Marquette Deacon preaches on human sexuality and chastity

Deacon Ryan Ford, preparing for ordination to the Priesthood for the diocese of Marquette, preached the following eloquent sermon on the holy purpose of our bodies. It's rather longer than the standard seven minutes we are commonly advised to aim at but, as you will see, he was responding to how he felt the Holy Spirit was moving him, particularl as it was his last sermon at the end of his placement at St Michael's parish, Marquette, before his return to Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.

Please pray for all those preparing for service as priests.

Here is the text of his sermon:

21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C – Is 66:18-21; Heb 12:5-7, 11-13; Lk 13:22-30

First of all, I want to express my gratitude to you for showing me kindness during my stay here this summer, especially to Fr. Larry and Fr. Ben for teaching me many things and letting me tag along on many ministry opportunities…  On Wednesday, I’ll be heading back to Detroit for my final year in the seminary…Please keep praying for us!  Since this is my last weekend with you, I was hoping the Lord would give me some easy readings to preach on…but, he hasn’t…but I hope I can help us see the joy that is in God’s Word today!

During his long life, the prophet Isaiah saw his own people committing horrible infidelities…at the time of our first reading from Isaiah, Manasseh was king in Jerusalem, and the situation was dreadful…Manasseh not only had an image of a pagan goddess erected in the temple…he also set up altars to offer child sacrifice to her, even burning his own son upon one of these altars as an offering.  Even worse, he set up pavilions within the Temple for “sacred” prostitution, in which both men and women were exploited for the sake of pleasure, which they thought to be divine.

And so, the Lord sent Isaiah to declare that the Lord was coming to destroy Jerusalem for their evil deeds…and send them into exile…and that’s what soon happened.

For denouncing what he saw, Isaiah was killed… But before this happened, he spoke what we just heard in the first reading…that the Lord would soon set a sign among his people, a sign by which they could see his glory, and that by this sign men and women would be brought to the Lord as pure offerings in Jerusalem…no longer exploited…This sign, we know, is the body of Jesus Christ, offered in sacrifice on the Cross…through his body we can see the glory of God and also the meaning of our own bodies…that our bodies are to be those clean vessels which we offer to God and through which his glory is seen…

Scripture shows that Jesus’ body is the sacrifice that fulfills all the sacrifices of animals and food the Jews used to make…In the gospel today, Jesus calls his body the “narrow gate” through which we must pass if we want to enter the kingdom of God…What Jesus offered to the Father and what we’re now to offer to the Father is our own body…Jesus says in the gospels and at every Mass, “This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22).  St. Paul tells us in Romans, “I urge you, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God…Do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness” (Rom 12; Rom 6).

So we don’t come empty-handed to the Lord when we come to Mass…We’ve been baptized into Jesus’ body so that we too can come here to the altar and offer our own bodies to the Father with His, and we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus so that our bodies too can be the glory of God…

So how do we do this?  The first thing is to recognize that our bodies are holy because they are joined to the body of Jesus Christ, who is God…St. Paul says, “You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you…And the temple of God, which you are, is holy” (1 Cor 3).

The second thing is to recognize what your body is made for…It’s simple, really…Our body is made for giving…It’s created in the image of God, Who is an eternal exchange of love…Love seeks to give itself…the Father giving himself fully to the Son, who receives all and returns all to the Father…the Holy Spirit is the very love between them…And so our bodies are created to make love visible…to make God visible in this world through the giving of our bodies to each other…

St. Paul helps us understand this awesome truth…When he speaks of marriage, he says, “The wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Cor 7)…This may hit us as offensive, but it’s the reality of what marriage is…making God visible through the man offering his body to his wife, and the woman offering her body to her husband…to be lifelong servants to each other…and most fully in marital intercourse, the “consummation” of your offering…

Also, St. Paul says in Ephesians, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her…Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no man ever hates his own body, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of his body” (Eph. 5). 

Scripture says you are one body in marriage…and you glorify God by cherishing each others’ bodies as a gift to you…husbands, your wife’s body is offered by her to you to honor and protect and defend as you would your own body, and the Cross is the standard Christ has set as to how far you must go to defend her…

It’s in this context that we speak of the virtue of chastity…Chastity means living a life of respect for the body…It means expressing our sexual desires with respect for the dignity and purpose of our body…

When we know this, then, we can understand why Christians should take issue with things like “birth-control” pills and condoms…and sterilization…These are offenses against the dignity of our bodies…which are to be cared for and nourished and cherished, not sterilized…

I want to share some passages from this booklet by Crystalina Evert…She and her husband Jason travel the country speaking about chastity…She was 24 when she wrote this booklet, Pure Womanhood.   She writes, “Out of fear of getting pregnant, I went on the birth control pill and later took the shot.  But something happened in me.  Each time I popped a pill or took the shot, I felt like part of me was dying.  I suppose that when we disrespect our bodies in a relationship, we become careless with our bodies in other ways.  We even begin to act against our bodies.  It’s like we start to separate ourselves from our bodies.”  Notice her perception that acting against her body violates her dignity…

She goes on, “Here I am, sixteen years old and perfectly healthy but taking drugs to make me sexually available.  The drugs made me nauseous, moody, depressed, and bloated.  I remember asking myself again and again, “Why am I putting myself through this?”  I knew it wasn’t for me, but I still had no answer.  There was just confusion and darkness.  My boyfriend wasn’t much help, saying, ‘Oh, just try it a little longer.  It’ll be OK.’  In other words, ‘I don’t care if you hurt your body.  If I can have sex without responsibility, life is great.’  The birth control companies tell you it’s liberating, but ‘enslaving’ would be a better description…” 

Here we have the real issue…that a woman knows she’s to be treated with respect, body and soul…Every woman I’ve ever talked to is longing for what St. Paul speaks about, someone to cherish and defend her body as God’s made her…I’ve seen girls wearing those t-shirts that say ‘Princess.’  It’s as if every woman has this longing to be adored and cherished like one, and that desire is real, because our Heavenly Father is the King, and the daughter of the King truly is a princess.  If you don’t know that, start to believe it today!

Crystalina continues, “Contraception not only turns you against your own body, but it often causes resentment toward men in general.  I used to say, ‘Guys have no clue what it’s like to be sixteen and have to flip over a pregnancy test!’  It’s true: Guys would probably act differently about sex if they were the ones who could get pregnant.  On the other hand, no man will ever know what it’s like to hold a new life within him.  A woman’s fertility is a gift, not a curse.  MTV, Panned Parenthood, and Cosmo would have us believe that pregnancy is some kind of disease.  They endlessly promote shots, patches, and pills to spay us.  They never tell us the whole truth about birth control: the increased risk of breast cancer, that the pill and the show often cause abortions when the baby is only about a week old without the mom ever knowing it. They often tell us we need the pill for medical reason without telling us that there are usually other alternatives…By refusing contraception, you’re loving your body, you’re loving your present or future husband, and most importantly, you’re loving your God.” 

These words spoken from a woman who’s known the alternative to chastity and found only self-loathing…

Now, the Church doesn’t teach that you have to have as many babies as physically possible…There are legitimate reasons for wanting to space the births of children…God wants you to have as many children as your circumstances allow, no more and no less…This takes prayer and mutual conversation to know…But resorting to contraceptive pills and condoms cuts off the opportunities for this conversation to happen.  There are completely accurate ways for a woman to monitor and know when she’s fertile, usually only about 7-9 days a month…If you need to postpone having a child, there’s no need to take a pill to manipulate your body...Out of respect for your body, spouses can abstain from intercourse during that one week a month rather than do something that would compromise the offering of your bodies fully to each other...

So what about those who aren’t married?  As married couples offer their bodies to each other, we who aren’t married offer our bodies directly to God…If not married, our body is set apart for the Lord…and we’re not to join our bodies to someone whom God hasn’t given us to be our spouse, and who hasn’t offered themselves completely to us as our spouse…St. Paul says, “The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.  You are not your own, for you have been purchased at a price.  Therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6)…

The problem with being sexually active outside of marriage is that it’s a sham of true love.  It’s always filled with hidden fears and manipulation because there’s not the security that comes with the vows of marriage.  Listen to the words of Crystalina Evert again, “There’s no peace until there’s total love.  I lived with a constant fear of getting pregnant, getting caught, getting infected, and getting used…it was always there…I began to numb my conscience and value the gift of my body less and less.”

But Scripture says, “Perfect love casts out every fear.”  Without the security of the total gift of self in marriage, women are often left with this fear…fear of getting hurt, fear of being used and abused…and that is not love…It’s not what they deserve…If there’s any fear in our relationships, that’s a sure sign something’s not right.

Crystalina continues, “A girl knows she’s being used if she’s afraid to say no and draw the line, b/c that would be a test of his love…So, she just goes along, dreaming that things will change.  But purity will never ruin loving relationships.  If it is based on lust, purity will end it.  But if it’s based on love, purity will save it.”

There’s a lot of fear these days, too, of diseases.  Despite all the promotion we hear about “safe sex,” the idea that we can give away our bodies outside of marriage and not get hurt is an illusion.  We’re made for the security of total love, not for fear!  And all the “security” offered from “safe sex” is no security at all.  “Using protection” can’t guarantee protection against human papilloma virus, Chlamydia, or herpes, the most common STD’s that cause cervical cancer, infertility, and a lifetime of infection.  Besides, we’re not making visible God’s total love when we have to ‘protect’ and put barriers up between us first…

Now, women, you really do have power in this arena.  Listen again to Crystalina, “By the way we dress, by the way we carry ourselves, we can invite a man to be a gentleman or a beast.  Plain and simple, women teach men how to treat them…The fact is that every guy has the ability to be a pure gentleman.”  Right, men?  We do.  And we enjoy the challenge of it…  “But why should he go to the trouble?” she continues, “If he can get all the physical benefits of marriage without even knowing a girl’s last name, don’t expect him to pop the question anytime soon, much less woo her with real romance…We can either keep blaming the guys or do something about it and have the courage to bring out the best in them… You’d be surprised what guys are capable of when a girl expects to be treated with dignity.”  And men, this is our mission, to cherish women and not use them or see them as something to be conquered…

She continues, “Imagine if every woman on earth began to be pure and respect her body and her future husband.  Sure, plenty wouldn’t have dates next weekend, but the guys would figure out pretty quickly that if they want female company, they have to be gentlemen…If the standard is “sex is for marriage,” there’s no debating when marriage takes place: Either he’s your husband or he’s not.  If a man loves a woman, he’ll wait for her.  Not only that, he’ll wait with her, because he’ll focus on guarding her purity as well as his own…The challenge of purity builds in us the character and class that good men look for in a bride.”  And men, I think we’d agree.

Now I know that this may not sound that appealing…but chastity has a purpose.  It frees us to set our goals and dreams in life so that we know what our passions are and how God wants us to use our gifts…Being chaste and single doesn’t mean being alone; it means having an opportunity to learn to live for others.  If you’re called to marriage, then by giving yourself fully to God now, you’ll be able one day to give yourself fully to your future spouse when you marry.  Focus now on deepening friendships…and if you feel lonely, turn to God and cast all your cares on him.  Trust God with your heart and with your body.

So then, finally, what about people who experience same-sex attraction (SSA)?  They too are called to offer their bodies to God to glorify Him in their bodies…If you experience SSA, your body belongs to Jesus Christ as much as mine…For the sake of heaven, out of love for Him, Jesus beckons you, too, to offer Him your body, your love, your desires, and place all your hope for fulfillment in Him…

The world tells people with SSA that they have two options: either hide in the closet in fear or come out, embrace your identity, and sleep with whoever you want…But the Church offers an alternative…to acknowledge your attractions, but then live a pure life in loving service to others…and there’s a home for you in the body of Christ…in the Church!

Someone who has these attractions may not want them, or even know where they’re coming from or how they began…But no matter what our feelings may be, our bodies are made for union with the complementary sex…I know it seems that by saying they can’t marry each other, we’re banishing them to a lonely and loveless existence…but I’ve known and talked about this with seven men and one woman who experience SSA, and each one of them speak of the lonely, loveless existence they lived when they were sexually active, going from one partner to the next in search of love…they say that it wasn’t until they stopped this and started to live chastity that they actually developed real friendships with others that  broke into their loneliness…

We don’t believe that we can simply change our attractions by an act of the will…Although our sexual  desires can be hard to control and may not be something we can change, with the strength that comes from God’s grace we can control what we do with our desires…We all experience the same struggle of having sexual desires, but for love of Jesus choosing to respect the dignity and meaning of our body and others’ bodies…There’s nothing sinful about having sexual desires, toward either sex…They attract us to others and move us out of ourselves into love…And for those who aren’t married, this means a life of generosity toward friends, family members, our parish, and toward meaningful work for the good of others…People with SSA, too, have many gifts and passions and goals in life that serve to build up the kingdom of God on earth…

The people who I know with SSA have discerned their gifts and found where God’s calling them to offer their bodies…They’ve wrestled with God’s call to chastity and have accepted it…and their life is not lonely and loveless…One man I know said to me, “I heard God asking me, ‘Am I enough for you?’,” that is, “Can I be satisfied with God alone?”  He now sees his SSA as something that opened him to grace, because through his struggles, he heard his call to offer himself totally to God…He’s now teaching in a Catholic high school, giving himself to passing on the faith which he loves…He has many friends, and I’m happy to be one of them…Another man is a professional trombonist, working to build up culture through the art of music…Another has found joy in using his artistic gifts to serve people as an interior decorator… Another is giving his life to the sick as a registered nurse…The woman I know is a physical therapist downstate, dedicating her life to serving children with disabilities...They’re all finding fulfillment in living the call to chastity and respect for their bodies…

So chastity does involve discipline, but it brings the peaceful fruit we heard about in our second reading…a way of life that brings peace, freedom, respect, and relationships without regrets…

So how can we stay pure?  First, humbly admit it when there’s a problem, and don’t give in to discouragement!  Instead, set reachable goals.  Avoid situations that lead to impurity, and get rid of any impure things you own.  If it’s porn, trash it, and get an internet filter.  Whatever your struggle, go to confession and be open and honest and receive the graces God wants to give you to live a life of chastity.  Listen to Crystalina.  She says, “Confession scared me to death, so I avoided it like the plague.  But I was only running from mercy.  It was only with the power of the Mass and the graces from confession that I was able to start over without turning back.  Following confession, I had a peace that no relationship ever seemed to offer.  Instead of being an occasion for embarrassment, the sacrament became an experience of joy.” 

Never abandon the Mass…and come pray before the Eucharist reserved in the tabernacle.  Jesus’ example of “This is my body, given up for you,” is the antidote to our tendency to look at people and think, “This is your body, taken by me.”  Ask God for the gift of purity, especially when you feel tempted.  Ask Mary to teach you how to be a pure woman, or to teach you how to look at women with purity.  Offer up a fast for purity, for women, and for men.  Take advantage of good websites (www.chastity.com). Do something meaningful with your free time…St. Francis said, “Always be doing something worthwhile, then the devil will always find you busy.”  Finally, be patient with yourself.  John Paul II said that “chastity is a difficult, long term matter; one must wait patiently  for it to bear fruit, for the happiness of loving kindness that it must bring.  But at the same time, chastity is the sure and narrow way to happiness.”

If we as Jesus, he’ll give us the gift of chastity…He’ll give us the grace to strengthen our drooping hands and our weak knees so that we can enter the narrow gate, because we are his sons and daughters!  John Paul II gives us a final encouragement, “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures.  We are the sum of the Father’s love for us.  No matter what has happened, you still have yourself to give.  You are still God’s unique creation, made by love and for love.”

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