Male - Female Relationships

Man was created “in the image and likeness” (Gen. 1:26) of His Creator. In making man His icon God gave him great honour: The possibility of participating in the life of the Holy Trinity, of communicating with God, of glorifying God, of receiving the life-giving Grace of the Holy Spirit, of receiving enlightenment and of perceiving the meaning of life and the world. Among all creatures only man who participates in both the material and the spiritual world, has the advantage of being able to live in a free, personal and loving relationship with his Creator, which transcends this temporary life and extends into eternity. For this reason man can never be satisfied only by the fulfilment of his material and bodily needs which his material nature demands, as happens with all animals. In addition, he seeks to find that personal relationship and communion with God, and to acquire the Grace of the Holy Spirit so as to transfigure his life into constant praise of God. Thus, he lives the mystery of his salvation in this life and the life to come.

In this attempt to live the whole of our lives to the glory of God, it is natural that one of the most basic functions of human life, the union of man and woman should have a place.

It is known moreover that God is love (1 John 4:16) and man, His icon, finds the meaning of life in love. For something in man’s life to be true and genuine it must be the fruit of love. Our relationship with God must be a constantly growing relationship of love, just as our relationship with our fellow men ought to be a struggle to love each person. Love characterises human life and is the yard-stick of its truth. Thus, the central and essential element of the marital relationship must be love, a mature love incorporating the carnal relationship but going beyond it and encompassing the whole person. This love must be an icon of God’s love for man, a love without preconditions or time limits which never seeks selfish satisfactions or interests but which bears all things without jealousy, pride or evil thoughts and without ever failing or ceasing to exist (1 Cor. 13.4-8).

God made all things ‘exceedingly good’. And especially in the case of man a unity of body and soul, everything is good and holy and nothing is naturally bad or sinful. Man was made from the goodness of God so as to glorify and give thanks to his Creator through living and participating in the mystery of love.

For this reason marriage is one of the sacred mysteries of the Church. God comes and blesses the union of two specific persons and makes them companions for the whole of their lives. He helps them empty their existence of egoism and pride by receiving the other person within them and giving him first place thus overcoming their self-love and individualism.

The Apostle Paul says that this is a great mystery and compares it with the relationship of Christ - and the Church (Eph. 5:32). The marital relationship should be the fruit of love, self-sacrifice and humility comparable to the love and sacrifice of Christ for the Church. Then, through this mystery man is made worthy of the mystery of life. The human personality develops and matures as it passes through the cross of humility and love, and receives a foretaste of the Resurrection through its union with men and God.

After the fall of Adam and Eve and the darkening of our minds, the devil always tries to drive us into a mistaken and evil use of the gifts of God. He makes us sin and deprives us of God’s life-giving Grace, using innumerable methods and temptations. Thus, he forces us to degrade the great mystery of marriage into a bestial relationship, the only purpose of which is the individual satisfaction of the instincts and a fleeting taste of pleasure, without any other dimension or connection with the greatness of the human person.

Every relationship outside of the mystery of love and the blessing of God is, depending on the particular case, a sin of a greater or lesser kind. The devil leads people astray in many ways. Either through the thought of embarking on a carnal relationship before marriage in order to become better acquainted, so giving second place to the need for God’s blessing. Or else through the idea that a carnal relationship even when not associated with true love is harmless because it is something natural - here, the assumption is that man is a being with only biological needs and that something is evil not because it falsities the truth of man’s nature but only when it is denounced by the Law. Or else through irrational and purposeless self-satisfaction or through completely inhuman relationships based on money and expediency or through other unnatural relationships the result in each case is that we insult, debase and cheapen our human nature and separate ourselves from the Fountain of Life.

Some feel that a more sincere option is free cohabitation for as long as love exists between them with the possibility of separation whenever they want. But only those who want to deceive themselves can call this a loving relationship. Love which ceases or runs out at some point is not love worthy of man. On the contrary, the love of two persons blessed by God surpasses even the duration of this life, being preserved even after the death of one of the partners. True love is not deminished by difficulties and problems but on the contrary increases and matures.

Certainly our present society uses all the means at its disposal (television, video, periodicals, cassettes, songs, and so on) to ‘liberate’ man from the will of God, to offer him ever more opportunities for pleasure without hesitating to degrade him inhumanly and use him simply as an object of pleasure. The result is that psychological wrecks are created: people tormented by lack of satisfaction, by anxiety, by the absence of love and meaning in life, by alienation from God and by the daily taste of death before death.

Today the demon of fornication seems to be all powerful and to have command everywhere. The Fathers of the Church give the title demon to every passion to show the truth that behind every distortion of man’s power and potential for good a demonic power is to be found as instigator. Yet ‘greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world’ (1 John 4:4). God is much stronger than the spirit of the world. Whoever resists the spirit of the world and sin, even only slightly, will feel the Grace of God strengthening him and enabling him to pass through even the most difficult snares of the enemy. And those who have been drawn into some sensual passion either due to ignorance or weakness need only repent like the prodigal son and decide with humility and courage to leave the scraps of the passions and return to the Heavenly Father. Then as soon as we take the first step, we will feel the embrace of God full of love and patience surrounding us and filling us with happiness and true life. Let us have the prodigal son of the Gospel, St. Mary of Egypt and the host of other saints as our example. Not only did they repent but they attained sanctity.

Cleansing our souls of the various impure thoughts with which the devil constantly attacks us is a precondition for the cleansing of our body. And both are a precondition for the knowledge of God. How is it possible for someone to want to approach God and at the same time to degrade and pervert his nature, itself a creation of God? How can one respect God and at the same time disregard the meaning He has given to His works?

The commandments of God reveal the true dimensions of our human nature and are the way we must naturally follow if we want to be truly happy and successful in life.

Marriage is one of the paths to God. There exists another path; the possibility of celibacy, complete dedication to the love of God, with prayer, asceticism, the fulfilment of the Divine commandments and war against the passions. Yet, as St. Paul says, I would that all men were even as I myself - celibate -, but every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that’ (1 Cor. 7:7), leaving this admirable vocation to individual freedom and the Grace of God.

The word fornication has broader meaning than that which is normally ascribed to it and encompasses any sinful carnal relationship.