We are called, as Christians, to exercise the tremendous virtue of chastity, in imitation of Our Lady, the Immaculate one, who was wholly without taint or stain of impurity.  The Immaculate Virgin is the exemplar of how we should properly use the gift of our sexuality, given to us by our Creator.  Church teaching clearly states that human sexuality is teleological, or goal-oriented.  This is to say that human sexuality is purposeful – it ought to be authentically unitive and procreative.  To say that sexuality ought to be unitive is to say that the conjugal act out to be reserved only for a man and a woman who have already given the gift of themselves and their sexuality exclusively to each other, as expressed in their marital vows.  In the sacrament of marriage, the couple administer the sacrament to each other, with the priest acting as the official representative of the Church, and family and friends acting as witnesses to this public proclamation of their unconditional, irrevocable, exclusive and mutual gift of self.  We must understand that human sexuality speaks the language of human love.  In the conjugal act, each of the partners is saying with their bodies what they have already said and promised on the day of the wedding, which is, “I give myself exclusively and totally to you, and you alone, forever.  Thus, sex outside of the context of marriage is, therefore, a lie.  In other words, the couple would be saying something, promising something, most profound with the body language of sexual intercourse that, ultimately, is not true.  Extra-marital sex is likewise a lie, because in such an instance, one would be attempting to give a gift that has already been given to another individual, and we all know that once you have given a gift to someone, you have no right to take it back and give it to someone else. (more…)