross, co-founder with Teresa of the Discalced Reform, and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, or Edith Stein, the brilliant philosopher and martyr of Auschwitz, were all ethnically Jewish.) Medwick's Teresa is a sign of contradiction: as a nun, bold yet humble, as a religious superior, firm yet loving, and as a reformer of her Carmelite Order and founder of monasteries, industrious yet completely trusting in God's providence.

For Teresa, the Discalced Reform was, ulltimately, God's own project, and God would see it completed. Perhaps a little context is necessary here. By the 16th century, the Carmelite Order, which has been founded in the Holy Land in the 13th century, had strayed from the austerity and prayerfulness of the primitive Rule, especially in Spain, where noble ladies were permitted to bring lapdogs and servants into the convent, adapt the habit to reflect their superior station, and come and go freely from the convent, to the neglect of their religious duties. Teresa's own convent of La Encarnacion was no exception. Moved by a voice from heaven, she established the first reformed convent, called descalzo ("discalced" from the fact that the nuns wore not shoes but simple hemp sandals), San Jose de Avila in 1562, with many more to follow throughout Castile and Andalusia.

While Teresa authored many books throughout her long life, including her spiritual masterpiece, Las Moradas ("The Mansions", more commonly known in English as The Interior Castle), as many commentators point out, her greatest work was her reform movement, which eventually bore fruit in many communities of strictly enclosed, contemplative nuns, as well as friars who, due to the requirements of their various ministries, were less strictly enclosed, but no less contemplative. To this day, these sons and daughters of Mary, Queen and Beauty of Carmel, live lives of prayer and quiet sacrifice, constantly interceding for the people of God.

A good companion to Medwick's biography is the nine-part Spanish mini-series Teresa de Jesus, directed by Josefina Molina and starring Concha Velasco as Teresa.