Before becoming the Holy Father, Saint Pope John Paul II worked on a book, to lead all of us to a true appreciation of marriage, family, and human sexuality. As he was called to the chair of Peter before his book was published, he used his notes for weekly general audiences, across a span of five years. In what follows, I quote from the original English translations of those addresses. In 2007, Dr. Michael Waldstein published updated translations, under the title: “Man and Woman He Created Them.”

PART 1 - THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY

As per Saint Pope John Paul II, his “Theology of the Body” catechesis “can be grasped under the title, ‘Human Love in the Divine Plan,” or with greater precision, ‘the Redemption of the body and the Sacramentality of Marriage’.... The first part is devoted to the analysis of the words of Christ" (11/28/84).

Chapter 1: “Christ Appeals to the ‘Beginning’”

In his earliest audiences, Saint Pope John Paul II deeply explores the opening chapters of Genesis and how Christ called humanity to return to this "beginning" with regard to marriage. In spite of all the wonders God had created, the first man was "alone" until God made the first woman – man’s "suitable partner." Before the Fall, before original sin, this husband and wife were completely transparent gifts to each other – "naked, yet they felt no shame." God Himself called them to sexual intercourse and procreation! "Be fertile and multiply." Saint Pope John Paul II offers what Dr. Waldstein calls “an integral vision” of marriage:

“Twice during the dialogue with the Pharisees who questioned Him about the indissolubility of marriage, Jesus Christ appealed to the ‘beginning’” (9/5/79).
“among the answers that Christ would give to the people of our times and to their questions, often so impatient, fundamental would still be the one he gave to the Pharisees….Christ would appeal first of all to the ‘beginning’....By doing so, does He not want to say that the way on which He leads man, male and female, in the sacrament of Marriage, namely the way of the ‘redemption of the body,’ must consist in retrieving this dignity, in which the true meaning of the human body, its meaning as personal and ‘of communion,’ is fulfilled at the same time?” (4/2/80)

Chapter 2: “Christ Appeals to the Human Heart”

Those opening pages of Genesis are a phenomenal look at God’s original plan for monogamous, lifelong spousal relationships – between one man and one woman – which would be His platform for continuing His work of creation. Spousal relationships changed for the worse after original sin. Throughout much of the Old Testament, we see that “adultery” was understood in a very limited, one-sided sense; i.e., as a man taking another man’s wife (in the sense of stealing another’s property) but not as having extra wives or concubines!

Christ proclaimed the necessity of purity of heart, reminding us that adultery can be committed in the heart – even with one’s lawful spouse! Marriage is not a license for licentiousness! To treat one’s husband or one’s wife as a mere means for sexual gratification – as property, as an object – is a far cry from what God intended and is adultery. Despite the Church’s constant teaching against contraceptives, for example, American Catholic married couples are reported to use contraceptives as frequently as non-Catholics. Have American Catholics somehow forgotten that these are serious sins?

We are called to live in a manner which proclaims the incredible value of the human body and of sexual relations in marriage, according to God’s original plan. The fact that we are “temples of the Holy Spirit” makes reverence for the body and sexual relations in marriage all the more essential!

“the relationship of reciprocal gift which existed between them in the state of original innocence, changed after original sin into a relationship of reciprocal appropriation ….The word of Genesis 3:16 seem to suggest that this happens more at the woman’s expense and that in any case she feels it worse than the man….the man ought to have been ‘from the beginning’ the guardian of the reciprocity of the gift and of its true balance….the man has a special responsibility, as if it depended more on him whether the balance is kept or violated or even – if it has already been violated - reestablished” (7/30/80)
“By adultery one understood only the possession of another’s wife, but not the possession of other women as wives, next to the first one. The whole tradition of the Old Covenant indicates that the essential and indispensable implication of the commandment ‘You shall not commit adultery’ never reached the consciousness and ethos of the later generations of the Chosen People….adultery is not understood, by contrast, as it appears from the point of view of the monogamy established by the Creator. We know already that Christ appealed to the ‘beginning’ precisely concerning this matter (see Mt 19: 8)” (8/13/80).
“It is perhaps useful to add that in the interpretation of the Old Testament, while the prohibition of adultery is marked – one might say – by a compromise with the concupiscence of the body, the opposition to sexual deviations is clearly defined….the marriage law of the Old Testament places the procreative end of marriage in the foreground” (8/20/80)
“the prophets reveal a different meaning of adultery than the legislative tradition gives it. Adultery is sin because it is the breaking of the personal covenant between the man and the woman” (8/27/80).
“‘you have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you: Whoever looks at a woman to desire her [in a reductive way] has already committed adultery with her in his heart’…. Adultery ‘in the heart’ is not committed only because the man ‘looks’ in this way at a woman who is not his wife, but precisely because he looks in this way at a woman. Even if he were to look in this way at the woman who is his wife, he would commit the same adultery ‘in the heart’” “We have pointed out earlier that the legislation of the Old Testament, although it contained many harsh punishments, did not contribute toward ‘fulfilling the law,’ because its casuistry was marked by many compromises with the concupiscence of the flesh….Christ by contrast teaches that one fulfills the commandment by ‘purity of heart,’ in which human beings cannot share without firmness in facing everything that has its origin in concupiscence of the flesh. ‘Purity of heart’ is gained by the one who knows how to be consistently demanding toward his ‘heart’: toward his ‘heart’ and toward his ‘body’”(10/8/80)
“the Christian ethos is characterized by a transformation of the human person’s conscience and attitudes…such as to express and realize the value of the body and of sex according to the Creator’s original plan, placed as they are at the service of the ‘communion of persons,’ which is the deepest substratum of human ethics and culture. While for the Manichean mentality, the body and sexuality constitute, so to speak, an ‘anti-value,’ for Christianity, on the contrary, they always remain ‘a value not sufficiently appreciated’” (10/22/80)
“purity – purity of heart, about which Christ speaks in the Sermon on the Mount – is realized precisely in life ‘according to the Spirit’”(12/10/80) “according to him [St. Paul], a sin against the body is also a ‘profaning of the temple….The fact that we ‘were bought at a great price’ (1 Cor 6:20), the price of Christ’s act of redemption, makes precisely a new special commitment spring forth, namely, the duty of ‘keeping one’s own body with holiness and reverence’” (2/11/81).
“Purity as a virtue or ability of ‘keeping one’s body with holiness and reverence,’ allied with the gift of piety as a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in the ‘temple’ of the body, causes in the body such a fullness of dignity in interpersonal relations that God himself is thereby glorified” (3/18/81)
“the words of Christ to which we have devoted a lengthy analysis had no other goal than the appreciation of the dignity of marriage and family” (4/8/81)
“Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae underlines the necessity of ‘creating a climate favorable to education in chastity” (5/6/81).

Chapter 3: “Christ Appeals to the Resurrection”

Our marriages must proclaim what Christ tells us about eternal life! "At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in Heaven" (Matthew 22: 30). Saint Pope John Paul II looks at what the resurrection reveals about marriage, as well as at foregoing marriage "for the kingdom." Marriage and procreation are incredible goods of monumental importance, intended to lead us to salvation. Though men and women will not be married and will not bear children in Heaven, we will be drawn even closer to each other, in God! With our present finite understandings, the awesomeness of this eludes our grasps....We are meant to see God face-to-face!

““we should go back to the words of the Gospel in which Christ appeals to the resurrection, words that have a fundamental importance for understanding marriage in the Christian sense and also the ‘renunciation’ of conjugal life ‘for the kingdom of heaven’” (11/11/81)
[Marriage] “belongs exclusively ‘to this world.’ Marriage and procreation do not constitute man’s eschatological future” (12/2/81).
“In the resurrection, the body will return to perfect unity and harmony with the spirit; man will no longer experience the opposition between what is spiritual and what is bodily in him. ‘Spiritualization’ signifies not only that the spirit will master the body, but, I would say, that it will also fully permeate the body and the powers of the spirit will permeate the energies of the body…. This ‘eschatological experience’ of the Living God will…reveal to him in a living and experiential way the ‘self-communication’ of God to everything created and, in particular, to man….Eternal life should be understood in an eschatological sense, that is, as the full and perfect experiences of the grace (charis) of God in which man can share through faith during his earthly life” (12/9/81).
“For the construction of this image – which corresponds in its content to the article of our profession of faith, ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body’ – a great contribution is provided by the awareness that there is a connection between earthly experience and the whole dimension of man’s biblical ‘beginning’ in the world” (1/13/82).
“The resurrection is not, therefore, only a manifestation of life that conquers death – a final return, as it were, to the tree of Life, which man was distanced from at the moment of original sin – but also a revelation of man’s destiny in all the fullness of his psychosomatic nature and of his personal subjectivity….This ‘heavenly man’ – the man of the resurrection, whose prototype is the risen Christ – is not so much the antithesis and negation of the ‘man of the earth’ (whose prototype is the ‘first Adam’) but above all his fulfillment and confirmation” (2/3/82).
“St. Paul’s entire anthropology (and ethics) are permeated by the mystery of the resurrection, by which we have definitively received the Holy Spirit” (2/10/82).
“Christ speaks about continence ‘for’ the kingdom of heaven. In this way he wants to underline that this state, when it is consciously chosen by man in temporal life, the life in which human beings ‘take wife and take husband’ has a single supernatural finality. Even if it is consciously chosen and personally decided, continence without this finality does not enter into the content of Christ’s statement….Christ emphasizes – at least indirectly – that, in earthly life, this choice is connected with renunciation and also with a determined spiritual effort” (3/17/82).
“continence ‘for the kingdom of heaven’ carries above all the imprint of likeness to Christ who himself made this choice ‘for the kingdom of heaven’” (3/24/82).
“The ‘superiority’ of continence to marriage never means, in the authentic tradition of the Church, a disparagement of marriage or a belittling of its essential value” (4/7/82).
“The perfection of Christian life is measured, rather, by the measure of love…Still the evangelical counsels undoubtedly help one to reach a fuller love….spousal love that finds its expression in continence ‘for the kingdom of heaven’ must lead in its normal development to ‘fatherhood’ or ‘motherhood’ in the spiritual sense….physical generation also fully corresponds to its meaning only if it is completed by fatherhood and motherhood in the spirit, whose expression and fruit is the whole educational work of the parents in regard to the children born of their bodily conjugal union” (4/14/82).
“If someone chooses marriage, he must choose it exactly as it was instituted by the Creator ‘from the beginning’; he must seek in it those values that correspond to the plan of God; if on the other hand someone decides to follow continence for the kingdom of heaven, he must seek in it the values proper to such a vocation. In other words, he must act in conformity with his chosen vocation”….It is a characteristic feature of the human heart to accept even difficult demands in the name of love, of an ideal, and above all in the name of love for a person….in this call to continence ‘for the kingdom of heaven,’ first the disciples and then the whole living tradition of the Church quickly discovered the love for Christ himself as the Bridegroom of the Church, Bridegroom of souls, to whom he has given himself to the end (cf. Jn 13:1; 19:30) in the mystery of his Passover and of the Eucharist. In this way ‘continence’ for the kingdom of heaven,’ the choice of virginity or celibacy for one’s whole life, has become in the experience of the disciples and followers of Christ the act of a particular response to the love of the Divine Bridegroom, and therefore acquired the meaning of an act of spousal love, that is, of a spousal gift of self with the end of answering in a particular way the Redeemer’s spousal love; a gift of self understood as a renunciation, but realized above all out of love” (4/21/82).
“Contemporary mentality has become accustomed to think and speak above all about the sexual instinct, thereby transferring to the terrain of human reality what is proper to the world of living beings, to the animalia. Now, a deepened reflection on the concise text of Genesis 1-2 allows us to show with certainty and conviction that ‘from the beginning’ a clear and unambiguous boundary is drawn between the world of the animals (animalia) and man created in the image and likeness of God” (4/28/82).
“a conscious and voluntary renunciation of marriage….is possible only when one admits an authentic consciousness of the value constituted by the spousal disposition of masculinity and femininity for marriage” (5/5/82).
“The Apostle underlines with great clarity that voluntary virginity or continence flows only from a counsel and not a commandment” (6/23/82).
“St. Paul clearly says that both conjugal relations and the voluntary periodic abstinence of the spouses must be a fruit of the ‘gift of God,’ which is their ‘own,’ and that the spouses themselves by consciously cooperating with it, can keep up and strengthen their reciprocal personal bond together with the dignity that being ‘temples[s] of the Holy Spirit who is in [them]’ (see Cor 6:19) confers on their bodies” (7/14/82).
“To understand all that ‘the redemption of the body’ implies…, an authentic theology of the body is necessary. We have attempted to build one, appealing first of all to the words of Christ. The constitutive elements of the theology of the body are contained in what Christ says when he appeals to the ‘beginning’ concerning the question of the indissolubility of marriage (see Mt 19:8), in what he says about concupiscence when he appeals to the human heart in the Sermon on the Mount (See Mt 5:28), and also in what he says when he appeals to the resurrection (see Mt 22:30)….The ‘redemption of the body’…expresses itself not only in the resurrection as a victory over death. It is present also in the words of Christ addressed to ‘historical’ man….In his everyday life, man must draw from the mystery of the redemption of the body” (7/21/82).

PART 2 - THE SACRAMENTALITY OF MARRIAGE

As per Saint Pope John Paul II, “The second part of the catechesis is devoted to the analysis of the sacrament based on Ephesians (Eph 5:22 - 23), which goes back to the biblical beginning of marriage expressed in the words of Genesis, ‘a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will be one flesh’ (Gen 2:24)” (11/28/84).

Chapter 1: “The Dimension of Covenant and Grace”

Saint Pope John Paul II offers a profound reflection on marriage as a sacrament. A sacrament is not a mere sign or symbol; it is an efficacious sign. It makes real what it signifies. As the ministers of the sacrament, are not husbands and wives intended to be spiritual directors – of sorts – to each other?

“The sacrament is a sign of grace, and it is an efficacious sign” (7/28/82).
“Husband and wife are, in fact, ‘subject to one another,’ mutually subordinated to one another. The source of this reciprocal submission lies in Christian pietas and its expression is love….Love excludes every kind of submission by which the wife would become a servant or slave of the husband, an object of one-sided submission. Love makes the husband simultaneously subject to the wife, and subject to the Lord himself, as the wife is to the husband. The community or unity that they should constitute because of marriage is realized through a reciprocal gift, which is also a mutual submission. Christ is the source and at the same time the model of that submission….the reciprocal relationship between the spouses, husband and wife, should be understood by Christians according to the image of the relationship between Christ and the Church….marriage corresponds to the vocation of Christians only when it mirrors the love that Christ, the Bridegroom, gives to the Church, his Bride, and which the Church (in likeness to the wife who is ‘subject,’ and tus completely given) seeks to give back to Christ in return….the mystery of the redemption of the body conceals within itself in some sense the mystery ‘of the marriage of the Lamb’ (see Rev 19:7)” (8/11/82).
“The expression according to which man ‘nourishes and cares’ for his own flesh – that is, the husband nourishes and cares for his wife’s flesh as for his own….referring to care for the body, and above all for its nourishment, to providing food for it, suggest to a number of Scripture scholars a reference to the Eucharist, with which Christ, in his spousal love, ‘feeds’ the Church….they help us at the same time to understand, at least in a genera way, the dignity of the body and the moral imperative to care for its good ” (9/1/82)
“the visible sign of marriage ‘in the beginning,’ inasmuch as it is linked to the visible sign of Christ and the Church on the summit of God’s saving economy, transposes the eternal plan of love into the ‘historical’ dimension and makes it the foundation of the whole sacramental order” (9/29/82).
“As for marriage, one can deduce that – instituted in the context of the sacrament of creation in its totality, or in the state of original innocence – it was to serve not only to extend the work of creation, or procreation, but also to spread the same sacrament of creation to future generations” (10/6/82) [In spite of original sin] “marriage has remained the platform for the realization of God’s eternal plans, according to which the sacrament of creation had come near to human beings and prepared them for the sacrament of redemption, introducing them into the dimension of the work of salvation” (10/13/82). “all the sacraments of the New Covenant find their prototype in some way in marriage as the primordial sacrament” (10/20/82).
“When Christ, in the presence of his interlocutors in Matthew and Mark (see Mt 19; Mk: 10) confirms marriage as a sacrament instituted by the Creator ‘at the beginning’ – when he accordingly requires its indissolubility – he thereby opens marriage to the salvific action of God, to the powers flowing ‘from the redemption of the body’, which help to overcome the consequences of sin and to build the unity of man and woman according to the Creator’s eternal plan. The salvific action deriving from the mystery of redemption takes into itself God’s original sanctifying action in the very mystery of creation….Redemption becomes at the same time the basis for understanding the particular dignity of the human body….redemption is given to man as the grace of the new covenant with God in Christ – and at the same time it is assigned to him as ethos, as the form of morality that corresponds to the action of God in the mystery of redemption” (11/24/82)
“marriage is an efficacious expression of the saving power of God….As a sacramental expression of that saving power, marriage is also an exhortation to gain mastery over concupiscence….A fruit of this mastery is the unity and indissolubility of marriage and…the deepened sense of the woman’s dignity in the man’s heart (as also the man’s dignity in the woman’s heart)….life ‘according to the spirit’ expresses itself also in the reciprocal ‘union’… by which the spouses…submit …to the blessing of procreation….in the deep awareness of the holiness of the life (sacrum) to which both give rise, thereby participating in the powers of the mystery of creation” (12/1/82)
“the author of Ephesians speaks about a ‘great mystery’ linked with the primordial sacrament through the continuity of God’s salvific plan….That ‘great mystery’ is above all the mystery of the union of Christ with the Church, which the Apostle presents in the likeness of the unity of spouses….The union of Christ with the Church allows us to understand in what way the spousal meaning of the body is completed by the redemptive meaning…not only in marriage or ‘continence’…, but also, for example, in the many kinds of human suffering, indeed in man’s very birth and death” (12/15/82).

Chapter 2: “The Dimension of Sign”

Much has been written about "body language." Police investigators look for signals from the body, which betray deceit on a person’s lips. Even the most sexually promiscuous person cannot escape the reality that sexual intercourse speaks a "language of the body." Sexual intercourse proclaims committed love and openness to new life. Hence, "one night stands" – even for so-called "consenting adults" – involve lying with the body.

Marriage does not mean a license to use the sexual functions willy nilly. Using the sexual functions, in manners which cannot be open to life, similarly involves lying with the body.

As has been said, marriage is a sacrament – a "visible and efficacious sign." If our behavior reflects the body’s authentic language, we are "in the truth." Otherwise, we lie and are false prophets. Yet, rather than primarily accused and/or condemned, we are first called.

If our behavior reflects the body’s authentic language, we are “in the truth.” Otherwise, we lie and are false prophets. Yet, rather than primarily accused and/or condemned, we are first called. In Saint Pope John Paul II’s reflection on the language of the body, he looks closely at the Song of Songs and Tobit:

“the key for understanding marriage remains the reality of the sign with which marriage is constituted on the basis of man’s covenant with God in Christ and in the Church: it is constituted in the supernatural order of the sacred bond requiring grace. In this order, marriage is a visible and efficacious sign” (1/5/83).
“breaking the covenant signifies not only an infraction of the ‘covenant’ connected with the authority of the Supreme Legislator, but unfaithfulness and betrayal….In the prophetic texts about the covenant based on the analogy of the spousal union of the couple, it is the body itself that ‘speaks’….In the prophetic texts, the human body speaks a ‘language’ of which it is not the author. Its author is man, as male or female, as bridegroom or bride: man with his perennial vocation to the communion of persons. Yet, man is in some sense unable to express this singular language of his personal existence and vocation without the body….the ‘language of the body’ according to the prophets is not only a language of ethos, not only a song of praise for faithfulness and purity as well as a condemnation of ‘adultery’ and ‘prostitution’ ….the body tells the truth through faithfulness and conjugal love, and, when it commits ‘adultery’ it tells a lie, it commits falsehood….We can say that the essential element for marriage as a sacrament is the ‘language of the body’ reread in the truth. It is precisely through this that the sacramental sign is constituted” (1/12/83).
“A correct rereading ‘in the truth’ is an indispensable condition for proclaiming this truth or instituting the visible sign of marriage as a sacrament….On the basis of the ‘prophetism’ of the body, the ministers of the sacrament of Marriage perform an act of prophetic character….This perennial ‘language of the body’ bears within itself the whole richness and depth of the Mystery: first of creation, then of redemption….Into this truth of the sign, and consequently into the ethos of conjugal conduct, there is inserted, in a future-related perspective, procreative meaning of the body” (1/19/83).
“If the human being male and female – in marriage (and indirectly in all spheres of mutual life together) gives to his behavior a meaning in conformity with the fundamental truth of the language of the body, then he too ‘is in the truth’. In the opposite case, he commits lies and falsifies the language of the body….one can in this regard also use the biblical distinction between ‘true’ and ‘false’ prophets….man and woman are explicitly called to bear witness – by correctly using the ‘language of the body’ – to spousal and procreative love, a testimony of ‘true prophets’” (1/26/83).
“the ‘human heart’ is not so much ‘accused and condemned’ by Christ because of concupiscence…, but first of all ‘called’” (2/9/83).
“Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, ah, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down the mountains of Gilead ....Your lips are like a scarlet strand; your mouth is lovely. Your cheek is like a half-pomegranate behind your veil….Your breasts are like twin fawns, the young of a gazelle that browse among the lilies….You are all-beautiful, my beloved, and there is no blemish in you….You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride; you have ravished my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one bead of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride, how much more delightful is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your ointments than all spices! Your lips drip honey, my bride, sweetmeats and milk are under your tongue; And the fragrance of your garments is the fragrance of Lebanon. You are an enclosed garden, my sister, my bride, an enclosed garden, a fountain sealed.” (Song of Songs 4: 1,3,5,7,9-12) [In regard to the Song of Songs] “What was barely expressed in the second chapter of Genesis…is developed here in a full dialogue, or rather in a duet, in which the bridegroom’s words are interwoven with the bride’s, and they complete each other” (5/23/84).
“The ‘language of the body’ reread in the truth goes hand in hand with the discovery of the inner inviolability of the person. At the same time, precisely this discovery expresses the authentic depth of the reciprocal belonging of the spouses, who are conscious of belonging to each other, of being destined for each other: ‘My beloved is mine and I am his (Song 2:16)’” (5/30/84).
“The truth of love, which is proclaimed by the Song of Songs, cannot be separated from ‘the language of the body’….One has the impression that in encountering each other, reaching each other, experiencing closeness to each other, they ceaselessly continue to tend toward something….agape brings eros to fulfillment while purifying it” (6/6/84).
"Raguel…said to the boy [i.e., Tobiah]: ‘Eat and drink and be merry tonight, for no man is more entitled to marry my daughter Sarah than you, brother….I will explain the situation to you very frankly. I have given her in marriage to seven men, …and all died on the very night they approached her. But now, son, eat and drink. I am sure the Lord will look after you both’….[On that wedding night,] Tobiah arose from bed and said to his wife, ‘My love, get up. Let us pray and beg our Lord to have mercy on us and to grant us deliverance.’ She got up, and they started to pray and beg that deliverance might be theirs. He began with these words: ‘Blessed are you, O God of our fathers; praised be your name forever and ever. Let the heavens and all your creation praise you forever. You made Adam and you gave him his wife Eve to be his help and support; and from these two the human race descended. You said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; let us make him a partner like himself.” Now, Lord, you know that I take this wife of mine not because of lust, but for a noble purpose. Call down your mercy on me and on her, and allow us to live together to a happy old age.’ They said together, "Amen, amen," and went to bed for the night….Raguel got up and summoned his servants. With him they went out to dig a grave, for he said, ‘I must do this, because if Tobiah should die, we would be subjected to ridicule and insult.’ When they had finished digging the grave, Raguel went back into the house and called his wife, saying, “Send one of the maids in to see whether Tobiah is alive or dead, so that if necessary we may bury him without anyone's knowing about it.’ She sent the maid, who lit a lamp, opened the bedroom door, went in, and found them sound asleep together. The maid went out and told the girl's parents that Tobiah was alive, and that there was nothing wrong. Then Raguel praised the God of heaven in these words: ‘Blessed are you, O God, with every holy and pure blessing! Let all your chosen ones praise you; let them bless you forever! Blessed are you, who have made me glad; what I feared did not happen. Rather you have dealt with us according to your great mercy. Blessed are you, for you were merciful toward two only children. Grant them, Master, mercy and deliverance, and bring their lives to fulfillment with happiness and mercy’ (Tobit 7:10 – 8:17)....[In the book of Tobit] We read…that Sarah…had already ‘been given in marriage to seven men’ (Tob 6:15), but all had died before uniting with her. This had happened through the work of the evil spirit, and young Tobias too had reasons to fear a similar death….If loves proves to be strong as death, this happens above all in the sense that Tobias (and Sarah with him) go without hesitating toward this test. But in this test of life-or-death, life has the victory, because, during the test of the first wedding night, love supported by prayer is revealed as stronger than death….Here the ‘language of the body’ seems to use the words of choices and acts that spring from a love that is victorious because it prays….The spouses of the Song of Songs mutually declare their human love with ardent words. The new spouses in Tobit ask God that they may know how to respond to love. Both aspects find their place in what constitutes the sacramental sign of marriage. Both share in the formation of this sign….through one as well as the other, the ‘language of the body,’ reread both in the subjective dimension of the truth of human hearts and in the objective dimension of the truth of living in communion, becomes the language of the liturgy” (6/27/84).
“This seems to be the integral meaning of the sacramental sign of marriage. In this way, through the ‘language of the body,’ man and woman encounter the great ‘mysterium’ in order to transfer the light of this mystery, a light of truth and of beauty expressed in liturgical language, into the‘language of the body,’ that is, into the language of the praxis of love, of faithfulness, and of conjugal integrity, or into the ethos rooted in the ‘redemption of the body’ (see Rom 8: 23). On this road, conjugal life in some sense becomes liturgy” (7/4/84).

Chapter 3: “He Gave Them the Law of Life as Their Inheritance”

Christ responds to our verbal professions of love: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you….Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him” (John 14: 15 – 17, 21). Through His Church, Christ has been abundantly clear in what He teaches about marriage, family, and human sexuality. Saint Pope John Paul II quotes and pays homage to Humanae Vitae, reminding us of the great blessings following adherence to its teachings, including profound respect for the sacredness of human life (cf 9/5/84):

“‘The Church…teaches that each and every marriage act (quilibet matrimonii usus) must remain open to the transmission of life. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God & unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning’(HV 11-12)” (7/11/84).
“Pastoral concern means seeing the true good of man….the one and only true good of the human person consists in putting this divine plan into practice” (7/25/84).
“the moral aspects of any procedure do not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation of motives, but must be determined by objective standards….The relevant principle of conjugal morality is thus faithfulness to the divine plan” (8/1/84)
“self-mastery – corresponds in fact to the fundamental constitution of the person: it is a perfectly ‘natural’ method,,,,’artificial means,’ by contrast breaks the constitutive dimension of the person, deprives man of the subjectivity proper to him, and turns him into an object of manipulation…. The human body is not only the field of reactions of a sexual character, but it is at the same time the means of the expression of man as an integral whole, of the person, which reveals itself through the ‘language of the body’ ….the ‘language of the body’ should express, at a determinate level, the truth of the sacrament. By participating in the eternal plan of love,…the ‘language of the body’ becomes in fact a ‘prophetism of the body,’ as it were….when the conjugal act is deprived of its inner truth because it is deprived artificially of it procreative capacity, it also ceases to be an act of love….in the case of an artificial separation of these two meanings in the conjugal act, a real bodily union is brought about, but it does not correspond to the inner truth & dignity of personal communion….[which] demands, in fact, that the ‘language of the body’ be expressed reciprocally in the integral truth of its meaning….Such a violation of the inner order of conjugal communion, a communion that plunges its roots into the very order of the person, constitutes the essential evil of the contraceptive act” (8/22/84).
“the virtuous character of the attitude expressing itself in the ‘natural’ regulation of fertility is determined, not so much by faithfulness to an impersonal ‘natural law,’ but to the personal Creator, the source and Lord of the order that is shown in this law” (8/29/84).
“The use of ‘infertile periods’ in conjugal shared life can become a source of abuses if the couple thereby attempt to evade procreation without just reasons” (9/5/84)
“This, then, is the essential and fundamental ‘power’: the love planted in the heart…by the Holy Spirit….spouses must implore [God] for such ‘power’ and for every other ‘divine help’ in prayer…they must draw grace and love from the ever-living fountain of the Eucharist….they must overcome their own faults and sins in the sacrament of Penance. These are the means – infallible and indispensable – to form the Christian spirituality of conjugal and familial life ” (10/3/84).
“One can say that Humanae Vitae constitutes precislely the development of the biblical truth about Christian conjugal and familial spirituality” (10/10/84).
“In order to reach mastery over this drive and arousal, the personal subject must devote himself or herself to a progressive education in self-control of the will, of sentiments, of emotions, which must be developed from the simplest gestures, in which it is relatively easy to put the inner decision into practice….Precisely by reason of this ‘difficulty,’ the true order of conjugal life, with a view to which the spouses are ‘strengthened and as it were consecrated’ (HV 25) by the sacrament of Marriage, is assigned to their interior and ascetical commitment” (10/24/84).
“It is often thought that continence causes inner tensions from which men and women should free themselves. In the light of the analyses offered earlier, continence, integrally understood, is, on the contrary, the one and only way to free oneself from such tensions” (10/31/84).
“the inner order of conjugal life, which allows the ‘affective manifestation’ to develop according to their right extent and meaning, is a fruit not only of the virtue in which the spouses exercise themselves, but also of the gifts of the Holy Spirit with which they collaborate” (11/14/84).

1979

Sep 05- Of the Unity and Indissolubility of Marriage