JPII’s Marriage Prep

“Wive’s be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself up for her…” (Eph 5: 22 – 25) 

This passage from Ephesians is where St. John Paul II spends a bulk of his time in his Theology of the Body. From this verse we can come to an understanding that John Paul II is trying to make plain the connection between the nuptial mystery of two spouses and Christ’s total self gift to the Church. John Paul II wants to make this clear because he believes it to be vital that spouses understand their role to the Church. Through this sacrament a married couple reveals deep truths about Christology and Ecclesiology that fall short when we look anywhere else. John Paul II writes about this verse when he says, “This is equally clear also in Ephesians…(for) the purpose of illustrating clearly the nature of the union between Christ and the Church.” (315) John Paul II is making clear that we need married couples living out the fullness of marriage in order to understand the mystery of Christ’s union to His Bride the Church.

Therefore, this message must be shared throughout everyone’s life especially those preparing for marriage. In Familiaris Consortio John Paul II states, “Marriage preparation has to be seen and put into practice as a gradual and continuous process. It includes three main stages: remote, proximate, and immediate preparation.” (66) This process that extends throughout someone’s whole life leading up to marriage is a process that should give a lens to all people on how to see Christ in relationship to His Church.

The first step of the process is the remote stage. One would think this stage would be when one starts dating, but John Paul II makes this stage even more remote and claims this formation begins at our childhood. This stage highly emphasizes the role of the family in forming children. John Paul II says the role of children in the family is highly important when he says, “In the family, which is a community of persons, special attention must be devoted to the children by developing a profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great respect and generous concern for their rights.” (FC 26) Before this paragraph in Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II emphasizes the importance of motherhood and fatherhood in the family to show kids the love of Christ. In this remote stage, children deserve to learn, from the example of their parents, the love of Christ to the Church which they are just as a part of as anyone else. In this remote stage, it is in the visible and tangible example of a child’s parents that a child learns how to love through total self-gift. This stage is vital for a child to understand how to enter into wholesome relationships with other people as the child grows and develops.

The second stage is proximate. In my interpretation, although John Paul II does not state this plainly, it would seem like this is period when a couple gets engaged and starts to begin marriage preparation. This stage of preparation should be when the couple, with the help of a mentor, come to a fuller understanding of what marriage demands of a couple. This should cover some more of the “requirements” that come with married life while also helping the couple understand the vital importance of family life. It is also in this stage the couple should come to understand the seriousness of their commitment to one another. This stage is where we can go back to Ephesians in order to teach the couple preparing for marriage on how they are to love one another. As John Paul II highly emphasizes through his understanding of Ephesians, “Above all, marriage itself as that union through which “the two become one flesh.” (TOB 316) The couple must understand the seriousness of what it means to love one another in the sacrament, and it is only then can they understand in the next stage the love that “as one flesh,” they can show the whole Church.

The last stage is immediate. This stage is specifically stated by John Paul II to be months/ weeks prior to marriage. In this stage it is vital that a couple comes to an understanding of the responsibility that comes with the sacrament of marriage. In the last stage, the concretes of married life should be understood well, and in this stage, the mission of marriage in a deep sacramental sense should be conveyed. While in the previous stage, married life as it pertained to the individual couple was conveyed, this stage should convey to the couple their role to Christ’s body.  As John Paul II states, “In turn, the Christian family is grafted into the mystery of the Church to such a degree as to become a sharer, in its own way, in the saving mission proper to the Church…” (49). John Paul II leaves no room for marriage to be taken flippantly but something that is very serious to the life of the Church. Through the sacrament of matrimony the married couple is declaring that they vow to each other to be witnesses of Christ love to one another, but also to the Church as a whole. In this stage, the married couple should understand that they become a liturgy to the world.

These three stages given to us from John Paul II are very important to the Christian, especially those preparing for marriage. The messages conveyed in these stages are teachings that will take a lifetime of dedicated married life in order to be understood fully, but these stages should be the beginning steps of coming to grasp the call of married life.

 

Marriage as the Highest Good

“She becomes the center of our life [as far as created goods are concerned]. He whose heart is filled with such conjugal love lives not only with his beloved but for his beloved.” – Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love (10)

In this week’s blog we will be focusing on the works of Dietrich von Hildebrand and Matthia Scheeben. Both of these authors focus on the supernatural graces of marriage and its very high importance in the life of the Church. At times, marriage, incorrectly, can be seen as the lower sacrament of service, but Hildebrand and Scheeben will both show in their writings how important the sacrament of Matrimony is for the Church. In fact there writings would assert that marriages become the icon of all sacramentality because it is the highest form of natural things working within God’s grace.

Because of these authors lofty view of the sacrament of matrimony they are both great authors to be used in Catechesis for those preparing for marriage or those already married. They are great to use because they do not shy away from proclaiming the bold impacts that the sacrament has on married couples. At times in the day to day grind of married life this understanding can be lost and I think both of these authors would be great in reminding married couples of the significance of the sacrament they participate in daily.

To show this to married couples I would emphasize from Hildebrand who says,

“Marriage, therefore becomes a consecration to God which may be likened to a religious vow. It does not only mean that both spouses give themselves to each other in God; they give themselves anew to Christ in the other…The marriage bond belongs to Him (Christ)… to protect it as a sanctuary from every profanation is a divine service.” (50) 

Using Hildebrand for Catechesis for married couples would include and emphasize the divine service that marriage entails. Married couples should be informed that there bond communicates God’s grace to world and that every action they make is an action for and with the Church. The married couple’s acting as one unit becomes Christ acting to the world. This is possible as the quote above states, “they give themselves anew to Christ in the other.” Through this mutual giving to the other the married couple is totally and completely giving themselves to Christ as an offering of divine service. Therefore, catechesis for couples learning from Hildebrand would focus on the service that the sacrament they have chosen to participate in entails.

From Scheeban we can see an emphasis on this idea of “supernatural love” that is an essential part of the sacrament. As he says in his book Mysteries of Christianity, 

“Moreover it follows from the nature of Christian marriage that the husband and wife must love each other not merely with natural love, but with supernatural love, as members of Christ and as representatives of His mystical nuptials with the Church.” (605) 

For Scheeban we can see that he talks heavily on the idea that marriage is a consecration to God. As Christ on the cross consecrated, in perfect love, his body to the Church, so does the married couple in marriage consecrate themselves in sacrificial love for the Church. As Scheeban writes, “They (the married couple) must take the place of Christ and the Church with regard to their children, as their teachers, guardians and models.” (605) This quote shows the seriousness that Scheeban places on marriage as marriage being a way the Church represents Christ to the world. There is a very high emphasis placed on the domestic Church (although he does not explicitly use that exact wording) and his writings are filled with the importance of the married couple being Christ to the world and most importantly their children.

These two authors hold the sacrament of marriage in very high esteem and therefore would be great authors to recommend to all couples discerning marriage or currently married.

The Jeweler’s Shop

“Sometimes human existence seems too short for love. At other times it is, however, the other way around: human love seems too short in relation to existence – or rather too trivial. At any rate, every person has at his disposal an existence and a Love.” – The Jeweler’s Shop

Karol Wojtyla also known as St. John Paul II wrote volumes upon volumes of works on the metaphysics, psychology, and ethics of love. One of his earlier works, The Jeweler’s Shop, is a play full of beautiful dialogue between characters deeply pondering and discovering what love really is. To briefly explain there are three acts…

1. Teresa and Andrew – a young couple discerning marriage
2. Anna and Stefan – an older couple struggling with the idea of infidelity.
3. Monica and Christopher – the children of each couple discerning marriage while also holding onto the wounds of their parents.

The block quote above explains the struggle between the first two couples. Andrew dies in the war a few years into their marriage and this is what it means when Karol Wojtyla says “human existence seems to short.” (88) On the contrary when Wojtyla says, “human love seems to short in relation to existence,” this represents what Anna and Stefan are presented with – a lack of love many years into their marriage.

At the heart of Wojtyla’s philosophy of love is this idea of the individual’s human existence. Teresa and Andrew seem to understand this concept very well. Metaphysically Andrew sees that Teresa is her own person affected deeply by the actions he makes and vice versa. We see this when the character Andrew states, “Teresa was a whole world, just as distant as any other man, as any other woman  – and yet there was something that allowed one to think of throwing a bridge.” (25) Andrew begins to think of Teresa as his “alter ego,” meaning his second self. As he loves himself he should also love Teresa. Andrew and Teresa seem to understand metaphysically what marriage implies which is a totality of existence with one another. They seem to hold onto the past tightly while also scared of the future, but trust that the other will love the other’s existence wherever that may lead.

In the couple of Anna and Stefan we see deep hurt in the person of Anna. Stefan only cares deeply about his existence and intern Anna has lost what it means to love another’s existence. They seem to lack fondness for the other which is essential in love. Fondness is an act of the will which sees good in the other person. Anna has completely lost this and is quite frightened when she sees the face of Stefan as the one she is to love. There is an internal ethic debate that Anna has within herself trying to see if she can find love in another man. What she is confused with is the totality of what love is as is explained to her by a connecting character between all the couples, Adam, who says,

“The surface of love has its current – swift, flickering, changeable. This current is sometimes so stunning that it carries people away – women and man. They get carried away by the thought that they have absorbed the whole secret of love, but in fact they have not yet even touched it.” (58)

Anna sees at the end of her vision “the Bridegroom,” who represents the sacrificial love that we are suppose to show as Christ did. She sees the face of Stefan in the Bridegroom and asks at the end of her act “Why? Why?” She wants the surface level current and is considering doing anything to be swept away by the current, but at the end of her act she is faced with this deeper love that we see present in the first couple. Will she will this love or be swept away by the current? This is what we are left with to ponder as so is she.

Lastly we see the idea of love affecting us psychologically in the characters of Monica and Christopher. They both seem to be affected by the way their parents loved. Monica being deeply affected by the lack of love shown between her parents and Christopher being bold in his love, but also fearful for his bride-to-be because of the fate of his father. Monica asks the question so deeply wounded in her heart, “Is human love at all capable of enduring through man’s whole existence?” (75) There is this great fear that Christopher will love like Monica’s father did, but Christopher is different, he is like his Father Andrew. It ends with Monica and Christopher going off as the character Adam states,

“They have simply gone to ponder for a while: the create something, to reflect the absolute Existence and Love,

must be the most wonderful of all!” (90)

This creation is this bridge that Christopher’s father ponders so deeply on how to create between him and his spouse. This bridge between two individual Existences. Love is the gap between these two Existences, not the current that Anna desires to be swept up in when we first meet her. This love of benevolence that will’s the good of another’s Existence. Love never is but only constantly becomes and is constantly being created throughout the human Existence.

 

The Unity of Marriage

 

“Thus that you may always remember what you owe him, do not love these things instead of him or alongside him, but love them for his sake; love him through them and beyond them.” – Hugh of St. Victor

Two medieval theologians, Hugh of St. Victor and St. Thomas Aquinas, give us a very sound theology on marriage. In their theology we can see it reflected into the different marriage rites that the Catholic Church has proclaimed.

From Hugh of St. Victor, we see in his theology a desire for restoration through the sacraments. The sacraments point to what God desired before the fall and Hugh of St. Victor speaks on how marriage does exactly that. In the Liber Ordinum, which would’ve been the marriage rite used at the time of Hugh of St. Victor and St. Thomas Aquinas it states, “O God, when the world itself was new-born you shaped woman out of the bone of man, for the purpose of continuing the human race, thereby revealing the unity of genuine love.” (IV 3a) The rite used today would also allow for the reading from Genesis 2 which speaks of this forming of woman from the side of man. All of this points to the theology of Hugh of St. Victor which speaks of return to the original destiny of humanity.

From Aquinas we receive a very dense theology of the sacrament of marriage. Aquinas gives us beautiful imagery on marriage in comparison to Christ as spouse to the Church. Aquinas says in Question 42 Article 1, “Although Matrimony is not conformed to Christ’s Passion as regards pain, it is as regards charity, whereby He suffered for the Church who was to be united to Him as His spouse.” In the present marriage rite that would recommend the use of the reading from Paul to the Ephesians we can see a comparison to Aquinas’s theology which states, “Husbands, love you wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her..” (Eph 5:25)

In using Aquinas and Hugh of St. Victor as a lens for reading the two different rites from the Church we can see a development of theology throughout the years. In reading my classmates blogs I saw an emphasis that the difference between the two rites was in the understanding of the meaning of unity between spouses. At the time of Aquinas and Hugh of St. Victor, the rite used could be seen with more of an emphasis on the groom and less on the role of the bride. Although it could be seen as this I would like to say that both emphasize the role of the spouses as being servants to one another. In the present rite a reading used at weddings could be from Paul to the Ephesians which states, “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the Church.” (Ephesians 5:21) As spoke about above, the husband is suppose to love his bride as Christ loved the Church. This was not a role of tyranny or power, but a complete role of servitude. Both rites emphasize this role of servant by the husband, but we must see it through the lens of the proper time period in order to understand that in the rite used at the time of Aquinas and Hugh of St. Victor

I do agree with my classmates that it is important that the current rite gives more emphasis to both spouses, but I would hope that we would not get rid of the understanding of a husband loving his spouse as Christ loved the Church. Yes, we must emphasize the role of a wife in relation her husband, but this does not mean that we lose the understanding of the role of the husband in relation to his wife. Aquinas states about this relationship and this unity as he says, “(Marriage) represents the mystery of Christ’s union with the Church, and in this respect it is a sacrament of the New Law. As regards other advantages resulting from matrimony, such as friendship and mutual services which husband and wife render one another…” (Q 42 Article 2) To say that Aquinas and Hugh of St. Victor fail to understand the mutual role of spouses would be misinterpreting their theology. We should be developing more complex and deeper theology a 1,000 years post Aquinas and Hugh of St. Victor, but this does not mean we disregard what they have to say, nor would the Church in Her current rite claim to do so.

The First Bridegroom

Note: This is a post for week 4 of the class on the Old Testament and New Testament

“Nevertheless, before Jesus displayed his wisdom as a teacher, before he exercised his authority as an exorcist, and before he manifested his power as a healer, the first thing he did was perform a miracle in which he, though unmarried, deliberately acted like a Jewish bridegroom by providing wine for a wedding.” – Jesus the Bridegroom (35)

In our lesson on the Old Testament and the New Testament in relationship to the nuptial mystery the point that took hold was that the Bible starts with a wedding feast (in Genesis) and ends with a wedding feast (in Revelation). With that point made we can see the climax of this understanding of marriage comes with the person of Christ. This lens of Scripture can help us understand God’s relationship to us in a unique and intimate way.

In Genesis God speaks and says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26) To be created in the image of God was to radically give oneself over in gift to other as God did for us. There was no other reason for God to create than to give himself as gift to us. Therefore, in this reading that can be used at Catholic weddings as we see from http://www.foryourmarriage.org/ we see that marriage points back to the original destiny of humanity to be total self gift.

As we know this original destiny of humanity becomes disordered through the fall but the Lord as Bridegroom does not abandon his people. As it says in another wedding reading from Jeremiah, “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” (Jeremiah 31:31) This new covenant is the Lord giving himself as gift to the people of Israel as he did at creation, and the Israelites will give themselves back to God alone. In our lecture it was quite interesting to see that the people of Israel had monogamous marriages unlike some other cultures because the Israelite’s marriages were in reflection of their communion with a ONE TRUE GOD, unlike other cultures and their worships of many gods.

Lastly, as said in the beginning of this post, this covenant  culminates with the person of Christ. Jesus comes to restore what communion looked like before the fall of Adam and Eve. We can see this in his first miracle of turning water into wine. As it says in the Scriptures Jesus provides an abundance of wine, which as Brant Pitre suggests shows that “Jesus is also beginning to suggest that the prophecies of the divine bridegroom are being fulfilled in him.” (45) This image of Jesus as Bridegroom begins to reveal itself at the Wedding of Cana and ultimately Jesus consummates this relationship as the Bridegroom for his people from the cross. Jesus from the cross shows his perfect love for all of humanity and therefore gives us a way in which we respond back to him in total self gift.

Paul in his letter to Ephesians clarify this imagery as he says, “Live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us. Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5: 21) Through all of this imagery presented in Scripture we can come to a fuller understanding of how husbands and wives are suppose to love one another – in total self gift as Christ did for us on the cross.

A Kiss

“Let me kiss him with the kiss of my mouth”
Song of Songs 1:1 

From Bernard of Clairvaux’s  we receive a commentary on the Song of Songs. Bernard defended the importance of this book of the Bible and why it is important in contemplation and prayer. Some monks declared that this book was too scandalous for the monks to read, but Bernard showed its importance in channeling our ultimate desire for the Lord. Bernard used the Song of Songs with its specificity of language to point to our ultimate desire for God and how that can be founded in bodily imagery.

Bernard uses the imagery of the kiss to describe the soul ordered correctly. He says, “The one who asks for a kiss, she is a lover.” (pg. 39) The soul properly ordered is the one that asks to be kissed by the Lord. He uses this imagery because he knows at this time there is a handful of monks that are entering into the monastery with previous experience of bodily love. With this experience comes the memory of previous desire and Bernard is asking the monk to exclaim to the Lord “kiss me with the kiss of your mouth.! He is saying to not attempt to will away this desire but to direct this desire towards the Lord. Bernard describes this desire as a “holy love, the impulse of an upright spirit rather an of carnal desire.” (pg. 39) Bernard shares that this kiss from the Lord can be seen in the beauty of the world and if our soul is properly ordered then this desire will be fulfilled. We can also find from Hildegard of Bingen’s in her book Scivias, the idea of this kiss being found in the mass specifically in the Holy Sacrifice. This act of eating can be seen as a way to eliminate the carnal instinctual desire and be converted to the holy and pure kiss that Bernard speaks of.

Although Bernard is using the imagery from Song of Songs to speak to his audience at the monastery, we can read it today in order to understand a spirituality of marriage.  As Bernard says, “we conclude that this kiss leaves room neither for ignorance nor for lukewarmness.” (49) We can see that this kiss from Bernard is bold and it hides nothing. As Tim O’Malley said in his lecture, this kiss isn’t a date trying to be smooth by beating around the bush of what they may want. I thought of the cultural trend of “Netflix and Chill,” which forwardly stated “I am just coming over to watch tv with you,” but eventually led to uncommitted and unspoken about sex as we talked about in the post about hookup culture. This is the complete opposite of the kiss Bernard is speaking of, and it is a kiss with the purest intentions that doesn’t hold back. Using the imagery of the Holy Spirit he describes this kiss as an “unshakeable bond,” an “undivided love,” and an “indivisible unity.” (46)

From this understanding of how the Lord loves us, we can learn how spouses are called to love one another in the sacrament of marriage. It is through the kiss of the Lord that spouses have the ability to kiss one another in total self-gift.The way that the Lord kisses us, as Bernard describes, is the mark that every spouse should strive for in their love for their spouse.

 

St. Augustine on Marriage

“Hence we do well to want good things when we have need of them; but we do better not wanting them than wanting them, because we are better off when we do not find them necessary.” – St. Augustine 

St. Augustine attempts to explain and order two goods and these two goods being marriage and consecrated life. In his description he speaks of the necessity of marriage for the continuation of society and with that labels marriage as a good. He also does not shy away from his opinion that he believes that consecrated life is a better good than marriage, which he would admit does not belittle marriage in anyway, but shows that they are both good, one just better.

An important perspective to have from St. Augustine’s writings is that he does not want us, the readers, to believe that we are looking at marriage as the lesser of two evils. As he says, “We do not call it (marriage) good merely because it is good in comparison with fornication. In that case they would be two evils, one worse than the other.” (8) He emphasizes that fornication and adultery are evils because they are all actions out of lust where as in marriage he describes three things that make marriage a good.

The modern Church today understands the importance of marriage because of the bringing about of children, the fidelity, and the sacramental bond and this is rooted in the writings of Augustine. This is why marriage is not considered an evil, but a good.

Augustine also emphasizes that one’s state of life, married or consecrated, does not necessarily make them holy simply because the two states of life in themselves point to holiness. The sacrament of marriage and the vocation of consecrated life allow for grace to be given in order for a good and a holy life to be lived. But, if this grace is not accepted and lived out then just because someone is in consecrated life or marriage, does not mean they are automatically better than anyone else. As he says, “Just as meals of good people are better than the fasts of the sacrilegious, so too the marriages of the faithful are superior to the virginity of irreligious woman.” (8)

With that, it is vital to realize that marriage allows the person to be holy through grace. What is interesting about Augustine’s point is that Augustine believes that sex should only be for the procreation of children and not merely for pleasure within marriage. He believes it to be a venial sin when in marriage people have sex just for the reason to fulfill sensual pleasures. With his point, there seems to be a lack of understanding of sex correlating with the sacrament. To his view, the only good that comes out of sex is children, where as the rest of sex is simply us fulfilling our own desires. There is a lack of theology of sex as a gift to one’s spouse.

To conclude, this quote gives a very good perspective on Augustine’s opinion on married life and consecrated life:

“So too we praise the excellence of Susanna in her married chastity, but value more highly the excellence of the widow Anna, and even more that of the virgin Mary.”

Sacramental Theology (In Brief)

“It is in this sense that the being-Christ of Jesus, although depending essentially on God, is not separable from the Church. The function of the sacraments is precisely to symbolize this indissoluble marriage.” – Louis-Marie Chauvet

In the last blog post we established where the culture places itself in the topic of marriage. In this blog post we will attempt to lay the foundation of what the true meaning of marriage is. In order to lay that foundation we must understand sacramental theology and we will do that with the help of Chauvet and Ratzinger.

To begin we must understand that the Church is the place to where the sacraments reside. Without Christ as the head there is no Church, but if there was only Christ and no bridegroom (the Church) there would be no place for Christ to be mediated. We need both Christ and his Bridegroom, the Church, in order for us to be in right relationship with God.

As Chauvet continues in his book The Sacraments he speaks extensively on the idea of symbol. Chauvet wants to emphasize the symbolic nature of the sacraments because it takes faith to understand what the sacraments are symbolizing. If there is no faith the sacraments can do no good as symbols. As Chauvet says, “the fruitfulness of this gift (the sacraments) is in those who receive it, that is, the reception they give to this gift as grace, depends on their faith.” (pg. 94) Faith in the symbol is key to understand the nature of the sacrament.

Bridging the gap between Chauvet and Ratzinger is understanding sacrament relating to our human experience. Chauvet emphasizes that the sacraments need to encompass the fullness of humanity and through this lens emphasizes our understanding of symbol in all phases in life. With Ratzinger we see this understanding more deeply related to the sacraments themselves.

“In a word: he (God) appears as the personal God who is knowledge and love and who therefore is word and love with respect to us. Word that calls us, and the love that unites us.” – Joseph Ratzinger

This quote is so telling because it answers the question of “why sacraments?” The sacraments are for us as Ratzinger says, “with respect to us.” The sacraments of symbols and signs of love that point to God’s desire to unite with humanity. There is no way on our own might that we can come to know who God is, but the sacraments bridge that gap between humanity and heaven and give us a glimpse into God’s love for us.

This theology of sacrament is vital in laying our foundation for the sacrament of marriage. With this understanding of symbol from Chauvet and the love of God presented in the sacraments from Ratzinger we can have a deeper understanding of marriage.

The Hookup Culture

“The cultural conversation surrounding hookup culture should be about what we want our young people to get out of sex. It should offer a wide range of models for good sex and romantic relationship, with hooking up as one option among many.” – The End of Sex 

Donna Freitas authors a book titled The End of Sex where she makes attempts to prove why the hookup culture is so unhealthy especially for the young adult population. For myself I have heard many talks from different Christian speakers on why saving sex for marriage is the healthiest and best way to live life for yourself and your future spouse and I am sold on their argument. But the fact of the matter, is that many other people dismiss this argument and the culture itself that is rooted in casual sex shows otherwise.

Therefore, Donna Freitas makes few claims on where the proper place for sex should be, but she does claim how the hookup culture is causing sex to become unfulfilling and causing a generation to be “confused about intimacy.” She claims that the hookup culture has people chained and powerless and that sex becomes something one does to fulfill social norms.

The culture creates lies about what sex really is. The hookup culture claims that sex must become completely detached from all feelings or communication with your partner, while in reality this only creates a culture of students having unfulfilling sex. The hookup culture tells young adults that by having casual sex they are doing something that is liberating while in reality they have become a slave to the demands of culture.

“Love, loved for itself, inevitably ends as self-love, in the phenomenological figure of self-idolatry.” – Prolegomena to Charity 

Donna Freitas, I believe, does a fantastic job at showing why the hookup culture is perpetuated. She does it in a revolutionary way and the first step in fixing the problem is identifiying the problem, but I think in finding further answers we should turn to someone like Jean-Luc Marion. Prolegomena to Charity authored by Jean-Luc Marion is helpful in understanding how we can love people instead of particpating in the hookup culture.

We see in Freitas description of the hookup culture, sex is something that one does for the sake of themself. Jean-Luc Marion claims that this is something that is easy to do because when we think that we are loving someone else we are simply loving the qualities that we love in ourselves. When we particpate in this, we love not another person, but we love only ourselves. In summary, Marion is attempting to show how to love another is by accepting the other as a pure gift. If each person realizes that they are a gift to be given to another instead of an object to be used then this understanding could be an antedote to the hookup culture.

Jean-Luc Marion says that practically this can be accomplished through the gaze which allows us to realize that the other is pure gift through looking at the pupil of their eye instead of understanding them as an object to be used for our own love. As Marion says, “Of the forever invisible other, of whom I can never say that I see him as such (precisely because it is I who see), I know at least that he aims at me, as the objective of his invisible intentional aim.”  By loving another we are asking another to accept the being that we are, while we in return accept the person who they are knowing quite fully that they are a unique gift not to be maniupulated and used for our own wants and desires.