Christopher West - Heaven’s Song: Sexual Love As It Was Meant to Be

To the gate of heaven,
the all beautiful one,
Mary.

Also by Christopher West

Good News About Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Questions about Catholic Teaching (Servant, 2000; revised edition, 2006)

Theology of the Body Explained: A Commentary on John Paul IIs Man and Woman He Created Them (Pauline, 2003; revised edition, 2007)

Theology of the Body for Beginners: A Basic Introduction to John Paul IIs Sexual Revolution (Ascension, 2004; revised edition, 2008)

The Love That Satisfies: Reflections on Eros and Agape (Ascension, 2007)

Abbreviations

CCC Catechism of the Catholic Church , second edition (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997)

CL Cantata of Love: A Verse by Verse Reading of the Song of Songs , by Blaise Arminjon (Ignatius Press, 1988)

CTH Crossing the Threshold of Hope , John Paul II (Knopf, 1994)

CW The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross (ICS Publications, 1991)

DC Deus Caritas Est , Pope Benedict XVIs Encyclical Letter God is Love (Pauline, 2006)

EA Ecclesia in America , John Paul IIs Apostolic Exhortation on the Church in America (Pauline, 1999)

FC Familiaris Consortio , John Paul IIs Apostolic Exhortation on the Christian Family (Pauline, 1981)

FS Through the Year with Bishop Fulton Sheen , Henry Dieterich (Ignatius Press, 2003)

GM Gift and Mystery , John Paul IIs reflections on the fiftieth anniversary of his priestly ordination (Doubleday, 1996)

GS Gaudium et Spes , Vatican IIs Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Pauline, 1965)

LF Letter to Families , John Paul IIs Letter in the Year of the Family (Pauline, 1994)

LR Love and Responsibility , Karol Wojtylas philosophical work on sexuality (Ignatius Press, 1993)

MCS Mary: The Church at the Source , Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Urs Von Balthasar (Ignatius Press, 2005)

MD Mulieris Dignitatem , John Paul IIs Apostolic Letter on the Dignity and Vocation of Women (Pauline, 1988)

MI Memory and Identity , John Paul IIs final memoir (Rizzoli, 2005)

MTB The Virgin Mary and Theology of the Body , Donald H. Calloway, editor (Marian Press, 2005)

NMI Novo Millennio Ineunte , John Paul IIs Apostolic Letter at the Close of the Jubilee Year (Pauline, 2001)

SL The Spirit of the Liturgy , Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Ignatius, 2000)

SM The Secret of Mary , St. Louis de Montfort, adapted by Eddie Doherty (Montfort Publications, 1998)

SSV Sex and Sacredness: A Catholic Homage to Venus , Christopher Derrick (Ignatius Press, 1982)

SS Spe Salvi , Pope Benedict XVIs Encyclical Letter Saved in Hope (Pauline, 2007)

TD True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin , St. Louis de Montfort (Montfort Publications, 1993)

TOB Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body , John Paul IIs general audience addresses on Human Love in the Divine Plan (Pauline, 2006)

VS Veritatis Splendor , John Paul IIs Encyclical Letter on the Splendor of Truth (Pauline, 1993)

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the following men and women who have helped me with this book:

Archbishop Robert Carlson, Ed Hogan, Lorraine Ranalli, Nicole Rodriguez, Fr. John Horn, Fr. Jim Otto, Matthew Dalton, Damon Owens, Bill Donaghy, Maureen Snook, Dana Vink, Michael J. Miller, Matthew Pinto, Steve Motyl, Christopher Cope, John Harden, Michael Flickinger, Michael Fontecchio, and Wendy West.

Foreword

A good priest and spiritual director I know sometimes asks people, What song is God singing over you today?

In this book on the undelivered addresses of John Paul IIs Theology of the Body, Christopher West invites us to open our ears to the song that God is singing to us through our bodies, through our creation as male and female, and through our natural desire for intimate union. The invitation to hear this song which tells us of Gods original plan for sexuality is desperately needed today, because our cultures native beat has made us deaf to it. And no one is better suited to deliver the invitation than Christopher West. For more than a decade he has been translating the Theology of the Body for popular audiences from the dense and lofty language of philosophical discourse into language and experiences we can all understand.

Because a substantial part of the book is taken up with John Pauls reflections on the Song of Songs, anyone who reads it will find themselves at the intersection of the sacred and the sexual. This is especially true of the books second half, which shows how the conjugal union of spouses can both illuminate and be purified by the celebration of the liturgy. The combination may seem odd, perhaps even offensive, to some sensibilities. But the point of this book is to teach us to see the body as the revelation of a great mystery, to experience the desire for intimate union as an echo of Gods desire to unite himself with us forever, and to let the one flesh union of man and woman point us toward the mystery of Christ and the Church. If that seems strange, I would suggest that the strangeness is not so much with the book as it is with our sensibilities. It is diagnostic. It shows how far we have drifted from the biblical worldview that includes the Song of Songs.