Freee Love, True Love

Free Love, True Love

Before I entered the seminary, I worked for several years as religious education teacher and guidance counselor in one school in Pampanga. Part of my job, was to spend time with the more “difficult” young adolescents. I remember one student named Roel. He was 16 years old and had been caught in class with pornographic magazines. He was sent to my office for a short talk. In our conversation, I talked to him as if I found the porno as interesting as he did and he was thrilled after knowing that. And then the conversation took more surprising when he asked me if I knew when to get those stuffs. Then I said “ Sure, I even know the people who published it. And I added, In fact they‘re always looking for new people to put in their magazines. How would you feel about them putting a picture of your sister? Or your mother?
He was grossed and ashamed. I told him, “I only wanted you to know that every person used in those stuffs is a member of someone’s family. In the midst of enjoying pornography, do we ever stop to consider how we would feel if we saw someone we love being used to tantalize? We are actually paying then to dehumanize someone’s daughter, son, and sister or mother.

Recognize your dignity[1] as Catechism of the Catholic Church mentioned, allows us to recognize the value of every human person, not by reducing human person to a level of an item, not as an object whose dignity is severely compromised. In other words we are not just a piece of matter that wherever we go we can buy. We are reflection of our Creator. Destruction of human dignity violates the beauty of God’s handiwork which is good and beautiful.

“Man appears in the visible world as the highest expression of the divine gift, because he bears within him the interior dimension of the gift. With it he brings into the world his particular likeness to God”[2]

In my story I will also attach the topic of “our need for an adequate Vision on Man, His Body and of Love and Sex. Are we “thingified[3]” objects? Thingified was a word used by J. Lisante in his book “On life and Love” which means looking at a person as matter or a thing visible to the perception. He explained that nowadays the vision of man to human being had reduced to the level of a thing, a tangible object especially sexual object; for example in pornography, media, videos and the internet, like an item we can buy. And he added, this is a view of man without recognizing the dignity as human persons capable of promoting human good. Many say, Oh. That’s normal thing now, it’s already part of our consumerist world. Yes, that is the fact but that is not normal. We are weakened already by this dilemma; we already had Little Jumbo Syndrome[4] ( Fr. J. Jason, Free Love, True Love)

Another aspect in man that we must understand is the value of his body. If man always looks at his body as a matter, or a thing or instrument to the world, he is not capable of recognizing or appreciating its value. Then it is also tantamount of disvaluing the meaning of love and sex. We are not just a piece of meat! The body is man’s totality, his total being, a unity of body and spirit. Definitely we are not only flesh or not just spiritual energy. We are be souled-body as philosophy tells. John Paul II in his speech on May 30, 1984 mentioned about” This is the peace of the body; the peace of the encounter in mankind as the image of God[5]”.

A negative vision on man will always be a negative connotation on the meaning of love and sex. What is love? That is the question. Is it synonymous to sex? What is the world view about these two realities of life?

They say that love is the most used and abused word. Whenever you ask an adolescent about his idea of love, the first thing will come in his mind is the idea of sex. Or sometimes the he would rather associate it by liking a thing he desires or infatuation to someone. In the recent news, many sex scandals had proliferated in the television which had caught the attention of many viewers. It is just a sign that sex nowadays is just a form of “trip ko lang” or escapade. We cannot also deny the fact that young generation were hooked with the new trend called “ one night stand” and cyber sex, which for them are solely for fun and curiosity. They would say “We just want to have some fun”. Are they saying that sex is for fun? The obvious answer is that sex feels good. Experts say, psychologists and sociologists, young people were hooked to these schema because of personal motives and internal desires that they cannot express in their chaotic emotional, psychological and physical stage. That is why they had the mentality of saying, people who don’t have sex may think they are weird and defective, thus undersexed…. Not cool. Another factor that contributes most is the culture which we live has had made some terrible concept. They tried to convince us that sex equals love. But it doesn’t. Anyone who says that we prove our love by having sex is nothing but a dumb idea. Love doesn’t have to be “proved”. Love is a free gift. Not one we have to pressure another to have it. As John Paul II stated;

“The heart has become a battlefield between love and lust. The more lust dominates the heart, the less the heart experiences the nuptial meaning of the body. It becomes less sensitive to the gift of the person, which expresses that meaning in the mutual relations of man and woman.[6]

Sometimes people believe that Catholics see sex as dirty, as wrong, as sinful. We don’t. We believe sex is beautiful, good and even holy. It is just a question of where you share it and what your motive is for giving it to another person. The place do to it is in marriage that is why it is called as marital act. And the reason to do is LOVE. Therefore we cannot indicate that sex is just a physical activity, a recreation or escapade to have fun but God created it as good and sacred. As John Paul II stated in his Theology of Body:

” The human body, with its sex, and its masculinity and femininity seen in the very mystery of creation, is not only a source of fruitfulness and procreation, as in the whole natural order. It includes right from the beginning the nuptial attribute, that is, the capacity of expressing love, that love in which the person becomes a gift and—by means of this gift—fulfills the meaning of his being and existence[7]

It was a lovely statement, making me feel that I was begotten by my parent because of love not by just a physical or recreational activity. That I am a fruit of their exchange of love not a product of temporary lust.
[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church 1691.

[2] Man Enters the World as a Subject of Truth and Love .Pope John Paul II General Audience Of Wednesday, 20 February

[3] Lisante James. On Life and Love.
[4] Jason Joel. Free Love, True Love

[5] The Man-Person Becomes a Gift in the Freedom of Love . John Paul II General Audience 16 January

[6] The Man-Person Becomes a Gift in the Freedom of Love . John Paul II General Audience 16 January
[7] The Man-Person Becomes a Gift in the Freedom of Love .John Paul II General Audience Wednesday, 16 January