I am fixating on Eros, which is odd, because I always thought that if I was good, Religious Boy all those naughty thoughts of desire and love and madness would be chased away by the excellence of my ability to recite by memory the questions of the Baltimore Catechism.
Religion is supposed to be safe, with the trade-off being moral rectitude and a chance at eternal life. This is a full-on rant, just go with it. It is Modernity, or whatever jumble of pick-your-own poison amongst the options of the sexual revolution, crony capitalism, gross commercialism, the separation of body from soul as a result of Cartesianism gone wrong, atheism, etc⦠that has dehumanized us and put Eros down for the count.
Now we live in a world of sex robots, deliberately childless couples, and desperate but entirely misinformed attempts by Hollywood to shock us back to life through ever-increasing imitations of Eros on screen.
Where is Eros alive and well? In the Church. The Church is the only institution that currently upholds the link between body and soul, thus uniting our physical, sensible Erotic love with a deeper, universal love capable only through the miracle of an eternal soul united with a finite body. In the human person, heaven and earth truly find a meeting place.
Romance is sacred. What is so interesting to me about this is the natural order by which Desire blossoms in us. It creates a toxic atmosphere in which we are presented with Desire as a valid, and in fact the only, expression of human love but are entirely unable to take the necessary steps to achieve it.
