James Parker came out at age 17 and later entered into a relationship with another man. He worked as a gay activist for a while, but his personal experiences of intimacy and human sexuality eventually led him to grasp that "same-sex 'marriage' just doesn't exist; even if you want to say that it does." He concluded that trying to persuade those with homosexual inclinations that they can have marriage like heterosexual couples is basically to "hoodwink" them: "Deep down, there is no mystery between two men, ultimately."
This striking insight helps bring into focus the authentic and remarkable mystery we encounter in the joining of husband and wife in marriage. That abiding mystery touches on their one flesh union and reveals an inner fruitfulness, enabling them to contribute together something greater than either can do alone, namely, the engendering of new life in the marital embrace. Ultimately, that life-giving mystery flows from their radical male-female complementarity.
St. John Paul II commented on this "mystery of complementarity" when he noted how "uniting with each other so closely as to become 'one flesh,' man and woman, rediscover, so to speak, every time and in a special way, the mystery of creation."
The personal and bodily complementarity of man and woman, along with the "duality of a mysterious mutual attraction," reminds us, again in the words of the pope, how "femininity finds itself, in a sense, in the presence of masculinity, while masculinity is confirmed through femininity."
In recent times, nevertheless, the importance of the bodily and spiritual complementarity of man and woman has come to be diminished and even negated in the minds of many, largely due to the diffusion of contraception. This way of intentionally impeding our own procreativity has effectively diminished and even undermined our ability to perceive the inner order and interpersonal meaning of our own sexuality. St. John Paul II once described the root truth about human sexuality as that "characteristic of man – male and female – which permits them, when they become 'one flesh,' to submit at the same time their whole humanity to the blessing of fertility."
The routine promotion of contraceptive sexual relations across all strata of society has effectively collapsed the mystery of sexuality into the trivial pursuit of mutually-agreed-upon pleasurable sensations. It has managed to reconfigure that sexuality into, basically, sterile acts of mutual auto-eroticism. Men and women, neutered and neutralized by various surgeries, pharmaceuticals or other devices, no longer really need each other in their complementary sexual roles, with homosexual genital activity claiming the status of just another variant of the same game. This depleted vision of our sexuality strips out the beautiful mystery at its core and diminishes our human dignity.
Human sexuality clearly touches deep human chords, including the reality of our solitude. In the depths of the human heart is found a desire for completion through the total spousal gift of oneself to another, a gift that profoundly contributes to alleviating our primordial sense of human solitude. Both St. John Paul II and Pope Francis have noted how the deeper mystery of communion that we seek through intimacy is connected to this desire to overcome solitude. We are ultimately intended for communion, so our experiences of human solitude draw us into relationship, and beckon us to an encounter with the other.
Yet the union of friendship that arises between two men, for example, or between two women, while clearly important in helping to overcome solitude, can be predicated only on non-sexual forms of sharing if their friendship is to be authentic, fruitful and spiritually life-giving. Sexual activity between members of the same sex fails to communicate objectively either the gift of life or the gift of self. Such activity countermands authentic intimacy by collapsing into a form of consensual bodily exploitation, contradicting the very design and meaning of the body in its nature as masculine or feminine. It represents, in fact, the lifeless antithesis of nuptial fruitfulness and faithfulness.
The beauty and meaning of every sexual encounter in marriage, then, is rooted not only in faithful and exclusive love, but also in the radical complementarity of spouses manifested in the abiding mystery of their mutual procreativity. Pope Francis, speaking at the 2015 Synod of Bishops and addressing the theme of "The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and in the Contemporary World," reiterated this divine design over human sexuality when he stressed: "This is God's dream for His beloved creation: to see it fulfilled in the loving union between a man and a woman, rejoicing in their shared journey, fruitful in their mutual gift of self."
Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk earned his doctorate in neuroscience from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.
This is a true account of how God adopts us into the family of faith (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5) by way of a personal analogy. On the first day of my first parish assignment as a transitional deacon, I met a single foster mom who had adopted three very troubled older children. She told me their story:
The children were two brothers and a sister, 6, 9 and 11 years old, who over time had been in and out of literally hundreds of foster homes – spending a week here, a few days there, perhaps just an hour over yonder. Foster parents who lasted a full week with them were incomparably more patient than the rest, but then they too gave up. No one wanted them.
As you might imagine, these two brothers and their sister had become hardened cynics even at their young ages, and more familiar with the streets than with any "family." They were convinced that no one would love them, which had been proved to them time and again as so many doors were slammed behind them. Distrusting anyone, they became proficient in showing their worst behavior to everyone.
The single mother who now wanted to adopt these children had come to the parish to ask that they be baptized, which was also their desire. "You are a very strong, charitable woman to want to adopt children of this age," I told her, "since they would surely have been through so many miserable experiences of being rejected in foster homes."
This great woman of faith then recounted that her love for them was also expressed with a firm and consistent correction of them when needed. She said that the predictability gave them a sense of security. They had now been living with her for six months. She hadn't thrown them out on the street.
She told me that the first three months with them seemed scripted by hell. The children showed their worst – breaking the windows, breaking the dishes, taking razors to the carpets and furniture and curtains, and destroying everything they could. They nearly succeeded in burning down her house five times.
Three months into living there, for no particular reason, the children realized that this woman really did love them, that she wasn't going to throw them out on the street, even though they had done their best to show their worst. From that day onward, she told me, they were angels. They were eager to help, wanting to do the dishes, sweep the floor, wash the windows – whatever they could do to show their filial respect and love for her, who they now considered their mom.
Their cynicism had been answered with love. They now knew what it was to be in a family, perhaps for the first time in their lives. More than this, they wanted what this woman had: the faith lived within the family of faith. They couldn't get enough of what it means to be in a family, and in God's family.
This is a good lesson for us all: Always be there for the most vulnerable, and never compromise anyone for the sake of self-congratulatory expedience. The Lord will have this lesson put to the test even daily in our own lives, with others testing God-given faith and love, wanting to see that such faith and love is true within us when tried in this way and that. It's not that people want to be aggravating; it's that they want to be encouraged by seeing the strength of this faith and love in difficult circumstances. Haven't we ourselves done this? Cynicism is cured with the prompt mercy of steadfast friendship with Jesus. We have all had good people in our lives.
When our faith and love are tested, we will surely fail unless we realize that we ourselves have tested the Lord in our sin, showing our worst to Him. He has shown us firm, consistent correction and mercy, giving us a sense of security with the very wounds which we inflicted on His hands and feet and side, in His Heart. We are lost in cynicism until we have an attitude of humble thanksgiving, like that in which the three children of this woman learned to rejoice.
So what is the most awesome adoption story ever? That of the great Woman, clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet, crowned with 12 stars, and the Church who have adopted us, bringing us right into the family of faith with great joy.
Father George David Byers is administrator of Holy Redeemer Parish in Andrews.