An angle: "Every sperm is sacred."

The Anchoress dug into her archives today and re-posted a 2005 entry: Every Sperm is Sacred. It's a great, lay (as she insists on framing it) explanation of the Catholic Church's teaching on this whole fertility thing. She puts it in her usual, humorous way, which I find gentle and others find abrasive.

The best bit is when she ties the sort of Thomistic "ends-means/essence-final end" explanation to the Whole Point: openness to God's will. A tidbit:

"One of the jobs of the church is to help us find our openness to God – to help us to maintain that openness to His will, so that we might reach our own best and highest spiritual potential; we are not called to dwell in darkness but to live in the light, and in holiness. We are called to holiness: “Be holy as my Father in heaven is Holy.”

Holiness is not something that we can compartmentalize. If we are holy, it is a permeation of our entire being, and our holiness will be reflected in all that we do, in our every action and choice, and the path to holiness begins with an openness to God, in whom we live and move and have our being. If holiness is our quest, there can then be no limits to our openness.

This is not a difficult thing to understand, at all. It is difficult in practice, but the church is not here to baby us along and make the roads wide and smooth. Christ told us the way is narrow, and not easy. What was it Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” Quite right."