If we want to know what’s most sacred in this world, all we need to do is look for what is most violently profaned.

In the sacraments, spirit and matter “kiss.” Heaven and earth embrace in a union that will never end.

The Church’s basic moral principle regarding reproductive technologies is this: if a given technology assists the marital embrace in achieving its natural end, it can be morally acceptable, even praiseworthy. However, if it replaces the marital embrace as the means by which the child is conceived, it’s not in keeping with God’s design.

The idea that ‘preaching the Gospel’ has nothing to do with sex and that ‘preaching about sex’ has nothing to do with the Gospel betrays layers and layers of seriously misguided thinking. When we divorce God’s love from sexual love, as Pope Benedict says, ‘the essence of Christianity’ becomes ‘decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life.’ (God is Love 7). The ‘gospel’ then becomes cold, aloof, inhuman. In other words, we’re no longer preaching the real Gospel.

Holiness is not first a matter of doing anything. It is first and foremost a matter of letting it be done. Holiness is to conceive the love of God within and to bring it forth to the world.

Grace flows through wounds.

Marital love is a reflection of how God loves. It is free, total, faithful and fruitful.

Marriage is the most basic expression of the vocation to love that all men and women have as persons made in God’s image.

Marriage is a living sign that truly communicates the love of Christ and the Church.

The free exchange of consent properly witnessed by the Church establishes the marriage bond. Sexual union consummates it – seals it, completes it, perfects it. Sexual union, then, is where the words of the wedding vows become flesh.

In a world that has lost a sense of sin, one sin remains: Thou shalt not make people feel guilty (except, of course, about making people feel guilty). In other words, the only sin today is to call something a sin.

Why was Christ so compassionate towards sexual sinners, especially women? Think of the woman caught in adultery. Think of the prostitute who wept at his feet. Could it be because Christ knew that these women, who had been deceived by counterfeit loves, were actually looking for him, the true Bridegroom?