• Home
  • About
  • BIO
  • Conferences
  • Contact
  • Follow Gerard on FB & Twitter
  • Speaking

Coming Home

Dr. Gerard M. Nadal: Science in Service of the Pro-Life Movement

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« Culture of Death: Defining Infant Mortality
Pro-Life Academy. The Dignity of Women (II) »

Our Sons and Daughters

March 1, 2010 by Gerard M. Nadal

My apologies for the repost. I’m working today on a large article for the inaugural issue of the new bioethics journal ProLife ProPatria. I’ll be back tomorrow. For those who are newcomers, this article is the third in a series. The other two are linked in the text. I would suggest starting with “Of Bridal Veils and Little Girls”, followed by “Purity and Play” nd ending with this one. Enjoy. See you tomorrow.

Little girls are unburdened. There is a lightness about little girls in those golden years before adolescence that is unmistakeable. Its unblemished beauty is like a rose bud, with all of the promise of the splendor about to unfold.

A florist once shared that rose buds exposed to a sudden and extreme chill will not open. They wither in their unrevealed potential.

So it is when youth is corrupted, when our daughters and sons are lured into sex before they have established their own ego boundaries, when sex forges bonds that youth cannot sustain, when the inevitable is heartache-and often times worse. Their blossoming is interrupted by confusion, anger, guilt and shame. The inability to sustain the powerful bonds created by sex leads to feelings of inadequacy and isolation, self-reproach and depression.

The very people holding themselves out as the solution have been the problem all along. Planned Parenthood is aggressive in its efforts to cut our sons and daughters off from trusting in us, playing to their youthful cravings for autonomy. They and their fellow travelers in the Culture of Death have for too long pumped them full of estrogens, stuffed their pockets full of condoms, and lured them to abort their babies when the inevitable contraceptive failure occurred. In the process they have filled them with a false sense of security and left them utterly unprepared for the emotional and spiritual fallout. The girls are not the only ones to suffer.

Contrary to popular belief, boys are not aloof. It’s an act. Boys are as devastated in a breakup as girls. The macho act is just that: whistling past the graveyard. But is the damage irreparable?

Blessedly no for most of it.

It starts by focussing on the true meaning of purity. I’ve treated this in other posts, notably Purity and Play and in, Of Bridal Veils and Little Girls.

Purity of heart, mind, body and soul is the very essence of a child’s spiritual rhythms. It isn’t that sex is dirty, it’s that the beauty of sex is caught up in an entirely different set of rhythms; those of radical self-donation to one’s spouse. It is the inability to deliver on the promises made in physical union that becomes dysrhythmic, and psychologically destabilizing. Sex is a great good that many parents themselves have not always seen or honored as such.

So, first we must reconcile with our past and with God. Then we must be ceaseless witnesses to the great good of sex, appealing to the bonds of love and intimacy created during sex as one of the exclusive goods of marriage. Those who have been sexually active will intuitively grasp that portion of the message.

Young people know how pathetic older adults look when they try to be cool, using the slang of teens. They get what dysrhythmic means when presented objectively in the reversal of roles. They also get it, and are relieved when they are brought to understand that they are simply not ready to deliver on the depth of the promises made in sex. These powerful emotional realities, properly explained, demystify for teens what have been to that point a nebulous angst.

Properly restored to their rhythms they become unburdened again, the unfolding of their potential restored in its function and beauty.

.
.
.
.
Photo via mylittlegirlsboutique.com

Share this:

  • Share
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

One Response

  1. on March 1, 2010 at 7:42 PM Siarlys Jenkins

    When I was in sixth grade, I remember one morning being on safety patrol, and watching two second grade or so girls walking around the playground with innocent smiles talking to their teacher. I thought, how sad, they look so sweet and innocent. In a few years, they’ll grow up to be like the girls in my class.

    By today’s standards, what bothered me about the girls in my class was nothing — even sex education was a couple of years away. But I had a sense something was being lost. Eventually some of the sweetness is recovered — I wasn’t really ready for what any of the girls were becoming either.



Comments are closed.

  • Archives

    • July 2021 (1)
    • January 2021 (7)
    • November 2020 (1)
    • May 2020 (2)
    • September 2019 (1)
    • May 2019 (2)
    • April 2019 (1)
    • February 2019 (1)
    • April 2018 (2)
    • January 2017 (1)
    • December 2016 (1)
    • November 2016 (1)
    • October 2016 (10)
    • July 2016 (2)
    • June 2016 (1)
    • May 2016 (1)
    • April 2016 (1)
    • March 2016 (1)
    • February 2016 (3)
    • December 2015 (1)
    • November 2015 (2)
    • October 2015 (1)
    • September 2015 (1)
    • August 2015 (3)
    • April 2015 (1)
    • February 2015 (1)
    • December 2014 (3)
    • November 2014 (1)
    • October 2014 (4)
    • September 2014 (15)
    • August 2014 (6)
    • June 2014 (5)
    • May 2014 (1)
    • April 2014 (2)
    • March 2014 (2)
    • February 2014 (1)
    • January 2014 (3)
    • December 2013 (17)
    • November 2013 (9)
    • October 2013 (12)
    • September 2013 (4)
    • July 2013 (2)
    • June 2013 (5)
    • May 2013 (2)
    • April 2013 (3)
    • March 2013 (6)
    • February 2013 (2)
    • January 2013 (1)
    • December 2012 (18)
    • November 2012 (6)
    • October 2012 (13)
    • September 2012 (1)
    • July 2012 (10)
    • June 2012 (13)
    • May 2012 (8)
    • April 2012 (1)
    • March 2012 (11)
    • February 2012 (21)
    • January 2012 (5)
    • December 2011 (18)
    • November 2011 (3)
    • October 2011 (23)
    • September 2011 (24)
    • August 2011 (22)
    • July 2011 (22)
    • June 2011 (29)
    • May 2011 (8)
    • April 2011 (11)
    • March 2011 (18)
    • February 2011 (42)
    • January 2011 (26)
    • December 2010 (30)
    • November 2010 (34)
    • October 2010 (33)
    • September 2010 (16)
    • August 2010 (15)
    • July 2010 (7)
    • June 2010 (21)
    • May 2010 (33)
    • April 2010 (14)
    • March 2010 (41)
    • February 2010 (36)
    • January 2010 (59)
    • December 2009 (59)
  • Categories

    • Abortion (258)
    • Advent (26)
    • Biomedical Ethics (82)
    • Birth Control (51)
    • Bishops (87)
    • Black History Month (10)
    • Breast Cancer (65)
    • Christmas (26)
    • Cloning (4)
    • Condoms (16)
    • COVID-19 (1)
    • Darwin (2)
    • Development (6)
    • Dignity (119)
    • Divine Mercy Novenas (10)
    • DNA (3)
    • Embryo Adoption (2)
    • Embryonic Stem Cell Research (6)
    • Eugenics (29)
    • Euthanasia (8)
    • Family (44)
    • Fathers of the Church (11)
    • Fortnight for Freedom (1)
    • Golden Coconut Award (3)
    • Health Care (14)
    • HIV/AIDS (5)
    • Infant Mortality (2)
    • IVF (4)
    • Joseph (6)
    • Lent (17)
    • Margaret Sanger (19)
    • Marriage (6)
    • Maternal Mortality (2)
    • Motherhood (12)
    • Neonates (1)
    • Personhood (20)
    • Physician Assisted Suicide (4)
    • Planned Parenthood (64)
    • Priests (50)
    • Pro-Life Academy (23)
    • Quotes (10)
    • Radio Interviews (3)
    • Right to Life (34)
    • Roots (1)
    • Sex Education (25)
    • Sexually Transmitted Disease (12)
    • Stem Cell Therapy (7)
    • Transgender (1)
    • Uncategorized (206)
  • Pages

    • About
    • BIO
    • Conferences
    • Contact
    • Follow Gerard on FB & Twitter
    • Speaking

Blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Coming Home
    • Join 866 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Coming Home
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
    %d bloggers like this: