Created Sexual
Embracing God’s Plan for our Lives
The human person was created by God to love and be loved. We are made to be relational and so relationships are an integral part and need of every person’s life. We are made in the image and likeness of God and therefore carry Him within us.
Do you not realize that you
are a temple of God with the Spirit of God living in you?
We have been given a nature that is relational, communal and self-giving. The body reveals the person and the body, therefore, is an essential part of each person. Our innate dignity, coupled with God’s endless love means that we have infinite value, right from the moment of conception.
God created each of us to be unique and unrepeatable and he calls us each by name. We are called to love all human beings and to treat them with utmost dignity, which means that no human person should be used for another’s pleasure, nor should they ever be objectified.
"According to Saint John Paul II, God created the body as a 'sign' of his own divine mystery," explains author Christopher West, "this is why he speaks of the body as a theology, a study of God."
Saint John Paul II wrote the Theology of the Body to help us understand and embrace God’s plan for our bodies and our lives. His theology is meant to help us understand who we were intended to be from the beginning, who we are now and how our living will affect our ultimate relationship with God in eternity.
We can try to deny our true calling – how we are called to live – and others might accept it, but ultimately the one who created us, God, knows who we are and calls to us in the depth of our hearts to be who we were meant to be. Until then we are never quite satisfied with our lives and actions.
Saint John Paul understood that our sexuality is beautiful and that it has purpose in God’s plan for each of us. He wanted us to understand that the body and spirit are linked; we cannot separate the body from the spirit, so every act affects us on both levels.
He knew that our sexuality was designed so we could love – God’s plan for life and love are beautiful and include more than a physical act. They are meant to be used for all areas of our lives.
The Catholic faith does not reduce our intimate acts to purely physical interactions and sees the person as so much more complex and beautiful than one simple aspect of their being.
The Congregation of the Faith put it like this:
“The human person, according to the scientific discipline of our day, is so deeply influenced by his sexuality that this latter must be regarded as one of the basic factors shaping human life… it is the source of the biological, psychological and spiritual characteristics.”
The Human Body: Wondrous Creation
- The human body has a spousal meaning.
- It must be understood in context of the person.
- The human person was willed by God for his own sake.
- Humans cannot fully find themselves except through the gift of self.
- The Creator’s sexual design created us to be able to create life; humans are his most precious created possession.
- Without this context we lose the full meaning of the sexual encounter; it becomes less than intended.
- The sexual union is meant to be a complementary union between two people who are, through a loving act, able to transmit life.
- The human person cannot be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual desire or orientation alone.
- To be completely fulfilled, a person must not act contrary to the creative wisdom of God
For further reading:
CCCB on Chastity
Updated March 2011
Pastoral Letter to Young People on Chastity
Download PDF
CCCB: Discovering the Unity of Life and Love
A Reflection on the Foundations for a Theology of Human Love
Download PDF
CCCB: For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free
Pastoral Letter On Human Trafficking And Sexual Exploitation In Canada
Download PDF
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