The Language of the Body – Members Content

A sacrament makes visible in a human way something that is invisible or spiritual. In other words, a sacrament images and reveals the mystery of God.

Every sacrament has two key aspects which make the sacrament visible: words and gesture (or matter and form in the more technical language of the Church). In marriage, the sacramental words are the wedding vows, in effect “I freely give myself to you in marriage, totally, faithfully and fruitfully”. These sentiments are reflected in the Statement of Intentions to which couples answer “Yes!” at their wedding:

Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage? (Our love is freely given and is to be a total, unreserved gift of self).

• Will you love and honour each other as husband and wife for the rest of your lives? (Our love is faithful and exclusive until death).
• Will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church? (Our love is to be fruitful and life-giving).

The sacramental gesture is the spouses total giving of themselves to each other, expressed in their sexual union – the act of love where they freely give themselves totally, faithfully and fruitfully to each other. Sexual union says with the body the vows spoken at the altar. Every act of love is thus a renewal of the wedding vows!

These four characteristics of married love (freely given, total, faithful and fruitful) are embedded in the Church’s understanding of the very meaning of marital love. Pope John Paul II called sexual union ‘a sacred body language’. It is the body saying or expressing in action, the total gift of self to which a couple commits in words at the altar. In this sense, sex is liturgical – it completes and fulfils the liturgy of their wedding. The matrimonial bed can be compared to the altar as the site of the sacred liturgy.

Sex is powerful body language. It expresses and makes visible what is happening within a couple and out of sight, that is, their desire to be one – freely, totally, faithfully and fruitfully. The desire for union and communion is in fact the meaning of the body language. It is a meaning that is built into the very structure of their bodies. In other words, the meaning is intrinsic. It is intrinsic because the act is not just a sign or image of a spiritual reality, it actually does physically what it symbolises spiritually. The ‘one flesh’ union literally happens when husband and wife merge their bodies in sexual intercourse. The union which takes place with their bodies, also happens with their spirits.

Even more profoundly, the one flesh union is permanently and irrevocably accomplished in procreative lovemaking. In the creation of a new human being, the flesh of the two (that is the ovum and sperm) become one in the child. Thus, sex not only symbolises the one flesh union, it actually brings it about!

Man and woman are called to express the mysterious ‘language’ of their bodies in all the truth that properly belongs to it. Through gestures and reactions, through the whole reciprocally conditioned dynamism of tension and enjoyment – whose direct source is the body in its masculinity and femininity, the body in its action and interaction – through of all this man, the person, ‘speaks’.
Theology of the Body, n 123. pg 632

Concept: Sex As A Language

Sex is not just an activity; it is a language, a sacred body language that expresses your total gift of self to each other.

Sex says with the body the words of the wedding vows:

“I freely give myself to you totally faithfully and fruitfully, and I freely accept your total, faithful and fruitful gift of self.”

Stories of the Heart

I was getting pretty upset with my fiancé, and I felt confused every time we talked about sex. He gave me the impression that the Catholic Church saw sex as bad or wrong and it worried me. The session on sex as sacred body language was such a wonderful relief to me. It was clear that the Church’s teaching was so positive and even ambitious for us. The insight into sex as a body language opened up a whole new world for us. I completely changed my mind that evening and we decided that we should wait until sex could have its full meaning on our wedding night.

In the following months before our wedding, we became more intentional about all our physical communication and when we finally said our vows and were able to communicate them physically on our wedding night, it was so much more special and exciting than I could ever have dreamed possible. We were able to verbalise everything that we were communicating with our bodies and the joy was amazing and still is!

We have been married for two years now and have a newborn son. Lovemaking has become so much more than just ‘having sex’ because we approach it as our deepest communication.