The Church does not allow sexual relations before marriage. Why is it so strict?
Given the large number of failed marriages, wouldn’t it be wiser to “try it out” to make sure the relationship works, rather than rushing in and failing?
Human sexual union, willed by God, is a precious gift whose value goes beyond pleasure or a mechanism for procreation. It expresses the love we have for the other through the union of two bodies, which corresponds to God’s love in his intimate union with humanity. So it can only be fully realized under his wing, in the sacrament of marriage.
We live in an age in which sex is described and put in the spotlight even among schoolchildren, taking on a consumerist character in the marketplace and the media. Yet sexual union is more than a technical means of satisfying desires and consuming pleasures between two consenting people. The human body has a meaning of its own that embodies an intimate relationship with God. One could even say it was created with a view to the Incarnation of the Word, as the place where human and divine natures are united. Saint Paul warned the Corinthians against failure, saying, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
Beyond the body alone, the union of the spouses’ bodies carries a very great meaning for humanity’s relationship with God: man and woman are to become one flesh. In the Old Testament this union appears as an image of the love between God and his people; in the New Testament it embodies the union of Christ and his Church.
The union of bodies is a sublime expression of love, because through it the spouses’ relationship is identified with divine love in the sacraments and truly embodies that love. That is why, for the baptized, sexual union only takes on its meaning within the sacrament of marriage. This call to union in one flesh frees the human person from the inability to give oneself, by purifying the relationship with the other from the domination inherited from original sin. The love a person carries can then be reborn from God’s love and identified with it, through Christ, in the sacrament of marriage. Of course, marriage is not needed to begin truly loving another person; but this shared love is only completed through God’s recognition and consecration to him. This is the meaning of the sacrament of marriage, which gives bodily union its true meaning.
The meaning of this relationship has been written into the human person from the beginning and is not tied to any particular era. The Church, which wants to raise her children toward the Father, does not condemn people; she passes on what she has received from Revelation so that engaged couples, and then married couples, can live in the light of her teaching a true love that is genuinely centred on God.
Some say that the Church, and the clergy in particular, know nothing at all about sexual life, and some say the Church should not interfere in what happens in the marriage bed. But the Church acts under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and is an “expert in humanity.” She accompanies couples before and after marriage, and since she counts married people among her members, she is without doubt an expert in this area. She puts her experience and inspiration at everyone’s disposal, not to impose her control or to govern the pleasures or offspring of the faithful, nor to condemn, but to enlighten. Let us recall the words of John Paul II: the Church imposes no norms on love other than the norms of true love. When it comes to sex, the Church does not merely lay down what is forbidden and what is allowed; according to the mission entrusted to her, she guides people so that they may truly live the relationship of love to which they commit themselves.
The Church continues to stress that sexual relations not ordered according to what God asks through the sacrament of marriage are disordered relations, not out of pointless caution, but out of concern to pass on the truth. The Church never condemns; she teaches those who wish to love and glorify God not to abandon the highest purpose of sexual union. How could the Church give up teaching what is beautiful and true simply because our age condemns it? The human person is not called to turn this vocation into a cultural product, but into a supernatural achievement. How could the Church abandon her pastoral duty to raise us toward God without passing on this call that the Lord set out in Scripture? The Church forces no one to listen to her, but, in the image of Christ, she teaches patiently and intercedes so that we may reach the Lord’s mercy. She proposes, and each person decides in complete freedom, as long as they are able to exercise that freedom.
The risk of a marriage failing always exists, but total commitment gains nothing from a trial period, because the self-giving that embodies real love is unconditional. Putting the other person on trial undermines the trust on which the relationship is built: testing the other without commitment is the very opposite of love, just as union without commitment carries a series of serious risks, the most significant being the conception of an unwanted child.
Father Gerard Abi Saab
