WE ARE ONLY PROMISED THE CROSS

[Guest guest]

A bit more can be said on the cross, and life in the Christian manner...("...for my yoke is easy and my burden light") ...As has been said here we are not promised "salvation on earth" in the sense of full happiness here on earth before we reach heaven. Nonetheless who among us can testify that Jesus does not sprinkle enough sweetness on the cross to at least make it palatable for us to bear it, like the old-time rabbis who, before teaching the scrolls of the Torah to the children, first dipped them in sweet honey and allowed them to taste that honey dripping directly off the surface of the scrolls. And so it is with the greatest Rabbi who ever lived. Now does that mean we do not have to suffer? No it does not. And does it mean that we will not have the struggle of perfecting ourselves in this life? No it does not; we will be able to count on this struggle in this life for as long as this life lasts, in our post-fallen state. But all too often as we have been saying when speaking about the joys and pleasures of harmonized cooperation at the fullest level with the most human of nature's processes (as well as internally-triggered automatic natural temporal punishments) whether considering conjugal or parental relationships according to the design of God, people deny themselves the very pleasures built into nature that God Himself meant for us to have in these processes, and in the process add burdens to themselves. And, it is not surprising in that context, that people will experience life as more difficult than it ought to be. And isn't this the last thing that we need, when life can be so difficult on its own without our adding crosses that He never meant us to have?

And one more comment on nature's in-built retribution for deliberately contradicting the teleology of deeply important human acts... it seems to me that if there are natural rewards (Built into the very structure of the organism) than there are natural punishments, since grace recapitulates nature and since the supernatural order in some form or fashion does bear some resemblance to the natural order. All human systems of positive human law have penal provisions built into them so that punishments for transgressions are more or less automatic and triggered more or less automatically. Now this is what I called an "economy of the body" in my last communication on this but it seems to me that I needed to learn a lesson from the Kippleys in their brilliant use of the term "ecological" as in "ecological breast-feeding". "Economy" bespeaks a law of the house (the law itself), but even more fittingly "ecology" bespeaks an order of the house (the law plus the natural consequences), which in this case is more appropriate, because we're talking about a teleological order inscribed in the very heart of the organism, by which the person is reminded (this has a pedagogical before any moral-theological function) to get back on the correct path. Can a loving God have forgotten to inscribe this necessary provision? Are we to be tutored only by the Spirit? And not at all by flesh? Only by the supernatural directly? And not by the natural?

So I think it is more fitting in recalling how the scholastics called Nature God's "Vicar-Regent" (and the all too common human wisdom-based popular expressions of that reality), that what can emerge from this is a real concept of the "ecology of the body", which when respected builds toward success in obtaining and realizing the real human goods built into the deepest, human-relationship-types of acts, particularly those upon which not only the individual but also society depends for human thriving (and not to mention that of one's spouse). I think these all argue very fittingly -- along with the increasingly obvious evidence of harm from contraceptives in the purely physical order -- for this type of built in internal ecology which, while admittedly not determinative of morality in the scientific-theological sense, nonetheless serve a very important pedagogical function.

Just so, I did not begin to have the thought of publishing our landmark 2007 paper on the difficulties of feminine sexual function after tubal ligation (JRM april 2007 "Tubal ligation among american women") until having seen many patients have just these difficulties, without an absolutely physical explanation, and in contrast to the received conventional medical wisdom ("of course sexuality will improve once the fear of pregnancy is eliminated!"). The data show just that, and suggested the deep psychosomatic rift when a woman does this (and I'm sure it is true for the man also) taking up arms against her own fertility in the most dramatic and aggressive way possible. The observation was there first, and the study simply proved what could be observed anecdotally. I think we are on to something here.

Sincerely yours,

Dominic M. Pedulla MD, FACC, CNFPMC, ABVM, ACPh

Interventional Cardiologist, Endovascular Diplomate, Varicose Vein Specialist, Noncontraceptive Family Planning Consultant, Family Planning Researcher

Medical Director, The Oklahoma Vein and Endovascular Center (www.noveinok.com, veininfo@...)

Executive Director, The Edith Stein Foundation (www.theedithsteinfoundation.com)

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"It is an indisputable fact that the Christian faith, from its origins, did not want to be only an idea, that it entered into the world endowed with institutional elements (apostolic function, apostolic succession) and that, therefore, the institutional form of the Church belongs by essence to the faith." (Cardinal ph Ratzinger, December 30, in "La Croix.")

Cardinal Burke on proportionalism and relativism

Relative to the theology being discussed: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/vatican-cardinal-burke-in-todays-society-morality-has-ceased-to-exist?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter & utm_campaign=e6d9e457ab-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Full_Text_08_03_2011 & utm_medium=email