{"id":55400,"date":"2015-02-25T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T19:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=55400"},"modified":"2015-03-19T23:00:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T06:00:08","slug":"virgin-regret-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/02\/25\/virgin-regret-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Regret (Part 3): Vision of Sex & Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I started a series in which I was commenting on an article<\/a> written by a girl who regrets remaining a virgin until her wedding night. In my previous post<\/a> I made some distinctions between abstinence and chastity which I think were lacking in her formation. In today’s post I would like to continue my discussion of Samantha’s\u00a0article and look at the teaching she\u00a0received concerning sex and marriage…<\/p>\n

\"Wedding\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sunday School<\/h2>\n

From the contents of the article, I couldn’t\u00a0help but conclude that Samantha was never given any real theology concerning either sex or marriage. In the early\u00a0portion of her article she wrote:<\/p>\n

“The church taught me that sex was for married people… Once I got married, it would be my duty to fulfill my husband\u2019s sexual needs”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Was that it? Was that really all she was taught? If this was the sum total of teaching she received, then she was woefully underprepared. In fact, I would go so far as to say she was thoroughly cheated, taught to reduce sex to base biological urges and the human person to an object to be used. Samantha’s\u00a0distorted view of sex was evident in\u00a0her description of how she felt returning from her honeymoon:<\/p>\n

When we got home, I couldn\u2019t look anyone in the eye. Everyone knew my virginity was gone. My parents, my church, my friends, my co-workers…\u00a0<\/em>sex felt dirty and wrong and sinful even though I was married and it was supposed to be okay now.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Samantha’s impoverished formation\u00a0concerning sex had taught her a false but simple message: sex is sinful,\u00a0dirty and something you save for your husband. How wrong is that?!<\/p>\n

The Catholic Vision<\/h2>\n

Against this pallid teaching, the Catholic Church\u00a0speaks of the\u00a0marital union in the highest, most exalted of terms, understanding marriage\u00a0to be an\u00a0icon\u00a0of Christ and His Church<\/a>. \u00a0In Catholic theology, we understand marriage to be a Sacrament, a means of grace given to us by Christ. On the wedding day, each spouse gives to the other this Sacrament and they are bound together in a lasting covenant. This covenant is then renewed each time husband and wife come together in marital\u00a0union. It is a bodily renewal of their vows and a tangible sign of their complete and total self-donation to each other. I have to ask: was Samantha ever taught this?<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church also sees marriage as an image of God Himself and Trinitarian life. In the Trinity, the Father pours His love out to the Son, the Son pours His love out to the Father, and the love between the two we call the Holy Spirit. In marriage, husband and wife are called to a similar exchange of love and, as Scott Hahn says, sometimes the love between husband and wife\u00a0grows so strong\u00a0and tangible that it becomes a third person and, nine months later, is given its own\u00a0name.<\/p>\n

\u201cSex, therefore, in its proper place, which is in marriage, is a summons from God to share in creation, since man and woman are God\u2019s co-workers in the sweet tasks of quarrying humanity\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Fulton Sheen<\/span><\/p>\n

I would suggest that the Catholic Church presents to us a beautiful, awe-inspiring vision of sex and marriage which it appears was sorely absent in the teaching which Samantha received.<\/p>\n

Part 1<\/a> | Part 2<\/a> | Part 3 | Part 4<\/a> | Part 5<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I started a series in which I was commenting on an article written by a girl who regrets remaining a virgin until her wedding night. In my previous post I made some distinctions between abstinence and chastity which I think were lacking in her formation. In today’s post I would like to continue my discussion of Samantha’s\u00a0article and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,17],"tags":[1026,276,410,2969,1845,348,3122,2889,3132],"class_list":["post-55400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-faith","tag-abstinence","tag-catholic","tag-chastity","tag-featured","tag-john-paul-ii","tag-protestant","tag-samantha-pugsley","tag-virginity","tag-virginregretseries"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/WeddingBAnner.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55400"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55769,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55400\/revisions\/55769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}