Theology of the Body
Blessed John Paul II developed his theology of the body in 129 Wednesday audiences.
The Two Ends of Marriage
God has given marriage two great purposes: union of husband and wife, and the procreation of and care for children. Each marital act is a renewal of the vows of marriage and is, in that sense, re-creational or, in our current language, recreational.
The two ends are inseparable.[1] One cannot be achieved without the other, nor can one be opposed to the other. Both ends affect how we think about the virtue of chastity in marriage.
The real distinction between them comes into play when considering the sacredness, beauty, meaning, and value of union at a time when the couple know with a very high degree of certitude that they cannot become pregnant through this particular marital act (long-term problems with conception; being in the infertile phase of the monthly cycle; after menopause; sterilized by surgery or side-effects of drugs taken to heal the body; etc.). In such cases, they should act with confidence that their power of union is from God and is pleasing to God, even though they are morally certain that they cannot become pregnant.
In other words, the traditional priority given to the end of procreation does not lead to the absurdity lampooned by Monte Python in one of their more vulgar and anti-Catholic skits. Catholic couples do not have to try to achieve pregnancy every time they unite, nor is their union at such times in any way a "second class" activity.
The two Genesis stories present both ends of marriage. In Genesis 1, the "first commandment" of Torah (according to the count of 613 commandments made by the rabbis) is "be fruitful and multiply." But in Genesis 2, when Adam sees Eve for the first time, the only description given is that "the two become one flesh." No mention is made of procreation in that passage. Similarly, the Song of Songs talks only about the joy of union (and the sorrows that come from disunion), but never mentions procreation as a consequence of union.
References
- ↑ Cormac Burke, "Marriage: a personalist or an institutional understanding?". Communio 19 (1992), 278-304.