One of the things Christopher Columbus discovered when he landed in the new world was a fruit no one in Europe had ever seen. It was juicy and sweet like an apple but it was oddly shaped, like a pinecone. Thus, it was named the pineapple.
Columbus took a boat load of the new fruit home with him when he returned to the known world. It was an instant hit and the demand for the fruit grew. It became a status symbol of luxury, being reserved solely for the rich. A single pineapple would sell for the equivalent of $8000 a piece in today’s currency. People would throw viewing parties where a pineapple would be put on a pedestal and unveiled to a group of awestruck friends and neighbors. Then it would be put on display for all to see in a prominent part of the home. The pineapple would often go uneaten, left on display until it began to rot.
Thanks to companies like Dole and Del Monte and the invention of the steam ship pineapples soon became widely available to everyone of every economic class. The allure of the pineapple faded and now you can get it in a can from any mega mart or dollar store for next to nothing.
Human sexuality has followed a similar path as the pineapple. Before 1950 when a woman had sex with a man she did so at the risk of her very life. Pregnancy was the leading cause of death for women, either from preterm complications or in child birth. On June 23, 1960 the FDA approved the birth control pill to be sold in the United States. On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States made laws that prohibited abortion unconstitutional. These two things combined have done more to destroy America than anything else in our history.
Human sexuality is a treasure that was given to man by God. God loved man so much that he included him in his great plan of salvation by entrusting us to fill heaven with Saintly humans. This is a gift that he did not share with the angels. Human sexuality has two purposes, unitive and procreative. Sex was designed to be so intimate that it united two individuals into one flesh. The result of that is procreative, the bringing about of new life into this world. Sex unites husband and wife together and brings about the child which forms a family. The family, not the individual, is the primary building block of every society. That is the design and purpose for which God created human sexuality. Any use of this sexuality that goes against its designed purpose is disordered.
Virginity, therefore, is something to be treasured. It is a unique and special gift a husband can give his wife and wife to husband. Yet, in today’s culture virginity is a dirty word. It is something we try to get rid of at the earliest possible time. Being a virgin can bring with it a great amount of criticism and teasing from one’s peers or even one’s parents. Instead of being a treasure, guarded and given as the deepest meaning gift, it is thrown away in a moment that holds no more meaning than to be able to say, “I did it!”
Besides the sacrifice of our Lord and the air in our lungs there is no greater gift man has been given than our human sexuality. It is the glue that holds a family together and the action that brings about future saints. Because of this nothing is attacked more by the devil. We throw virginity away on a whim and reduce sex to nothing more than an unattached physical action between any number of people. The pill has enabled us to accept God’s gift of life on our terms allowing people to have sex without consequence. This in turn has destroyed the unitive affects of sex. Abortion on demands allows us to correct our mistakes if a sexual encounter brings about a new life we do not want. With the glue between husband and wife severely weakened or gone altogether and sex being done for recreation instead of procreation the American family has taken a serious beating. Rare is it to find an intact marriage after twenty years. Rarer is it to find an unbroken or unblended family.
If the family is the primary building block of the society when you have a broken family you have a broken society. You don’t have to look very far in today’s culture to see how true that really is. The devil has been very successful in getting us to embrace the “I” over the “we” and our world is paying a dear price. We have heard that children are our future so when we stop having children we create for ourselves a very bleak future. Every first world nation is now under replacement rate, meaning we produce fewer children than the number of people who die. Entire towns in Europe are disappearing, like the ghost towns in the Wild West, because there is no one to replace the elders when they pass. Less children means there will be less people to do the work and less people to pay taxes to support those who have retired. Less people to pay taxes means those who do will have to pay more for longer and that services currently provided must be cut.
Fewer children mean fewer priests, volunteers, donors, and people in our pews. Mass greatly needs more crying babies for without them we will have empty churches in forty years. There will be no volunteer groups that do so much of the necessary ministry in our world today.
The devil has done all the ground work to insure civilization’s destruction. He hung the noose and we have eagerly stuck our heads in it. He is not waiting for us to jump but he is actively trying to knock the chair out from under us. His pleasure at what we have become is immense.
And God continues to offer us salvation, in this world and the next. All we have to do is recognize the genius of his creation and use it as he has designed it. If we turn back to him, in our hearts, minds, and actions we can save this world he has worked so hard to create.
