What could be further from the truth than the prejudice about the opposition of spirituality and sexual relations? Perhaps the whole tragedy of modern man is that, under the influence of Pharisaic culture, he has learned to separate within himself the high and the low, the sacred and the profane, pious solemnity and everyday lowering of the moral standard. Often, such a person either deliberately lies, becoming a prude in public and inflaming his imagination in solitude, or sincerely considers himself dispassionate, while his suppressed libido rages, ready to flood everything around him at any moment, or slyly excuses himself: they say, because On Sundays I’m in church, and on other days - “well, I’m a weak person, but who is without sin?” Such variants of personal structure have nothing to do with Christianity; moreover, they rightly turn away from Christ those who could become His faithful and joyful witnesses. * What knowledge about intimate relationships between a man and a woman does the Church have, what can She offer to heal a sick society? Sick? Without a doubt! And a burning interest in sex is one of the symptoms of the disease. There is a saying in medicine: “A healthy heart is a heart that you don’t feel, that doesn’t seem to exist.” What burns, worries, abscesses, hurts indicates a need for help, a need for healing. Sex is indeed a hot topic these days, and probably always has been. This means only one thing - a person is not imbued with a sense of his true freedom and true responsibility, he is not yet mature enough spiritually to understand that intimacy is harmoniously integrated into spirituality, becoming an amazing source of energy, creativity and gratitude for the priceless gift of our stay on Earth. * God creates the world. And in the created world He creates His image - man. This mysterious creature - man - carries within himself the features of godlikeness along with his “tearness” - involvement in the animal world. But man, even biologically, differs significantly from lower beings. A simple example is that animals are capable of fertilization during short periods of their life cycle, while humans are open to inviting their own kind into life most of the time. This fact leads us to understand that the human desire for intimacy is not at all identical to the reproductive instinct of animals. The desire for intimacy, including on the physical level, is something immeasurably greater and qualitatively different. This is God’s gift to us, it remains to understand what the meaning of this gift is... * At the first level of understanding, it may be revealed to us that the desire for intimacy, carefully invested in us, is an invitation to go beyond ourselves. Let's imagine how mechanical, boring, cold our world would be if people didn't want each other. How many beautiful things, feats, discoveries would not have happened. The desire to open up to others in our attractiveness reflects our basic need for other people. This encourages the lazy to act, the rich to share, the talented to give pleasure, the vain to still do something good. Because of our need for each other's attention, the world becomes more comfortable, more diverse, more beautiful. * The saints were distinguished by their ability to find sublime meaning in everything. There is a story about one strict monk, an ascetic, who once, together with his disciples, came from the desert to a rich eastern city. On the way, they met a procession accompanying a famous courtesan sitting on a stretcher. The elder watched her for a long time and finally began to cry. To the questions of his students, he replied: “How wonderful she is in her work and how insignificant I am in mine! If I could devote as much time and effort as she devotes to caring for her appearance to the salvation of my soul, oh how closer I would be to God.” . Let us note, not a word of reproach, only piercing humility and a willingness to learn from everyone who meets along the way. * The great Christian writer Dostoevsky, manyreflecting on the most violent forms of depravity, he came to his credo - “Beauty will save the world.” The desire for beauty in all its manifestations is the second level of understanding the meaning of intimacy from the perspective of spirituality. The French king Louis, canonized by the Catholic Church, once said to his subjects: “O wives, dress more beautifully so that it will be easier for your husbands to love you.” It's strange to hear this from a saint, isn't it? But this is the meaning of beauty - as the threshold of love. * But what is love itself? Don't expect me to answer this question that lies at the heart of all human existence. One can only assume that what we call love is not always love. Let's show this using a simple example of the phenomenon of falling in love. Perhaps this condition is known to everyone. Let me remind you. In the words of the poet, “attraction is a kind of illness.” General heat, internal discomfort, anxiety. Thoughts constantly return to the object of passion. Previous interests and close people recede into the background. Time not associated with the presence of a loved one is devalued. The perception directed at the object of love is heightened to the extreme, everything else loses its relevance and ceases to be of interest. Everything that happens is divided into two unequal parts: what is related to falling in love is endowed with extreme importance, and what is not relevant recedes into the background and is devalued. * There are several aspects that can be perceived in falling in love that have a truly spiritual meaning. First, we distinguish a person from the rest of the world. Probably, if we were good Christians, we would be in love with every person in the sense that we would see him as beautiful and unique as he looks in the eyes of his Creator. Secondly, a person in love is unhypocritically ready for self-sacrifice. In Christianity, the greatest sin is considered to be pride, that is, an excessively inflated “I” that crowds out the rest of the world. So it’s wonderful when, in the heat of love, a person thinks more about another person. Someone said: “love is a castling of You and Me.” Such sacrifice of one’s comfort, fortune, health, time, and sometimes even self-preservation may resemble the Christian principle: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” This is a truly captivating moment. But it’s important not to make a mistake here. Is a person really ready to give his life for another or for someone else relative to himself? In other words, isn’t it for your own feeling? And if so, then it turns out that not for the other, but for oneself, the beloved, distortedly projected onto the other. This big trap of unenlightened love. * But the cardinal difference between falling in love and true love is that falling in love is always partial. It does not embrace the entire image of another person, but endows it with non-existent characteristics. While true love accepts the other person entirely, in his strength and weakness, beauty and suffering. And often everyday life, the routine of everyday life, is the reactant that unmistakably reveals the true nature of feelings: falling in love passes, and love becomes richer, more sensual, more intense, although it may manifest itself in other forms. Traditional Christian marriage was depicted by N.V. Gogol in the good story "Old World Landowners". Let us remember these dear old men whom, at the whim of the writer, we find in the last phase of their virtuous marriage. They are so kind in their attitude towards each other and eat so much and varied. The modern reader, no stranger to psychology, can easily jump back to their younger years and envy how sophisticated, rich, and uninhibited their intimate life could be without loss of chastity. * In general, reflecting on the heights of Christian love, we can understand why the Church is decisively against contraceptives. Maybe precisely because they are ugly. And also because, by loving, you accept the person entirely and with all the consequences. You are not responsible for the one you are in love with, but you are responsible to the last for the one you love. And here the third level of understanding was revealed to us...