“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”
This sentence of 22 words from the Gospel of John contains much of the norms and spiritual structure of sex as taught by the Catholic Church.
These words that John’s Gospel attributes to Jesus, uses the natural generative cycle of the earth—which is also the figure of human generation and fertility—and makes it the figure of divine love as made visible in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Here are some of those implicit norms, with the relevant words italicized for emphasis.
Complimentarity
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth…”
Grain and earth, or seed and soil are complimentary. They are orientated toward each other for the purpose of bearing fruit. The seed is obviously the male principle, and the earth or soil is female. In the book of Job, for example, it says “naked I came forth from Mother’s womb, and naked I shall go back again.” This shows the connection in the human mind between the earth and women.
Unity
“Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth…”
The unity is first of all physical, with the grain falling into the earth and becoming one with the soil. Because the grain and the earth are already naturally complimentary the unity is a biological or natural unity first. In human sexuality, there is the possibility of a spiritual unity building on this biological unity. But there must be the biological or natural unity first.
Fruitfulness
“…but if it dies it bears much fruit.”
The fruit is not automatic, but the result of a process with a specific structure and requirements. Unless the grain falls into the earth, unless it dies, unless it does these things, it does not bear fruit.
Kenosis
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies…”
The spiritual meaning of death in Christianity is love. Death becomes the image of loss of Self that happens in charity. It is not the annihilation of the self as in eastern religions, but the gift of the self for another. It is what is called charity. It is exemplified by the gift of Christ in emptying himself and becoming man to suffer and die in solidarity with the fallen human race.
Making love, being analogous to the self-emptying of God, should also be a dying.
Relationality
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone…”
The act of sex should be part of a positive and objective relationship, not something in which the persons remains alone, either through deliberate isolation or through the refusal to make the gift of self that making love should symbolize. Sex which is driven too much by lust is an act where the participants remain alone. Making love only happens when the act reflects a true kenosis, achieving a spiritual connection rather than a mutual aloneness.
This true and objective spiritual connection is fairly difficult to achieve.
