The Nuptial Meaning of the Body

Our body is not something separate from, or something that was just added to, our person. It is part of who we are as human persons. We are incarnate spirits. Traditionally, we say man is a union of body and spirit. The body, then, is an expression of the human person. It is through our bodies, our male and female bodies, that we express our gift of our person to our beloved and to God. It is by means of our bodies that we express love for another person.

John Paul II speaks of the nuptial meaning of the body. By it, the Holy Father means the body's capacity of expressing love, that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift and, by means of this gify, fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence.

Here, God's purpose for creating sex and the sexual act between man and woman become evident. Our human sexuality is part of our person. It is not just for deriving sexual pleasure and satisfaction. When man and woman engage in sexual intercourse, they do so in order to express their love and their reciprocal self-donation for one another, as well as acceptance of one another. This notion of sex is so contrary to the idea of sex propagated by our promiscuous society today. Unfortunately, many of our young people have been so seduced by this contemporary mentality and attitude towards sex. Many of them engage in pre-marital sex, prior to marriage.

When sex is used in ways other than the one intended by God for it, then it does not bring lasting fulfillment and happiness, but emptiness and a feeling of void.