Kiss & Tell

In the course of conversation last night, Paul (Navy Boy) sent me here.

"It's really old," he said, "you'll like it."

I'm not sure I liked it. It made me distinctly uncomfortable, and much of what he says would be violently disagreed with by friends and/or exes (i.e.: Jared).

First, he defines marriage.

I might add that it also depends on what you mean by marriage, but we shall take for granted that you mean what the Lord meant, viz., an indissoluble sacramental partnership between a man and a woman who pledge themselves to help each other toward happiness on earth and in heaven, and to beget and rear children for the kingdom of God.

Very Catholic. Given that, he later says,

Love is a function of the free will, and it can last as long as the free will exercises itself according to the above definition. Therefore, to say "I am in love" should mean "I am willing to surrender my will, to sacrifice my desires, to place duty and fidelity above all else, in behalf of one person whom I have found suitable for a successful marriage.

Okay, well and good. I agree with what he says about surrender and sacrifice on behalf of the one we love, even if I don't always *feel* like love is a function of the free will. That love, of course, is properly defined as infatuation.

Then he is asked if kissing is a sin.

In answering it, we shall consider the moral angle first, and then add considerations of prudence and common sense. There are two different kinds of kissing that can be referred to in the question. The first is the ordinary kiss of greeting and farewell, the kiss that people are not ashamed to give in public or in the presence of others, the kind of kiss exchanged between a mother and son, brother and sister, relative and relative. It is a salutation, a symbol, a sign of love and respect for a person to whom one is bound by the more sacred ties of human relationship. Clearly this kind of kissing is not sinful, not sinful even between a boy and girl in love.

Usually when this much has been explained, young people answer rather scornfully: "Oh, we don't mean that kind of kissing." Or they will cry out with still greater scorn: "How can you expect us to kiss like a brother and sister if we are in love?" This is very revealing. It means that what such young people have in mind when they ask "Is kissing a sin?" is not the mere symbol or salutation of affection, but something inspired by and bound up in some way with passion. They are referring to close and protracted embraces; The kisses that gratify, in some way, the yearning for bodily union with another that can lawfully be fulfilled only in marriage. Sometimes they do not realize that this is the origin of their desire for protracted kissing experiences, but the fact remains that it is just that, and in many cases it leads them straight into the great sins that beforehand they would have said they abhorred. That is why such kissing, prolonged, passionate, exciting, is a sin in itself. It is a sin in so far as it springs from and leads to indulgence in sinful passion.

Well, that's no fun to give up. In fact, I have demonstrated myself profoundly bad at giving it up. One could even say that I have a desire to commit the aforementioned indulgence by kissing too much, too passionately... etc.

And so I send you back to his definition of love. "to say 'I am in love' should mean 'I am willing to surrender my will, to sacrifice my desires, to place duty and fidelity above all else, in behalf of one person whom I have found suitable for a successful marriage.'" (Emphasis mine.)

So how can I love a human being if I don't love my God enough to surrender my will and sacrifice my desires?

Just some food for thought. I forsee violent disagreement in the comments area. Have fun.