Passionate Love
142. The Second Vatican Council teaches that this conjugal love "embraces the good of the whole person; it can enrich the sentiments of the spirit and their physical expression with a unique dignity and ennoble them as the special features and manifestation of the friendship proper to marriage".138 For this reason, a love lacking either pleasure or passion is insufficient to symbolize the union of the human heart with God: "All the mystics have affirmed that supernatural love and heavenly love find the symbols which they seek in marital love, rather than in friendship, filial devotion or devotion to a cause. And the reason is to be found precisely in its totality".139 Why then should we not pause to speak of feelings and sexuality in marriage?
138 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 49.
139 A. Sertillanges, L'Amour chrétien, Paris, 1920, 174.
138 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 49.
139 A. Sertillanges, L'Amour chrétien, Paris, 1920, 174.