Spousal Love Research Articles

The Personalist Basis of the Church's Teaching on Human Sexuality and the Natural Law in the Work of John Paul II. Part II.

Responding to Pope John Paul II's call to give the "ethical grounds and personalistic reasons" behind the Church's teaching on sexual morality, this reflection written over the span of two articles analyzes the norms of the natural law related to human sexuality from a personalist perspective. The key ideas of this study are drawn from two passages: one from Gaudium et spes which states that "The sexual characteristics of man and the human faculty of reproduction wonderfully exceed the dispositions of lower forms of life", the other from Humanae vitae stating that "Conjugal love reveals its true nature and nobility when it is considered in its supreme origin, God, who is love … and it is of supreme importance to have an exact idea of these." (9) Drawing on the analysis of parts I and II shows, first, that the spousal act is in its original structure an "embodying act" intrinsically fashioned to embody spousal love: the self-donation, the intimacy, and the fruitfulness proper to the spirit's act of love animates the bodily act of sex from within, so that the spirit and the body form "one thing" in the spousal act. Secondly, this truth about the spousal act as structured by spousal love will mean that the norms governing human sexuality are not based on biological laws, but on the laws of love. Finally, Part II culminates in a reflection on the individual norms of sexual morality, showing how each of them follows the nature of spousal love. The precepts of the natural law are our guides to properly reverencing the sacred sphere of human sexuality, which is a condition for our flourishing as human persons.

The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw dir. by Shelley Niro (review)

Reviewed by: The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw dir. by Shelley Niro Renae Watchman (bio) The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw directed by Shelley Niro levelFILM, 2019 and Indican Pictures, 2021 SHELLEY NIRO (member of the Six Nations Reserve, Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawks) cowrote and directed her second feature film, The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw, released in 2019. The film is bookended by an aerial shot of the universe, centering Mother Earth. It opens with voiceover narration in an unnamed Indigenous language. As the language dissolves into song, the camera focuses on Mother Earth, whose stunning beauty from space zooms in on the Maple Leaf Garden of High Park in Tkaronto. The lyrics "There's beauty above you, there's beauty below; beauty surrounds you" are originally from the Diné/Navajo Beauty Way Prayer and adapted and performed by ElizaBeth Hill (Mohawk from Six Nations) for her song "You've Got the Power." Standing in the Maple Leaf Garden on her twenty-fifth birthday is the protagonist, Mitzi Bearclaw, played by MorningStar Angeline (Navajo, Chippewa Cree, Blackfoot, Shoshone, and Latinx). Bearclaw's October birthday events include a stroll through the urban landscape, window shopping, handing out sandwiches and homemade hats on behalf of the "Indian Friendship Centre," and off-camera clubbing/dancing with her boyfriend, the aspiring scholar and amateur photographer Ringo Leaves-No-Shadow (played by Vance Banzo, Anihšināpē and nêhiyaw from Fishing Lake First Nation). Mitzi tells Ringo that her dream is to make "crazy, wacky, out of this world hats; hats that are going to save the world." The next day, she receives an acceptance letter from the design program at George Brant College as well as a birthday card and letter of urgency to return home from her dad. Mitzi makes a difficult decision to forego her dreams to fulfill her familial and community responsibilities on the fictional First Nation community of Owl Island. Spanning a year, The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw is tragicomic, harmonizing the trauma and dysfunction of the aftermath of residential schools and lateral violence with NdN humor, love, and a nod toward flourishing Indigenous futures. Depictions of remote island-rez life, where traditional bush life intersects with contemporary conveniences, are beautifully staged. The talented cast depict sadness, melancholy, and toxic behaviors [End Page 162] while also expanding their range to include heartwarming moments of resilience, humor, and healing. Mitzi's hometown love interest is Honeyboy Yellowdog, played by Ajuawak Kapashesit (Anishinaabe and Cree). Their relationship blossoms amid the difficult realities of Mitzi's home life. Niro employs scenes of enchantment, fantasy, science fiction, and wonderment with an Indigenous flair. The actors Billy Merasty (Cree), Gail Maurice (Métis), and Andrew Martin (Mohawk from Six Nations) do double duty as they depict multiple characters with diverse arcs. Merasty plays William Bearclaw and "Hope" (of the Christian theological virtues). William is Mitzi's father and a humble hunter whose paternal and spousal love is boundless despite the daily verbal and emotional abuse he endures from his wife. The scenes where "Hope" and the two other virtues appear are either in the enchanted forest on the island or on a spaceship, out in the galaxy overlooking earth. Maurice plays Mitzi's mother, Annabelle Bearclaw and "Faith." Her earthly character is a "miserable and hateful" bedridden diabetic, while "Faith" is a healer/nurse. Martin plays Charlie B., Mitzi's orphaned cousin and "Charity." Charlie B. is a writer and storyteller, and as "Charity," he is also a mute and harmless trickster. Their alter egos as otherworldly virtues are clearly diametrically opposed to their human characters. The dreamscape/magical realist or sci-fi scenes typically follow a triggering or traumatic event: after Misty reluctantly returns home, after Annabelle welcomes Mitzi with a hateful and belittling tirade, after getting punched in the eye by the jealous femme fatale Simone Muskrat (played by Roseanne Supernault, Métis and Cree), and when Charlie B. collapses and is rushed to the emergency room and later dies. The death of Charlie B., who was like a brother to Mitzi, facilitates the restoration of the relationship between Mitzi and her mom. Mitzi...

What’s love got to do with it? The spillover and crossover effects of family support on creativity

This study examines the role of spousal love for the work-home dynamics that link coworker family support to the work-related creativity of dual earner couples. Relying on the work-home resources model as conceptual framework, we investigate the work-to-home spillover of coworker family support onto spousal family support, the crossover of family support at home, and the reverse home-to-work spillover of family support onto the creativity of both members of a couple through growth experiences (i.e., family crafting at home for the spouse providing support and flow at work for the partner receiving support). We further test whether spousal love moderates the dynamic mechanisms that connect coworker family support to work-related creativity. Results of an experience-sampling study, whereby 145 dual earner couples completed weekly surveys for six weeks, support our model. We find that on weeks with higher coworker family support, couples report greater family support provision and receipt, which leads to growth experiences and higher creativity at work. We also demonstrate that coworker family support only enables positive work-home dynamics for creativity in case of high spousal love. We conclude that spousal love is a catalyst for work-home enrichment, offering meaningful implications for research on creativity and the work-home interface.

Man in the “Splendour of Divinity.” The Hagiological Interpretation of “spousal love” in line with John Paul II’s Theology of the Body

The article presents the theological interpretation of the phenomenon of spousal love in terms of examining its correlations with the call to holiness. This study belongs to the field of hagiological research aiming at developing a new concept that defines arguments in the Church’s strategy concerning the defence of every human life. The analysis concerns the statements and philosophical writings of Karol Wojtyła and then John Paul II on spousal love and the dependence of the person and his actions on the Truth and Good. The Christological-soteriological aspect of spousal love as conditioning the sanctification of the person has been indicated. The axiological conditions related to the Christological assumption have been termed as “the Splendour of Divinity,” identifying it with the space of the salvific influence on a person, sanctified by Christ’s spousal love and called to develop an ethos based on this love.

Karol Wojtyla’s Conception of Love and Responsibility and Its Application to the Use of Contraception

Wojtyla argues against the use of contraceptives for married couples. His view is that contraceptive sexual intercourse is reductive, does not fully respect the dignity of the other and does not fully express human spousal love. This paper investigates Karol Wojtyla's position and defends the possibility of exercising responsible human love whilst using contraceptives in the sexual life of married couples. I shall briefly consider the question of the effectiveness of contraception and Wotyla's rejection of it. I hope to delve into Wojtyla's proposed method of birth control and the problems with it, I shall then advance reasons to justify the responsible use of contraception by married couples.

"By there comes a listless stranger": Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Epithalamion" as a Poem of Queer (Non)performance

"By there comes a listless stranger":Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Epithalamion" as a Poem of Queer (Non)performance Eugene O'Connor (bio) It is always what is under pressure in us, especially under pressure of concealment—that explodes in poetry. —Adrienne Rich, "Vesuvius at Home" In a letter to Robert Bridges of February 15, 1879, Gerard Manley Hopkins stated of his own writing: "No doubt my poetry errs on the side of oddness. … Now it is the virtue of design, pattern, or inscape to be distinctive and it is the vice of distinctiveness to become queer. This vice I cannot have escaped."1 While he was referring to his innovative metrics and eccentric coinages, this use of the term "queer" by Hopkins for his poetics is particularly poignant, given its emphasis on oddness and ambiguity, which are so part of the current understanding of "queer."2 While invigilating an exam in a Dublin classroom in early 1888, Hop-kins worked on the manuscript of a lengthy poem to celebrate the upcoming marriage of his youngest brother, Everard. But as Hopkins described it in a letter to Bridges of May 25 of that year: "I began an Epithalamion on my brother's wedding: it had some bright lines, but I could not get it done" (Letter CLXI).3 Recalling as it does Hopkins's fond memories of bathing with fellow religious in favored swimming holes, the poem fails to celebrate traditional marriage, beyond a few formulaic lines at the end about wedlock and spousal love. Notwithstanding, the trained classicist Hopkins does tell Bridges that the poem is an epithalamion, that is, a wedding hymn.4 The brightness of its pastoral setting, its adoption of a pagan literary genre for a Christian marriage, [End Page 93] and its suggestive allusions have made it the subject of much scholarly inquiry and curiosity focusing on its charged sexual imagery, Wordsworthian echoes, and Hopkins's own scruples about adopting a pagan genre to celebrate a Christian wedding.5 In this essay I focus on Hopkins's classically informed "Epithalamion"6 as a poem of queer (non)performance, in that it both does and does not perform the function of the Greco-Roman epithalamion, which was meant to celebrate a public occasion between a man and a woman. Hopkins's wedding song, lacking a traditional bride, celebrates instead a private ceremony of sorts between a listless male stranger and a group of young boys swimming who remain oblivious of the stranger's attention. But in the very act of appropriating a public occasion, that is, a marriage, Hopkins "outs" this private space. According to terms established by Judith Butler in her article "Critically Queer,"7 the poet disrupts the closeting distinction between public and private. In the specific case of Hopkins's "Epithalamion," the private ceremony that takes place within the secluded grove subverts the authority of the traditional (read: heterosexual) wedding, which encodes publicly sanctioned forms of masculinity and femininity—"I now pronounce you man and wife." Hopkins had already used the occasion of a wedding to explore a non-normative performance of traditional gender roles. Richard Dellamora interprets the "wonder wedlock" in the final stanza of his 1878 poem "At the Wedding March" (l. 11) as Hopkins's own "marriage" to Jesus Christ, the embodiment of Hopkins's manly ideal.8 It expresses "Hopkins's version of an androgynous masculinity, one in which masculine authority, beauty, and power are incarnate in Christ. Through such imagery Hopkins finds a poetically sanctioned way of being 'feminine' through mystic marriage with Christ, just as in life he embraced 'feminine' powerlessness by way of the obedience that his vows as a Jesuit required of him" (p. 52). The queerness of Hopkins's "Epithalamion" of 1888 centers on the ambivalent role played by the listless stranger, unseen by the boys but seen by the reader, who has to make a judgment about one who is at once both hidden and hypervisible—much like Hopkins the man, whose oddness and remoteness from his Dublin colleagues—his being a stranger—made him the object of critical and often derisive comment. This admixture of public and private within Hopkins's wedding song...

Wątki filozoficzne w dramatach Karola Wojtyły

The aim of this paper is to identify, in the plays written by Karol Wojtyła, those scenes, problems and themes which are also present, albeit in a different form, in his scholarly output. To achieve this aim, a method of analysis and comparison was adopted: the author looked for common motifs present in Wojtyła’s dramas and in his philosophical works, while keeping in mind the differences between these two areas of intellectual activity, and especially their specific language. The result of this research is the discovery of the following themes and problems addressed by Wojtyła, both as a playwright and as a philosopher: human development, maturity, and one’s fulfilment as a person, i.e. as a rational and free being open to interpersonal relationships and capable of creating a community; love in its different manifestations, particularly spousal love; and the human being as the general cognitive focus of reflection based on broadly understood experiences.

Managing ‘Difference’ in Eastern European Transnational Families, edited by Viorela Ducu and Áron Telegdi-Csetri

Managing ‘Difference’ in Eastern European Transnational Families is an edited volume co-authored by scholars primarily from Central and Eastern European countries. The authors explore how the political transformations of 1990, coupled with the development of new technologies, dramatically changed the intimate aspects of people’s lives, such as marriage, spousal love, parental love, child rearing, and the very concept of family. These topics are not new; issues such as diasporic populations, the development of new identities, third space, hybridity, transnationality, and translocality have been long present in the postcolonial

Does Periodic Continence Harm Spousal Love?: Pope John Paul II's Response to the Pastoral Difficulties of Living Out Humanae Vitae.

This article provides a pastoral response to the difficulties of living out the teaching of Humanae vitae, by explaining the teaching of Humanae vitae through the lens of Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Specifically, I explain John Paul II's exhortation to couples to develop a "conjugal spirituality" through the virtues, so that they will grow in reverence for their spouse and for God.

Oblubieńcza jedność Chrystusa i Kościoła a sakrament małżeństwa w adhortacji apostolskiej Amoris laetitia

Papież Franciszek w posynodalnej adhortacji apostolskiej Amoris Laetitia, poświęconej sakramentowi małżeństwa, odnosi się do oblubieńczego związku Chrystusa i Kościoła, cytując dokumenty Jana Pawła II, odnoszące się do tego tematu. Artykuł ukazuje spójność i aktualność biblijnej rzeczywistości oblubieńczej miłości Boskiego Oblubieńca, jako fundamentu sakramentu małżeństwa. Tekst artykułu ukazuje również korelację więzi oblubieńczej z Chrystusem Kościoła w całości jak również w osobie poszczególnego chrześcijanina oraz sakramentalnej więzi małżeńskiej.

Mistyka św. Jana od Krzyża w filozoficznej koncepcji miłości Karola Wojtyły?

Artykuł porusza temat wpływu, jaki mogła mieć mistyczna doktryna św. Jana od Krzyża na filozoficzną koncepcję miłości Karola Wojtyły. Stawia się tu tezę, że oddziaływanie to mogło być dwojakie: pośrednie i bezpośrednie.Wpływ pośredni polegałby na przyczynieniu się do przyjęcia przez Wojtyłę postawy filozoficznej, zawierającej dwa sposoby filozofowania: tomistyczny i fenomenologiczny. Postawa ta następnie warunkowałaby podejście Wojtyły do tematu miłości. Natomiast wpływu bezpośredniego można się doszukiwać w tych fragmentach Miłości i odpowiedzialności, gdzie rozważana jest miłość oblubieńcza, która – podobnie jak w mistyce św. Jana od Krzyża – skupia się na idei zjednoczenia osób.

Substytucja Lévinasa – substancjalna służba innemu?

Artykuł podejmuje centralny temat Lévinasowskiej etyki, jakim jest sub­stytucja. Porównuje ją najpierw z różnymi formami miłości: od miłości­‑eros, poprzez przyjaźń, miłość oblubieńczą, aż do chrześcijańskiej miłości­‑agape. Następnie, m.in. dzięki zagadnieniu miłosierdzia, przechodzi do omówienia postawy służby, zarówno czysto ludzkiej, jak i motywowanej religijnie. Takie zestawienie, zdaniem autora, pozwala najlepiej wniknąć w rozumienie substytucji, która jawi się odtąd raczej jako służba niż miłość drugiego. W przeciwieństwie do miłości służba jest bowiem przede wszystkim dziełem do wykonania. Nie wymaga natomiast ani wzajemności, ani intymnego poznania, do których dąży miłość. Substytucja jest jednak służbą nadzwyczajną, bo totalną: chce drugiego ocalić, biorąc go całego na siebie. Jak mesjasz. Czy jednak możliwą?

The Communal Nature of Marriage and the Missionary Dimension of the Domestic Church

Antiphon 18.1 (2014) 48–68 The Communal Nature of Marriage and the Missionary Dimension of the Domestic Church Rolando Moreno The family as a domestic church has been stated countless times, recovered in the documents of the Second Vatican Council1 and proclaimed as the root of the Christian family’s ecclesial identity. Understanding the nature and role of the domestic church today is of vital importance for the work of the New Evangelization. It is impossible to deny modernity’s far-reaching impact on marriage and family life, which has resulted in the ongoing cultural confusion about the family’s true identity in Christ, as an image of God’s love in the world.2 There are powerful forces at work aimed at transforming the Christian understanding of the human person and the Christian understanding of marriage. These forces are essentially attacks that threaten the inner logic of the family itself, its nature and its anthropological foundations in the imago Dei. Hence, now more than ever, we need an adequate pastoral response in the area of marriage and family life. Thirty-three years since its release, John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio continues to offer a fresh articulation of the beauty of Christian family life, in an age of increased anthropological reductions. With prophetic wisdom, Familiaris Consortio keeps urgently calling our attention to the nature of 1 See Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium (21 November 1964) 11. 2 In many facets of pastoral ministry today, especially in marriage preparation, one can easily witness a real disconnect between the Christian understanding of person, marriage and family; and what many couples actually believe and live as their understanding of marriage. The dominant mentalities of the culture often seem more operative in their lives, both consciously and unconsciously. 49 The Communal Nature of Marriage and the Missionary Dimension of the Domestic Church marriage and family and to the many profound challenges that families currently face. The document is John Paul II’s pastoral response to the needs of the family in the modern world. It states, The family in the modern world, as much as any other institution , has been beset by the many profound and rapids changes that have affected society and culture. Many have become uncertain and bewildered over their role or even doubtful and almost unaware of the ultimate meaning and truth of conjugal and family life3 . Recognizing these challenges, Familiaris Consortio also provides a beautiful articulation of spousal love, united as a domestic church with its ecclesial mission to sanctify the temporal order. In light of this, a few questions emerge. How is the Christian family missionary in nature? How is this notion of domestic church a concrete reality and not merely an abstract or a romantic ideal? What concerns me here is not only the theological and anthropological foundation of the domestic church but how this theology is lived in real time and how the domestic church participates in the Church’s evangelizing mission as such. What I propose to undertake is not an exhaustive analysis of the theology of the domestic church, but rather a theological reflection on certain key areas that undergird its missionary dimension. Moreover, these issues concern me not only as one engaged in pastoral ministry, but also as a husband and a father. The Church recognizes the central role of the family in evangelization and the need to attend to its pastoral care. John Paul II states “Make every effort to ensure that there is pastoral care for the family. Attend to this field of such primary importance in the certainty that evangelization in the future depends largely on the ‘domestic Church.’”4 In light of this statement, this essay will examine three areas pertinent to the theology of the domestic church and its missionary /sacramental identity. First, we will survey the Trinitarian and Christological foundations of the domestic church. Secondly, we 3 John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World Familiaris Consortio (22 November 1981) 1. 4 John Paul II, Address to the Third General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate (28 January 1979) IV .1...

Children, spousal love, and happiness: an economic analysis

In this paper we examine how children affect happiness and relationships within a family by analyzing two unique questions in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth’s 1997 cohort. We find that (a) presence of children is associated with a loss of spousal love; (b) loss of spousal love is associated with loss of overall happiness; but (c) presence of children is not associated with significant loss of overall happiness. If children reduce feelings of being loved by the spouse but do not reduce reported happiness even though spousal love induces happiness, then it must be the case that children contribute to parental happiness by providing other benefits. After ruling out some competing compensation mechanisms we infer that loss of spousal love is compensated with altruistic feelings towards children.

Children, Spousal Love, and Happiness: An Economic Analysis

Children, Spousal Love, and Happiness: An Economic Analysis

Życie i płodność. Moralne aspekty naturalnych metod planowania rodziny

Fertility is an inalienable feature of a human being, a fundamental function of sexuality, an attribute of maturity and an element that belongs to the essence of life. Fertility as an attribute of spousal love describes the field of many mutual achievements of a couple. Life processes are thus wisely regulated by nature itself in its biological rhythm. The knowledge of corporality and the rhythms of fertility is a prerequisite for responsible parenthood. Thus, responsible parenthood is an important matter for every married couple and the knowledge of nature is of much help in this area. To get to know nature better one must refer to the natural methods of conception, accepted and recommended by the Church. The aim of this publication is to present the natural methods of planning a family as an alternative to other methods widespread in the modern world which pose a danger to human life, marital bond and human dignity. Despite many publications which raise this issue, the subject of giving life in harmony with nature still remains open and inexhaustible.

Marital power bases as predictors of spousal influence strategies in a vacation purchase decision

PurposeThis paper aims to uncover the relationships between marital power and influence strategies used during couples' vacation decision processes. Marital power includes two dimensions: the first dimension is objective and composed of actual economic resources; the second is subjective and composed of feelings such as spousal love or self‐esteem.Design/methodology/approach192 couples completed a questionnaire that included statements describing different influence strategies utilized during the vacation purchase‐decision process; respondents indicated the frequency with which they employed each strategy.FindingsSubjective marital power is associated with the use of spousal influence strategies. Objective marital power does not predict the use of these strategies.Research limitaions/implicationsThese findings highlight a hitherto understudied aspect of marital power – subjective power.Practical implicationsConsumer researchers and vacation marketers should take into account the subjective marital power balance and its impact on influence strategies during couples' vacation decision processes.Originality/valueThis study shows that during a vacation decision process, the marital power balance between partners impacts on the choice of spousal influence strategies. Secondly, economic power is not the dominant factor that affects the choice of influence strategy; rather, interpersonal power is influential in the use of spousal influence strategies during the vacation decision process.

Marital Satisfaction Across Three Cultures: Does the Number of Children Have an Impact After Accounting for Other Marital Demographics?

U.S. studies indicate that children tend to stabilize marriage but, paradoxically, to reduce marital satisfaction. To explore whether this finding exists in a similar fashion in other cultures, the authors studied the impact of number of children on spousal love in the United States, United Kingdom, and Turkey, while accounting for other marital demographics (such as duration of marriage and the ages of wives and husbands). The number of children predicted diminished marital satisfaction in couples from all three cultures, although this effect arguably was not present in Turkish wives. In addition, marital satisfaction in couples from all three cultures was generally negatively predicted by the duration of marriage. Marital satisfaction was generally unrelated to wife’s age. The effect of husband’s age was important to marital satisfaction in couples from all cultures, although the nature of this effect diverged in relating positively to marital satisfaction for British and American couples but negatively for Turkish couples and especially Turkish wives. The authors identify several potentially important implications of these results.

Healing by Cancer

DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2009.24.8161 A Palestinian nurse described a case of an elderly Palestinian woman who continuously stayed awake for 3 days to assist her dying husband. Medications to relieve his excruciating bone pain were scarce in their makeshift hut in a barren, disputed region, and gunfire sounded in streets nearby, yet the man died with a profound sense of inner peace. He was able to achieve this transcendence because of the devotion of his wife, who had walked with him step by step for more than 50 years, raising their children in a war-torn land amid a strong faith tradition of justice and mercy, accompanying him right up to the threshold of death. She, in turn, drew the strength to help him in his last hours from her faith, from the belief that they would see each other again—the idea that his death was a temporary goodbye, rather than a final farewell. This case was presented at a The Middle East Cancer Consortium (MECC) meeting in April 2009. MECC (http://mecc.cancer.gov) is a valuable symbol of cooperation as President Obama makes new moves toward peace efforts in the Middle East. It was inspired by President Clinton, who understood that mutual respect is the foundation of peace itself. The Clinton administration charged the US National Cancer Institute to help form MECC, which was officially established in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1996 as an intergovernmental consortium with a mission to promote cooperation and understanding between Israel and some of its neighbors (The Palestinian National Authority–Gaza and the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, and Turkey) in caring for patients with cancer. The MECC agreement was signed by ministers from participating health authorities and was witnessed by the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and by the Director of the National Cancer Institute. Attendees to MECC meetings also come from nonsignatory states, including Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and other Arab countries in the Middle East. Many of the MECC members are not able to travel to each others’ countries as a result of visa restrictions, so the meetings take place annually in neutral venues, such as Cyprus or Turkey. The group currently is focused on developing mutual approaches to the development of palliative cancer care programs. In addition to the annual meetings, MECC funds scholarships in palliative care in the United States for physicians, nurses, social workers, and psychologists who come from member countries and train together, fostering cooperation between the different countries. Delegates at this meeting found many ways to relate to the story. To attendees from Arab countries, the story was an example of spousal love and devotion undefeated by disease, poverty, and war. For physicians from Israel and the United States, it was an inspiration, a reminder that human bonding is rooted in the belief that each person is sacred. From the Latin sacrum, sacred means “reserved for a unique task” that no other person can accomplish. In their mutual commitment to their marriage, this couple made itself sacred, reserved to each other. This belief may be hampered, rather than fostered, by the complex and expensive technology of modern medicine. This story illustrates one of many ways of healing. Healing is always possible, even when cure is beyond reach, even when physical pain cannot be relieved. Healing, in this sense, involves restoring a sense of sacredness and wholeness that no living experience, including terminal disease, can take away. Healing involves making sense of one’s death in the context of one’s life. A mutual commitment to ease the suffering caused by cancer has led to the formation of an alliance among people who live in countries that hardly cooperate in any other field. Such a commitment creates unity of purpose among people of different religious and cultural backgrounds. Freed from the mutual suspicions and prejudices and unified by the common goal of compassionate and competent treatment of dying patients, members of MECC are free to take part in an exchange of ideas related to the endeavor of healing. Physicians and nurses who care for patients with cancer have a unique opportunity to assist in healing. This gives meaning to their own lives and reminds us that the life of each person is irreplaceable. Our ability to heal others brings healing to ourselves because it supplies our life with a purpose, a mission. JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY T H E A R T O F O N C O L O G Y VOLUME 28 NUMBER 8 MARCH 1

The Value of Saint Augustine's Use / Enjoyment Distinction to Conjugal Love

The Proper Order of Conjugal Love:The Relevance of St. Augustine's Insights Perry Cahall (bio) Augustine says the "order of love" (ordo amoris) is the "brief and true definition of virtue."1 According to this order, the human person must love everything in creation according to its proper relationship to God, which means loving God above all creatures and not inordinately loving any creature as the human person's ultimate end.2 Living according to the order of love presents one with "the promise that human life might participate in the very trinitarian life and mutual love of God."3 Augustine also speaks of an "order of charity" that ideally "flourishes between husband and wife."4 This spousal love is part of the overarching order of love that orients the spouses toward participating in the life and love of the Trinity. Thus the order of charity that ought to flourish between spouses is one aspect of "believers living as a community of mutual love [who] should themselves be the eschatological appearing of God's own mutual, trinitarian love in history."5 In this article I will apply what Augustine says about the order of love in general to the order of love that he says should exist between spouses to show the validity Augustine's thought has for living out married life today. [End Page 117] Ordered Love and the Use/Enjoyment Distinction For Augustine, love that is in accord with the truth of God's love must be an ordered love, in terms of everything being loved hierarchically according to its proper relationship to God. In fact, for Augustine, all virtue is ordered love.6 He proposes a hierarchy of objects of human love consisting of God, ourselves, our neighbors, and our bodies.7 Our love of created things must be in relation to the Creator if it is to be considered true love.8 Whatever and whomever we love, we must not love them more than we love Christ.9 Augustine's point is that nothing we love can take the place of our ultimate end, who is God. Within this order Augustine distinguishes between divine love, lawful human love, and unlawful human love.10 With regard to marriage, Augustine says that a man who does not possess lawful human love for his spouse "isn't fit to be counted among human beings."11 Yet, if his love for his wife is true, a husband should order his love for her with reference to God.12 An important part of how human persons should order their love with reference to God, participate in the love of God, and share this love with each other, seeking each other's ultimate good, is Augustine's use/enjoyment (uti/frui) distinction. In the order of love, God alone is the ultimate object of our love and therefore God alone may be truly "enjoyed" (frui).13 Every created thing that is an object of our love must be referred to the love of God or "used" (uti).14 In De doctrina Christiana, Augustine defines frui and uti as follows: "To enjoy [frui] something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use [uti] something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love—if indeed it is something that ought to be loved. (The improper use of something should be termed abuse.)"15 After providing these definitions Augustine says, "It is only the eternal and unchangeable things . . . that are to be enjoyed; other things are to be used so that we may attain the full enjoyment of those things."16 However, previously Augustine had said, "There are some things [End Page 118] which are to be enjoyed, some which are to be used, and some whose function is both to enjoy and use."17 Augustine asks "whether humans should enjoy [frui]one another or use [uti]one another, or both."18 He answers, We have been commanded to love one another [John 13:34; 15:12, 17], but the question is whether one person should be loved by another on his own account or for some other reason. If on...