In an effort to avoid confusion, I need to explain a thing. What I intended to say regarding the married state or the unmarried state is that I cannot, and will not--by God's grace--choose a thing because of a lack that I perceive will be filled, either by marriage, or something else. I have done too much from selfish desire. It probably isn't true that I don't prefer one, but chastity is a virtue. You either have it or you don't, in a certain sense, but it's good to desire to possess it. After all the fighting I have done, I say with measured but resolute confidence that I will find joy in any case.
I sat there waiting for my niece to be born, and then she was. Beautiful and perfect, more than able to bring the rest of us to puddles. Here's a truth: Hugh Hefner doesn't know anything about moments like this. You can't use another person, and end up with moments like this. Or if you do, consider it a grace, that now blessedly conspires to shake you from your lust toward something greater.
This is why we don't need the Catholic Church to tell us that contraception is wrong. We should see it. Nothing says romance quite like, "I want you, but only for my pleasure."
We can do better. Much better.
I sat there waiting for my niece to be born, and then she was. Beautiful and perfect, more than able to bring the rest of us to puddles. Here's a truth: Hugh Hefner doesn't know anything about moments like this. You can't use another person, and end up with moments like this. Or if you do, consider it a grace, that now blessedly conspires to shake you from your lust toward something greater.
This is why we don't need the Catholic Church to tell us that contraception is wrong. We should see it. Nothing says romance quite like, "I want you, but only for my pleasure."
We can do better. Much better.
Comments
But I might disagree with something you said in the middle: "chastity is a virtue. You either have it or you don't, in a certain sense, but it's good to desire to possess it." Are you saying that we either have or virtue or we don't? Or are you saying that about a vocation (to marriage)?
The first I disagree with, the second I don't.
I don't think it is correct to say that any living human being has no physical strength. We rightly say that if a given man can carry a hundred-pound sack of potatos, while a given four-year-old can carry two potatos, the man is physically stronger than the child. But the child has some strength, since the tot can tow two taters.
I think the same holds true for the moral strength that we call virtue. If a man has the ability to do right, even though it is incredibly difficult, he has some moral strength. But not as much as saints like Thomas Aquinas or Maria Goretti. Those two could morally body slam most people with the strength of their chastity.
I do not intend to say that the possession of virtue is static, or that all have it in equal measure. I am only saying that because it is a stable habit of the soul, by which we do the good easily and quickly, we can say you have it or you don't. In light of that clarification, I have no disagreement with what you said.