Holy Intimacy: Love and Marriage in the Light of the Trinity

This book is a joyful immersion of heart and mind, bathed in contemplative wonder and reverent amazement, into the perennial complementarity of man and woman as an expression and an incarnation of the very inner life of the Trinity. From this place, however, a rich multiplicity of reflections flows, seeking to draw the heart into the very convergence point of love and intimacy in which the whole of human existence, and indeed the whole of creation, is united as one within the eternal embrace of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first part of this book focuses on the central themes of the Theology of the Body, on the beauty of true chastity, and particularly on the mutual enrichment and circulation between the vocations of marriage and virginity. Part II picks up on many of these themes, though seeking to penetrate still more deeply into the great Mystery at the heart of the Gospel - the union of the heavenly Bridegroom and his Bride, and indeed the eternal intimacy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The third part of the book seeks to offer a chaste "reading" of the human body, in order to make contact with the depth of God's intentions for human sexuality. This is a reading, not only in the light of time and nature within the confines of this world, but in the very light of eternity.Part IV is a very rich overflow, from the place of convergence in the love and intimacy of the Trinity, in which the very concrete living of sexuality in marriage is illumined from a place of great simplicity and clarity. Among other things, this part tries to show how to live the beauty of the sexual embrace most deeply and transparently in the light of the love of the Trinity, as a true and intimate union of man and woman incarnate in the body. Such a question is approached, not from a legalistic perspective, but rather from the living heart of the Mystery in which all things, spontaneously, receive their true illumination and unveil their authentic beauty.(This book is an abbreviated version, ordered more directly towards married persons, of my longer work, "Loving in the Light of Eternity: Marriage, Virginity, and Spiritual Friendship.")