Intimate Spirituality: The Catholic Way of Love and Sex

by Gordon J. Hilsman

Overview

In Intimate Spirituality: The Catholic Way of Love and Sex, Gordon J. Hilsman presents sexual loving as integral to rather than separate from most people's spiritual lives. His coalescing of intimate love with traditional Catholic concepts-virtues, capital sins, fruits of the Spirit, sacraments-augments the pervasively moral view of sex with a spiritual perspective that highlights its beauty and power to shape the virtue of peoples lives. Seeing sexual attraction as built into humanity by the Creator to feed and challenge virtually all persons worldwide, he illustrates how intimate loving is actually a neglected aspect of Christian spirituality that has never been developed as fully as the individual and the communal. Hilsman calls upon theologians and spiritual leaders to further develop the understanding of intimate loving as a genuinely beautiful spiritual aspect of life.

Many Christians (Catholics and Protestants alike) who take both their love lives and their Christian faith seriously, will find the positive, healthy view of sexuality presented in this book illuminating and helpful. So will those who counsel them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461635536
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	03/05/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	420 KB

About the Author

Dr. Gordon Hilsman, D.Min. is a lifelong Catholic. He currently directs the Pastoral Care Education programs for the Franciscan Health System in Tacoma, Washington.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Eros and Individual Spirituality
Chapter 2 The Natural Mystery of the Loving Spirit
Chapter 3 Nine Fruits of Romantic Love
Chapter 4 Seven Enduring Gifts of Maturing Love
Chapter 5 Death, Resurrection, and the Ending of Love
Chapter 6 Lust or Lusty Love-The Moral and the Spiritual
Chapter 7 Six Other Styles of Intimate Failure
Chapter 8 Four Cardinal Virtues of Love's Foundation
Part 9 Eros and Community
Chapter 10 Sacramental Enhancement: Can Agape Learn from Eros?
Chapter 11 The Evangelical Counsels for All
Chapter 12 Eros and Social Spirituality
Chapter 13 Eros and Catholic Social Teaching
Chapter 14 Intimate Love and the Leader's Own Spirituality

Editorial Reviews

Gordon Hilsman is a wise, compassionate, and unhurried companion who speaks to our depths about what it means to be human, spiritual, and sexual at the same time. Hilsman speaks so comfortably about human experience, his own and ours, that our defenses fall away as do the fears that have kept us from seeing ourselves whole. Like a confessor who has never given a harsh penance, Dr. Hilsman affirms the essential health and goodness of our sexuality. He illuminates the ground that is made sacred not by a far off God but by up close humans like us as we share the intimacy at the core of religious mystery.

Eugene C. Kennedy

Let me simply say at the outset that I am beyond impressed. I am enthusiastic with both the approach and the practical, personal content of this book. Hilsman has taken some ancient biblical and theological traditions (the fruits and gifts of the Spirit, the theological and cardinal virtues, the capital sins) and breathed fresh 'erotic' life into them. There is a profound need to reclaim the gifted, good, and disciplined journey of eros as it can unfold over the life-cycle. Hilsman is doing so from the inside, and inviting all of us to join him in this most spiritual of journeys.

John Heagle

This is a book for which thousands have literally been waiting. I have never read a book that has integrated so deeply and successfully sexuality and spirituality. An enormous contribution to the Catholic as well as all faith traditions. Hilsman has written a book about our sexual lives that is loving, caring, holy, out of the context of a loving relationship with his faith tradition, the experience of a deeply caring human partnership and a holiness that comes from learning how God loves us and we can love God better through the deep appreciation of sexual love.

Don Goergen O.P.