Theology of the Body, Part 5: The Transformation of Lust

Christopher West's Theology of the Body for Beginners: A Basic Introduction to Pope John Paul II's Sexual Revolution continues to interest me greatly (see Theology of the Body, Part 4: Faith in Analogies and earlier posts for more). As I make my way through it, I become more and more convinced that its message concerning the body and sex is crucial to understanding and living out the Christian faith, Catholic-style.

The message is, it comes as no surprise, one of chastity and purity. There are two equally chaste vocations, the book says: marriage and celibacy. Perhaps surprisingly to some, conjugal chastity typifies the lives of Christian married couples. It includes a lot of healthy sex ... for sex and the body are good, in the Christian view, not sinful.

Nor is celibate chastity — the vocation I seem to be called to — a rejection of sex. Yes, physical sex is freely given up. Yet celibacy, which amounts to choosing to live one's life as a so-called "eunuch for sake of the kingdom of heaven," as Jesus put it at Matthew 19:12, is a calling that "embraces and anticipates 'the heavenly marriage'" (pp. 66-67). That is, celibacy on the part of some of us points all of us toward the beatific vision we will all share of God when we have arrived in heaven.

In turn, a celibate's life here on earth points out to the non-celibates who far outnumber him/her "the ultimate purpose and meaning of sexuality." This is so because in this world of ours "man and woman become one flesh as a sign or 'sacrament' of Christ's eternal union with the Church (see Eph [Paul's Letter to the Ephesians] 5:31-32)."

Celibates who eschew sex and married practitioners of a conjugal chastity which includes a vigorous sex life both "experience the redemption of their sexuality in Christ" (p. 68). In neither case is there repression of lust. Nor is there indulgence in lust. Chastity of either variety is a transformation of lust into something better and purer. Ordained by Christ, chastity, conjugal or otherwise, serves "to restore creation to the purity of its origins" (p. 68). In other words, purity allows us "to experience redemption from the domination of lust" (p. 69).


Therein, a capsule summary of the entire Christian outlook. Broadly speaking , all sin is lust — though, of course, it is not always sexual lust — and lust of any variety is sin. The point of the whole Christian exercise is to break free from sin, which after all is said and done, is always "the domination of lust."

Which makes Pope John Paul II's theology of the body central to Christian spirituality. There is a riddle here not unlike Zen's "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" It is this: How can there be a third, entirely constructive way to deal with our lust, in addition to repression and indulgence, both of which are destructive?

How can there be a difference, that is, between repression and the healthy self-denial which even married couples must practice, if lust is to be avoided? How can strong sexual desire manifest itself rightly ... especially in the life of the celibate who has no sexual relations and whose sacrifice is accordingly total?

West spells it out (p. 73): "... [T]he self-denial involved in such a sacrifice [i.e., celibacy] must not be conceived as a repression of sexuality. Celibacy for the kingdom [i.e., heaven, as the kingdom of God] is meant to be a fruitful living out of the redemption of sexual desire, understood as the desire to make of oneself a 'sincere gift' for others."

The same is true for married people. Their mode of redeeming their sexual desire also serves to liberate healthy expressions of sex from lust. It too enables the marrieds' making a "sincere gift" of themselves to others: to the other spouse, to their children, to their larger family, to the community as a whole.

So the "self-donation" which a husband makes to his wife in their bedchamber, and which she of course makes back to him, stands as an archetype for all the "sincere gifts" a person makes to other persons ... which is why the idea of the redemption of lust can be construed as lying at the very heart of Christianity!