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“Why are Christians so hung up about sex?” It was the 1980s and I was asked that by a very sincere and decent gay guy I was meeting face to face for the first time after many months of talking online. I helped him through a difficult relationship break up, all his pain about the loss of closeness and affection were all poured out to me and by the time we had formed a relationship I discovered he was gay, up till that point all his pain was identical to any heterosexual break up I had to deal with pastorally. It woke me up rather a lot to the emotional reality and turmoil that afflicts deep gay relationships.

I had no pat answer to give him and neither the place nor the time was appropriate to answer in detail. In fact there is no pat answer to those questions when we live in a world where sex has become detached from love and procreation, and is seen by most, as an apparently harmless recreational activity no more relevant than other recreational activities that bring pleasure.

As Christians of course love and sexual activity go hand in hand like a horse and carriage. We see love as something pure and to be treasured  a mirror of the love Christ has for us and his Church. We have a different world view. We regard marriage as a sacramental act taking place within the family of the Church, a blessed union of two souls and bodies to become but one. Place sexual activity within that context and we see it as the deepest and most profound relationship in which every such act might lead to the possibility of new life gifted by God. We see it having no place outside of such loving unity as gifted to the man and woman who come together.

That’s the perfect Christian ideal. It is hard work to even approach such perfection. But we are called to be perfect by Jesus. It is something to be aimed for, strived for, and celebrated. Sex is but one aspect of such a union which is still perfectly possible without sexual encounters. The couple with Christ as the centre of their union soon realise that, and an even closer union may be realised without the sexual element.

So we don’t have hang ups about sex. But all sexual activity within and without the marriage bond is measured by us against such a yardstick. To us anything less than that ideal is at best a failure and at worst a twisted perversion of love. Sex without love is meaningless and damaging to the well being of the soul and our relationships with others, and of course God.

I really wish I could have had time to explain all of that to my friend of long ago. Like all our virtues we aim high but often fall short of the mark, we aim for a bullseye but are often happy if the arrow simply hits the target at all.

So we don’t have hang ups as I said but rather a completely different world view about the nature of relationships and of love and marriage. In the current climate it is hard to communicate such values and often the way we proclaim them can seem like condemnation and judgement. The reality is we cannot enforce our world view on others, nor should we make any attempt to do so. It is God who sees our hearts and motives, only He, the merciful one knows what is truly going on.

Hopefully given a loving warm understanding any person coming seeking to learn to see how God wants us to exist will be drawn to understand the very high and precious view we have of marriage and sexual encounters within it.

Chastity is a virtue to be practised and obtained by the grace of God both within and  without marriage. We are called to seek higher things than  merely the satisfying of any or all earthly desires.  We only find happiness in truth and truth is only found in union with God.

It is never too late to turn our lives around and walk a different path. We have till our last breath to do our best.