It Is No Coincidence That Ephesians 6 Follows Ephesians 5

Can you believe that I am still getting Christopher West summaries on here? (By the way, if you are my Facebook friend, you can see him -- I just posted a picture from the second night on Facebook.)

At this point, having just learned that God loves us with a spousal love, that He desires to marry us, and that we can reach union with Him in the Eucharist, we're pretty pumped. After all, if God wants us that badly, what can stand in the way?

Christopher West told us to write down the next sentence he was going to say. It was the most profound thing he was going to say all three nights. Ready? "It is no coincidence that Ephesians 6... follow Ephesians 5." The whole room giggled, self included, but I still jotted it down. Christopher went on to explain that Ephesians 5 is about marriage, the union between man and woman and the union between Christ and the Church. Ephesians 6? Battle. "Put on the armor of God," St. Paul tells us. When we live in union with God, the enemy does not like it and will use all his power to stop it. If our sexuality can point us so strongly towards heaven, then Satan will attack our sexuality. He creates fracture, rupture -- in allegorical terms, divorce.

When you want someone to trust you, you tell them something that is true. I have to admit, this point hit home for me. If there is one thing my experience of sexuality in this world has confirmed, it is that it is broken, fractured, dysfunctional -- not what it should be. So of course, I started listening very hard, in hopes that the next talk would convince me that this teaching held the answer of what it should be.

"This teaching," Christopher West now explained, focused on two questions that ground the two parts of JPII's teaching : 1) What does it mean to be human? and 2) How do I live my life in a way that brings true happiness? Under each question there are three sections :

1) Meaning of our humanity

-Our origin (Creation)

-Our history (Fall and Redemption)

-Our destiny (Resurrection)

2) Living in true happiness

-Celibacy for the Kingdom

-Marriage as a Sacrament

-The Language of Sexual Love

A disclaimer if you are intensely interested in the 2nd question : Christopher answered that one night three, the night that I could not make it the talk. So when I get to the end of my notes, I might read the workbook he gave us and try to give an overview of those points, but that's a maybe and won't be as detailed as what I actually heard.