O tu illustrata (Symphonia 23)

For the Feast of the Annunciation, an Antiphon for the Virgin
by St. Hildegard of Bingen^[1]

Chastity, from
Scivias III.8: The Pillar
of the Savior's Humanity.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 178r.

O tu illustrata de divina claritate, clara Virgo Maria, Verbo Dei infusa, unde venter tuus floruit de introitu Spiritus Dei, qui in te sufflavit et in te exsuxit quod Eva abstulit in abscisione puritatis, per contractam contagionem        de suggestione diaboli.

Illumined by God’s clearest brightness, O Virgin Mary bright, and flooded with the Word of God: your womb then flourished at the entrance of God’s Spirit— he breathed within you, within drew out the loss of Eve, a purity cut off and silenced by that disease contracted at the Devil’s sly persuasion.

O splendidissima gemma (Symphonia 10)

For the Fourth Sunday in Advent, an Antiphon for the Virgin
by St. Hildegard of Bingen^[1]

Scivias I.4:
Conception of
Soul and Body.
Rupertsberg MS,
fol. 22r (detail)

O splendidissima gemma et serenum decus solis qui tibi infusus est, fons saliens de corde Patris, quod est unicum Verbum suum,      per quod creavit mundi primam materiam, quam Eva turbavit. Hoc Verbum effabricavit tibi Pater hominem, et ob hoc es tu illa      lucida materia per quam hoc ipsum Verbum      exspiravit omnes virtutes,      ut eduxit in prima materia omnes creaturas.

O jewel resplendent and bright and joyous beauty of the sun that’s flooded into you— the fountain leaping from the Father’s heart. This is his single Word      by which he did create the world’s primordial matter, a motherhood into confusion cast by Eve. This Word the Father made for you into a man— and this is why you are that bright      and shining matter, through which that Word      has breathed forth every virtue’s pow’r,      as he brought forth all creatures in a primal motherhood.

De sancta sexualitate

When I read today Kara Jesella's article on CNN.com's Health section on the female orgasm ("The Big O: Fireworks? Or is your sex life less than explosive?"), I was most dismayed that she seemed to accept out of hand the assumption that the modern trend to have multiple sexual partners out of wedlock is not only acceptable but considered "healthy" and "liberating". It is not the so-called "repression" of abstinence before marriage that is wreaking havoc both physically and emotionally on our modern sexuality; rather, it is the disrespect with which we treat our sexuality, which we see no longer as a sacred gift from God to be shared only in the tightest bonds of human erotic love, that is, in holy matrimony, but as just another of the tools of selfish "individual expression".

A full understanding of one’s sexuality can only come through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, by whom and with whom and in whom all things were made and are, therefore, understood. In this context, one comes to understand that one’s sexuality is not some independent department of the self; rather, sexuality is inextricably bound up in the whole being of body and of the soul. The modern idea of "sexual liberation" is deeply flawed because it lacks the central focus of creatured sexuality: Christ.

A new sexual revolution is needed to correct the degrading and dangerous excesses of the old; a second revolution to recontextualize sexuality within its complex relationship with the body, with the soul, and ultimately, with Christ; a spiritual as much as physical revolution to renew the sexual bond in which man and woman become one flesh, both physically and spiritually, a bond which must be found within the setting of the marriage covenant, its license signed and sealed not by the official at City Hall but by the supreme magistrate, Jesus Christ our Lord.