Are you ready yet?

This generation is led away to think that "attraction" and "love" are one and the same. Alas! they are awfully different. They are the extreme ends of the same track. The lack of understanding to distinguish attraction from love will land us in big mess especially those who tend to think that they are in love and are ready to use their sexual gifts.

Attraction to the opposite gender is the natural longing given to man and woman to constantly remind them of their deep rooted need to self donate. It is not love yet. It is only a feeling that must elevated,  in due time, to a higher commitment of sacramental marital love. Marriage indeed is the only fitting sacred alter where the supreme gift of self must be mutually offered. Sex outside of marriage is like throwing away precious pearls to swines. These are the very pearls that make up our core self. Our sexuality is what we are. Masculinity and femininity are the key factors that distinguishes each individual and at the same time make them unique. Having created in the image and likeness of God, we bear in us the very character of God - that is to love as God loves.

The graces poured out in the sacrament of marriage seals all the vulnerabilities of unchastity, fortifies and renders it as a fitting bed for couples to offer  themselves as mutual gifts. The love within marriage is free, total, faithful and fruitful. True erotic love has Agape love (God's love) at the center of it. And thus it is impossible to experience it outside of marriage. What people experience outside of marriage is only a cheap counterfeit of real erotic love. This counterfeit incapacitates us and robs us of the necessary graces needed to celebrate the sacramental fullness of marriage.

Out side of marriage, what a couple engage in is not "love making" but "lust making". What they offer mutually is not a "gift" but a "curse". Such sexual union is not "life giving" but "death giving".

So the next time you are attracted to someone of the opposite sex, realize it is not love yet but a feeling still. Discern every attraction and clearly know the motive behind. If it is physical, material or in any way selfish, you need to know you are being led away by untruth. It can only lead us to utilitarianism and objectification of human body for the gratification of lust. True attraction will mature into self giving love and is Christ like.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. [Eph 5:25]