Kimberly Hahn - Life-Giving Love: Embracing God’s Beautiful Design for Marriage

LIFE-GIVING LOVE

Copyright 2001 by Kimberly Kirk Hahn

All rights reserved.

Charis Books is an imprint of Servant Publications especially designed to serve Roman Catholics.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (RSV), the Catholic Edition of the New Testament, copyright 1965, the Catholic Edition of the Old Testament, incorporating the Apocrypha, copyright 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.-Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission. Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.-Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

The personal stories and testimonies in this book are true. Real names have been used where permission was granted. However, names and identifying characteristics in some stories have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

CONTENTS

What this book teaches is true. Its challenging. And its life-changing. I know all this because Ive had the joy and the privilege of discovering its truth, its challenge, and its transformation alongside the author, who is my wife, Kimberly.

What the Church teaches about love, sex, and marriage is true. That should be apparent by now, as nothing else seems to bring lasting happiness to families. Pundits deride the popes as out of touch with reality and out of step with the times. But it is actually societys sexual liberation that has proven to be unworkable in the real worldbreaking up homes and hearts, burdening bodies with disease and souls with sin.

The Churchs teaching works in the real world because it is based upon our nature. The moral law comes from the God who created the real world, human nature, and our human bodies. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He loves us better than we can love ourselves or love each other. So his law does not constrain us so much as perfect us and guide us along right paths. It is no more repressive than a map is for a traveler.

The Churchs teaching makes sense, and it works, unlike any of the alternatives. That should be enough to recommend it; but there are more and even better reasons behind it. For this doctrine is based not only on the natural law known to reason but also on the divine law confirmed by faith.

All Christians, throughout all of history, saw this matter clearly until the late twentieth-century sexual revolution muddled many minds. The ancient world was well acquainted with birth control, divorce, homosexuality, adultery, abortion, premarital sex, and divorce. In many parts of the Roman Empire, these practices were as common and as socially acceptable as they are in America today.

Yet Christians unanimously condemned these actions. And the Protestant Reformation accepted this tradition. Indeed, Protestants and Catholics unanimously shared a sexual ethic for four hundred years after the Reformation. In matters of love, sex, and marriage, Christian tradition spoke with one voice until the 1930s. Since then, Protestant denominations have broken ranks one by one, but the Churchs Magisterium has remained steadfast.

Why did the Church hold fast to this teaching? Not to be authoritarian or retrograde, but to be true and to be loving. Let all the rest of the world declare war on human nature and the human body. The Church would rather help us find salvation, peace, and good health in happy homes.

Is it always easy to do whats right? Of course not Whether youre married or not, you may look at this doctrine and wonder how anyone can live it.

Well, no one can live itwithout dedicated human effort and the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit It may not be easy, but it is a relatively simple matter to follow the path of prayer, sacrifice, and self-discipline that Christian tradition has clearly spelled out for us. Again, it is the alternatives that are hopelessly difficult, and complicated, and ultimately lonely.

We moderns have a mania for planning and control. We think we can make matters simpler and make life easier by dictating the fine details of our lives. Many people do this in marriage, too, and thats why they place such hope in family planning and birth control. Life, however, rarely turns out the way we plan it. In the words of the popular song, life is what happens while were busy making other plans.

The Churchs teaching is life-changing, and that scares many peoplebecause Gods plan for us might upset our own dreams for our life, career, and home. I can testify to this reality. I had my whole career mapped out when Kimberly and I stopped using contraceptives. I was all ready to set sail for a prestigious doctoral program in Aberdeen, Scotland.

But Gods plan is always better for us than our wildest dreams would have been. By becoming a father, I learned what no doctoral program could have taught me. Indeed, fatherhood taught me more about my profession which is theologythan I ever could have learned in a classroom. By practicing fatherhood, I came to know Gods fatherhood in deeper ways. By the time I did get my doctorateon Gods schedule, not mineI was living what I was learning.

Gods ways are not always life-changing in the way we want but rather in the way we need. By following the perennial Christian truth in matters of love and sex, Kimberly and I gained a much deeper reverence and gratitude for each other and for the mystery of marriage as its expressed in sexual love. We have also discovered that were not alone. In the last two decades, weve encountered hundreds and even thousands of families who have been similarly transformed. We personally know hundreds of wonderful children who wouldnt exist if not for their parents changed lives and changed minds. These kids are the bearers of a message.

This book bears the same message. It comes from an author who knows it to be true, and challenging, and life-changing. She has received it lovingly from the Author of life.

Scott Hahn

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to Jesus, the life-giving Lover of my soul, and to my beloved soulmate, Scott, who chose me for his wife and who cooperated with God to bestow motherhood upon me. How grateful I will ever be for the truth we have found and had the privilege to live for more than twenty years together.