Theology of The Body: The Antidote for Our Times /W Damon Owens 

Dude. Powerful words.

Jchattergoon God bless you girl

Wow, I never thought of this, call me blind. That's so awesome, I was thinking what would the right approach be to this problem. Can you suggest a book to suggest to women in your situation? And if you have suggestions for me as to how to act in these situations, please do tell. Peace be with you.

paxcoder I actually was dear friends with a Sister of Life who literally said "hey let's sit down and read about theology of the body". She printed off some pages online she found and as we were going through it, certain things became more clear to me such as what is use and what is truly love - and what that looks like. I find when you are in an abusive relationship, you are so clouded by lies it's ridiculous - lies about yourself, lies about those closest to you, and lies about what love is - often times people get entangled in these webs because they are so desperate for love and to be loved genuinely. So once that lie starts breaking - that this isn't truly love, it's upwards from there. From studying online TOB material, I first understood what use was, and called it out in my head when I saw it with him. Then in prayer I started asking "then what is love" and "show me what love is" or just simply asking God to love me in that moment. As much as you may want to yank this woman away from this man, she will always run back or to another until she understands how precious she is to God and how love really looks like. So while this was happening, I would confide in my friends and ask questions like "is this true" or "is this abuse" because when enduring abuse the line gets blurry and you can't distinguish truth anymore. So be supportive of her/him by walking them through what truth is. Then plead them to never give up prayer, even if it's running away from his abuse into the bathroom for 5 min, tell her to ask God to love her in that moment. Prayer from you helps SO MUCH. Sometimes you feel like there has to be other practical ways to get someone out but really, their prayer and yours are the most powerful. The Holy Spirit works in such an ACTIVE way that you'd be surprised! Every day with your prayers, He will be tugging on her heart that something is wrong. In time, when she desires Gods continuous non conditional love more than the fake love her abuser is giving her, she will leave and never go back.

paxcoder sorry for the long post!! Lol

paxcoder ALSO PRAY THE ROSARY - even if you have to call her and pray with her, it's so powerful.

That's a very interesting point. Why is that more palatable for Eastern Catholics than for Latin Catholics?

Because Phenomenology and Personalism are the Deposit of Faith? It is an either/or. The Deposit of Faith is not some mystical jumble beyond words that can contradict itself once it is put into words. These guys on the video are committing an intellectual and spiritual suicide. It's a thrilling deceit to think that man can worship his bodily existence and animal nature and somehow see God in it.

@@Montfortracing, because supposedly the Catholics in the east are more about feeling and experience, and therefore the Deposit of Faith is primarily an experience that is only secondarily put into words. Or, even worse, our bodies and sexuality have been turned into parts of the Deposit of Faith, therefore making marital sex a physical alternative to Scholasticism. Looked from the viewpoint of Scholasticism, TOB is the height of lunacy. But disregarding Scholasticism, nobody can believe it really is just worship of sexuality, and therefore assumes it's about a return to conservative sexual morality.

@@seriouscat2231 hmm I guess that makes sense. Of course we never want to worship the body for all Catholics. It would be interesting to learn more about sexual ethics from an Eastern Catholic perspective. So I'm guessing you're not a fan of Edith Stein?

@@Montfortracing, I don't really know much about her. But I assume the stuff with Husserl and Scheler was before her conversion. She can't be that smart if she saw no contradiction between their thinking and say that of St. Thomas Aquinas.

I'm afraid he has no understanding of such things. Looking at all the videos by Matt Fradd suggested by RU-vid, it looks like those are all about some kind of moralism. It all boils down to 1) you are precious (or your body / personality / sexuality is precious), so 2) obey the Bible in sexual matters. The "obey" part is the actual message, and the "precious" is the "ooooh so profound and lovely" part. If you don't obey, then you're not part of the club. And all they can do to help you obey is to call you precious.

@@seriouscat2231 Not really sure how I feel about your statements, but it's true that some (most?) approaches to ToB are full of these "Wow!"/"Amazing!" thing to it. It's like they are trying to sell a product, and while it's true they are trying to convey a message regarding a very sensitive topic, i.e., sexuality, isn't there a more rational approach to this things? I mean, is ToB the only way? It can't be: what happened before it? We were just confused about what sex was all about? I've read some essays around and even heard the name of people who worked with this within a more safe philosophical basis in terms of catholic teaching (not implying personalism is totally bad, mind you), but it's like ToB is the deal for all the centuries to come. Even the whole topic of this video seems an exageration to me.

He's saying exactly what you are saying. He's not saying there's a dichotomy there. Listen closely. He says anthropology is the basis of morality, saying that to evaluate morality, we need to understand anthropology.

@@Ca8tisawesome He's certainly not saying exactly what I'm saying. He didn't even mention the amnesia embodied by Paul VI's liturgical revolution. Instead he says "I agree with everything... V2, Paul VI JPII, BXVI." So I think he is suffering from anthropological/theological/liturgical amnesia (a poor word choice, really, since he probably never knew anything different) -- and moreover, historical amnesia, with his claim that TOB was a response to anthropological amnesia. That is a groundless and false claim about the naive "moralistic" pre-TOB understanding of morality, i.e., the epiphany/anamnesis that it's "not just moral evil/morality, but forgetting of anthropology" line, which strikes me as chronological snobbery and historical ignorance posing as profundity.

And then it's 6:00, Matt Fradd says exactly the (falsely) dichotomous line I quoted: "It's NOT about morality, it's about anthropology."

Amnesia. What a loss.

I'm interested in hearing your explanation, sir. Can you expound your thoughts on this?

and proper behavior.