Take a look at this erotic piece of art.

I love this work of art. I love it because her face is so extremely erotic and beautiful. Her look describes perfectly love as a divine gift of God. Her face is more erotic than any porn star’s face and it is precisely because the love is pure, intense, transcendent because it is divine. Her mystical experience of God is both physically satisfying and devotion based on the “agape” love we know God/Christ has for us. Yes, the love Christ has for us is intense in a way we often do not recognize yet St. Theresa’s face captures. Release yourself to Him and you will know it. I know this well. I have been gifted with it since I was small. I love Jesus with a physical love I cannot explain. No, it does not play out sexually…it is intense in a way that is different than that yet exactly as physical as you can imagine. In fact, it has helped me realize that my sexuality is a gift and to let it go within the bounds of my marriage. Let it fly!!!!!

We live in a time of both pornography and puritanism. The human form is too often seen in those two terms. Objectification of women is rampant and we cover it with “rights-based” talk and talk of “ownership” of our bodies. Underneath, however, is a bubbling ugliness of how the sexes react to one another – with suspicion and harshness and a failure to see the Person. Sad…because then we lose the appreciation for the Person first and then the wealth of beauty each person possesses as made in the image of God.

Reaction to pornography spurs on a puritanism that fails to see and appreciate that the human form is in the image of God – in all its beauty which includes its sexuality. For the puritan mindset, exposure of any kind is bad…sex is bad….sensuality is bad. Nope – not true and in fact, so not true, it disrespects God and His Creation. The Incarnation – the Christ – came to us naked, as a baby through a woman. He had a body. He died naked on a cross. His Incarnation is a testament to the Body. When John Paull II now St. John Paul II removed all the loincloths off the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, he knew what he was doing. Read his Theology of the Body and you will see how “with it” he is about human sex and love within marriage.

This is a beautiful aspect of the Catholic faith that comports with natural reason, logic, and the laws of God. Free yourself from the enslavement of your bodies to the world and live within the laws of God and your body will be such a vessel of love – in all its forms. The joy you will feel is overpowering.