Dear P.J.:

A husband and wife are one flesh as long as they are married. The married couple are bound together as one until death do they part. The bond is not only during the marital embrace. It is a permanent condition of the Sacrament of Marriage.

1 Cor 6:16 says, Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two shall become one flesh."

St. Paul is making a point of just how serious a sin it is to fornicate or to commit adultery. When we have sex with someone not our spouse there is a improper bond established between the couple, even with a prostitute. Sexual sin "is as terrible as to hack oneself off from the body of Christ, to become one body with a prostitute. Hence the gravity of this sin, a sin against one's own body, which is part of the mystical body of Christ" [Navarre Bible Commentary].

It takes a radical action, the Sacrament of Confession, to break that improper bond and to restore one to a State of Grace in fidelity to the body of Christ. Yet, in a sublime way, the consequences of our sexual sin not only wounds our body and soul, but causes scar tissue even after one is healed in the Sacrament that can remain until we are ultimately healed in the life to come.

Unfortunately, in today's perverted world, even among otherwise good Catholics, people live with a lot of scar tissue. However, it is better to be scared, forgiven, and back in our Lord's fold than to be living with the open wounds of unforgiven sin.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary