ladyandknight

For Simon the Pharisee, washing Jesus’ feet was a chore beneath his dignity. For the woman he despised, this same task was a wondrous privilege (Luke 7:36-47). For John the Baptist it was an honor so immense it seemed unattainable (Mark 1:7). What made the difference? Love.

To get on my knees at the command of a gun-toting stranger would be humiliating. To get on my knees to pick up something that had rolled under the bed would just be practical. I’d do it almost without thinking. To get on my knees in the intimacy of marriage to joyously express my love by kissing my darling’s feet, however, would be a delight. What changes a humiliating act into a joyous expression of intimacy? Love.

The Catholic theologian Christopher West:

Orgasm for wife “An important point of clarification is needed. Since it’s the male orgasm that’s inherently linked with the possibility of new life, the husband must never intentionally ejaculate outside of his wife’s vagina (unintended ejaculation involves no moral fault). Since the female orgasm, however, isn’t necessarily linked to the possibility of conception, so long as it takes place within the overall context of an act of intercourse, it need not, in any absolute sense, be during actual penetration.”

Catholic theologian Christopher West:

The Ultimate Glory of Woman’s Body .... we read this reference to Christ’s Incarnation: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.” And in the gospel we discover precisely where his body was prepared: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” (...) Christmas celebrates the ultimate glory of a woman’s body, and Mary reveals what that ultimate glory is: God comes to us through the female body. To recognize this is to be filled with awe and wonder. We share this wonder with the Church that, as St. John Paul II wrote, “honors and praises throughout the centuries ‘the womb that bore you and the breasts from which you sucked milk’ (Lk 11:27). “These words,” St. John Paul II affirms, “are a eulogy of motherhood, of femininity, of the female body in its typical expression of creative love”. As woman goes, so goes the world.