Week 21 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8; Psalm 97; Matthew 25:1-13

Sometimes people say that Christianity, and in particular the Catholic Church, is too preoccupied with sexual morality. At the same time, to judge from advertising, songs, films and books, not to mention the vast pornographic industry, sex is clearly a preoccupation of the whole world. Look at the stories reported in any newspaper today and see what you find. Look also at the other things Church leaders have spoken about in the past month - questions about justice, education, immigration and so on - and that get little or no attention.

What people object to is Christianity's moral code regarding sexual activity which, at least in the form in which the Catholic Church continues to teach it, is regarded as old-fashioned, out of date, and long over-taken by modern attitudes.

Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians is the earliest Christian text that survives, written sometime soon after the year 50AD. Already, as can be seen in today's first reading, it speaks about the appropriate way of ordering one's sex life. 'Refrain from immorality' has the sense in this context of 'refrain from sexual licence, permissiveness and promiscuity'. Act honourably in this area of life as in others, treating people always with respect and not exploiting or taking advantage of them.

So far so good. Thessalonika was a modern Roman city. Even if it did not match the reputation of Corinth for sexual permissiveness, it presumably had some of the looser morals that accompany city life everywhere. We can imagine people objecting already that the Christian teaching was old-fashioned (hadn't the Jews been teaching the same for years already?), not modern, in any case unrealistic and impractical.

Paul is clear that God's call to holiness reaches also to this area of life. To choose immorality is to disregard God, not because 'God does not like sex' (it was He who conceived it after all!), but because human beings are God's creatures, now established in Jesus Christ as God's sons and daughters. They have a personal and individual dignity, by nature and by grace, which obliges us to treat them always with respect and honour. To exploit another or take advantage of them for sexual pleasure is a failure, therefore, an offence against human dignity and an offence against God whose holiness, shared with that person, is thereby disregarded.

It is a pity when people think morality and immorality refer exclusively to questions of sexual behaviour. There are many other areas of life that require ethical behaviour, appropriate virtues, respect for relevant values. But all reasonable people will agree that sexual behaviour too must be guided by values and principles such as respect, honesty, justice and love.

We are rightly horrified by the sexual abuse of persons. We are rightly concerned about how exploitation of the world's resources has led to an ecological crisis. We need to translate that horror and concern into right action in regard to sexual behaviour. In doing that we honour the dignity of others and we respect the holiness to which they are called. In this way too we respect the laws that govern the natural environment that is closest to each of us, the human body itself, which is also an instrument by which we either disregard or glorify God.