"As algorithms are shaped by human behavior they are ultimately liable to exhibit the same bias we're aiming to sidestep," said Unitive founder Laura Mather, adding that the machine learning is used to give insights but Unitive doesn't take humans out of the decision-making process altogether.
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Other companies, like the recently launched startup Unitive, use machine learning to help organizations try to eradicate unconscious bias from the entire hiring process, top to bottom.
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Since the 2nd Century, Catholics have opposed any means of artificial contraception on the grounds that all sex acts should be "unitive" and "procreative," rather than recreational.
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Unitive has a similar word processing model that uses predictive analytics to help companies teach HR departments and hiring managers how to review resumes and prepare interview questions with less bias and more consistency.
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In surveys after receiving psilocybin, the answers of about two-thirds of the participants suggested their session reached the heights of a "mystical" or "unitive" or "transcendent" experience, as measured by an established set of psychological rating scales.
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If I flooded the receptors with a large dose, according to Richards's book, I could expect to experience the "unitive consciousness" — the feeling of oneness with the world that he says is the basis of the mystical experiences of all religions.
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"We need a healthy dose of self-criticism": We often present marriage in such a way that its unitive meaning, its call to grow in love and its ideal of mutual assistance are overshadowed by an almost exclusive insistence on the duty of procreation.
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Special difficulties are presented by cases of cooperation in the sin of a spouse who voluntarily renders the unitive act infecund.
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The Catholic Church disapproves of lust: "Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes".
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The illuminative stage concerns what Denys calls supernatural wisdom, naturally acquired, also known as scholastic theology. In the Unitive stage he experiences a vehement love from his contemplation of the divine. This type of experience can only come from supernatural wisdom, supernaturally bestowed. Denys the Carthusian was said to have reached the Unitive stage, being privileged to divine ecstatic experiences lasting hours at a time.
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Bernadette Roberts makes a distinction between "no ego" and "no self". According to Roberts, the falling away of the ego is not the same as the falling away of the self. "No ego" comes prior to the unitive state; with the falling away of the unitive state comes "no self". "Ego" is defined by Roberts as Roberts defines "self" as Ultimately, all experiences on which these definitions are based are wiped out or dissolved.
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Thayumanavar, the 18th- century Tamil Saiva Siddhanta saint, the one who gains anubhava delights in the unitive experience (advaita anubhava) which is deep and intuitive, and the culmination of all experimental states of Vedanta; it is the svarupa-lakshana.
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The form of prayer suitable to persons in the unitive way is the contemplation of the glorious mysteries of Our Lord, His Resurrection, Appearances, and Ascension, until the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of the Gospel. These mysteries may also be the subject of meditation for beginners and for those in a state of progress, but in a peculiar manner they belong to the perfect. Union with God belongs substantially to all souls in a state of grace, but it is in a special manner the distinguishing characteristic of those in the unitive way or in the state of the perfect. It is in this state that the gift of contemplation is imparted to the soul, though this is not always the case; because many souls who are perfect in the unitive way never receive in this life the gift of contemplation, and there have been numerous saints who were not mystics or contemplatives and who nevertheless excelled in the practice of heroic virtue.
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This traditional division of the spiritual life has been maintained since Pseudo-Dionysius, late 5th century Christian theologian, and the three states can be named, respectively, the "purgative way", the "illuminative way", and the "unitive way".See St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, Summa Theologiae, Second Part of the Second part, Question 163, Article 4; and Francisco Suarez, De Religione, Tr. 8, Lib. 1, C. 13. Among the 68 propositions from the writings of Miguel de Molinos condemned by the Holy Office of the Inquisition and ratified by Pope Innocent XI was the following: "These three kinds of way, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive, are the greatest absurdity in Mystical Theology."Cf.
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According to Taylor the new journal was dedicated to the study of ultimate human capacities; unitive consciousness; peak experiences; ecstasy; mystical experiences; and self-transcendence. In the mid-1970s the journal was published by Transpersonal Institute.Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series, Volume 28, Part 2. Periodicals. January - December 1974.
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Gruel, Nicole (2015). The plateau experience: an exploration of its origins, characteristics, and potential. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 47(1), 44−63. He wrote: > This is serene and calm rather than a poignantly emotional, climactic, > autonomic response to the miraculous, the awesome, the sacralized, the > Unitive, the B-values.
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By inference, contemporary historians of Jewish mysticism usually date this development to the third century CE. Again, there is a significant dispute among historians over whether these ascent and unitive themes were the result of some foreign, usually Gnostic, influence, or a natural progression of religious dynamics within rabbinic Judaism.
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Although Greek concepts of the soul varied widely according to the particular era and philosophical school, Greek thought often presented a view of the soul as a separate entity from body. Until recent decades Christian theology of the soul has been more reflective of Greek (compartmentalized) than Hebrew (unitive) ideas.", Moon, "Soul", in Benner & Hill (eds.), "Baker encyclopedia of psychology & counseling, p. 1148 (2nd ed.
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Speaks of a real and very grand identity within everyone, which people are generally not aware of, but which can be realized. :10. Death and Dreaming. Deals with the process of dying, and of death, as states that people can learn to transcend. :11. Waking Up. Describes what the author calls the "unitive state," again emphasizing that people can strive to reach such an exalted state through practical means. :12.
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Theosis is understood to have three stages: first, the purgative way, purification, or katharsis; second, illumination, the illuminative way, the vision of God, or theoria; and third, sainthood, the unitive way, or theosis. Thus the term "theosis" describes the whole process and its objective. By means of purification a person comes to theoria and then to theosis. Theosis is the participation of the person in the life of God.
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So far as I can now tell, the high plateau-experience > always has a noetic and cognitive element, which is not always true for peak > experiences, which can be purely and exclusively emotional. It is far more > voluntary than peak experiences are. One can learn to see in this Unitive > way almost at will. It then becomes a witnessing, an appreciating, what one > might call a serene, cognitive blissfulness.
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The unitive way (, théōsis "deification") is the way of those who are in the state of the perfect, that is, those who have their minds so drawn away from all temporal things that they enjoy great peace, who are neither agitated by various desires nor moved to any great extent by passion, and who have their minds chiefly fixed on God and their attention turned, either always or very frequently, to Him. It is the union with God by love and the actual experience and exercise of that love. It is called the state of "perfect charity", because souls who have reached that state are ever prompt in the exercise of charity by loving God habitually and by frequent and efficacious acts of that Divine virtue. It is called the "unitive" way because it is by love that the soul is united to God, and the more perfect the charity, the closer and more intimate is the union.
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The review reports that one of the strongest studies is longitudinal (2 year) outcome research conducted with 342 participants across 8 different schools (Hakomi Experiental Psychology, Unitive Body Psychotherapy, Biodynamic Psychology, Bioenergetic Analysis, Client-Centred Verbal and Body Psychotherapy, Integrative Body Psychotherapy, Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, and Biosynthesis). Overall efficacy was demonstrated in symptom reduction, however the study design limited further substantive conclusions.Koemeda-Lutz, M., Kaschke, M., Revenstorf, D., Schermann, T., Weiss, H., & Soeder, U. (2006).
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In formulating his teaching he explained why he did not accept the conclusions of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control established by his predecessor, Pope John XXIII, a commission he himself had expanded.See encyclical, n.6. Mainly because of its restatement of the Church's opposition to artificial contraception, the encyclical was politically controversial. It affirmed traditional Church moral teaching on the sanctity of life and the procreative and unitive nature of conjugal relations.
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They meet regularly with a spiritual director who guides their choice of exercises and helps them to develop a more discerning love for Christ. The retreat follows a "Purgative-Illuminative-Unitive" pattern in the tradition of the spirituality of John Cassian and the Desert Fathers. Ignatius' innovation was to make this style of contemplative mysticism available to all people in active life. Further, he used it as a means of rebuilding the spiritual life of the church.
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The Eastern Orthodox share the apostolic faith and sacramental life held in the Catholic faith, and have a virtually identical understanding of the nature and purpose of the Christian life, using different terminology. Those of the Eastern Orthodox tradition refer to the practice of faith as praxis, which encompasses prayer, worship, and fasting. A form of prayer corresponding perhaps to the illuminative and unitive ways is called Hesychasm. The overall progression toward union with God is called theosis.
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Protestants do not share the sacramental understanding that characterizes Catholic and Orthodox faith, but use the term ascetical theology in some contexts. Without the sacrament of Confession, the purgative way is more personal, and without belief that God is literally present in the Eucharist, the unitive way is also more personal and ethereal. Protestant theology of union with God tends to be personalist. As with the Eucharist, a wide variety of Protestant viewpoints exist regarding the way to follow Christ.
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Going back to Evagrius Ponticus, Christian mystics have been described as pursuing a threefold path of purification, illumination and unification, corresponding to body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma). In 869, the 8th Ecumenical Council reduced the image of the human to only body and soul but within mystics a model of three aspects continued. The three aspects later became purgative, illuminative, and unitive in the western churches and prayer of the lips, the mind, the heart in the eastern churches.
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Both encourage Ascesis with respect to the passions and inferior emotions, such as lust, and envy, so that the higher possibilities of one's humanity can be awakened and developed. Stoic writings such as Meditations by Marcus Aurelius have been highly regarded by many Christians throughout the centuries. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Church accept the Stoic ideal of dispassion to this day. Middle and Roman Stoics taught that sex is just within marriage, for unitive and procreative purposes only.
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The Seven Sacraments, Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1445. Spousal love, according to Church teaching, is meant to achieve an unbroken, twofold end: union of husband and wife as well as transmission of life. The unitive aspect includes a person's whole being that calls spouses to grow in love and fidelity "so that they are no longer two but one flesh." The sacrament of matrimony is viewed as God's sealing of spousal consent to the gift of themselves to each other.
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He leads the reader along the three well-known ways, purgative, illuminative and unitive, purposing to make the reader a spiritual man. By severely disciplining the faculties of the soul and subordinating the flesh to the spirit, man must restore the original order, so that he may not only do what is good, but likewise do it with ease. There remains to be mentioned the "Summa de vitiis et virtutibus" of Peraldus (d. c. 1270). The 14th century is characterized throughout by its mystical tendencies.
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Smulders published his work with the Dutch Roman Catholic medical association, and this was the official rhythm method promoted over the next several decades. While maintaining procreation as the primary function of intercourse, the December 1930 encyclical Casti connubii by Pope Pius XI gave recognition to a secondary—unitive—purpose of sexual intercourse. This encyclical stated that there was no moral stain associated with having marital intercourse at times when "new life cannot be brought forth". This referred primarily to conditions such as current pregnancy and menopause.
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Bust of Dawson in the Library of Birmingham Dawson did not consider himself to be a Unitarian, although modern Unitarians count him as one of their own (he is listed by the Midland Unitarian Union as a great nineteenth-century Unitarian). He left the Baptist Church to be free of any definite creed or doctrinal rigidity. "True Religion", Dawson believed, was "social, unitive, and brotherly in its spirit: it produces the church as its social development". For him, Christianity was "a set of fruitful principles", not a code of laws or a theological dogma.
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As the title implies, on Kid Mystic Davis begins to explore some ethereal territory. The pace and structure of the songs are much different, and the lyrics are more image-conscious and laced with metaphor. Death and dying play a major role, implicitly or explicitly, on a majority of the tracks, and instead of playing as simply a collection of songs, it is more a unitive work. The tagline of his subsequent studio album, Bright Apocalypse, is "13 Songs About God," and uses some of the same structural and thematic material.
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However, > there remains the duty of carrying it out with criteria and methods that > respect the total truth of the marital act in its unitive and procreative > dimension, as wisely regulated by nature itself in its biological rhythms. > One can comply with them and use them to advantage, but they cannot be > "violated" by artificial interference. In 1997, the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family stated: > The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, > of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to > be held as definitive and irreformable.
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The Church has been opposed to contraception for as far back as one can historically trace. Many early Catholic Church Fathers made statements condemning the use of contraception including John Chrysostom, Jerome, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus of Rome, Augustine of Hippo and various others. Among the condemnations is one by Jerome which refers to an apparent oral form of contraception: "Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception." The Catechism specifies that all sex acts must be both unitive and procreative.
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The Daily Telegraph called it an "erudite, scholarly and engrossing study". It notes that Shearer explains that yoga is not a religion, but may slowly align the yogi with the principles underlying all religions, and that the Katha Upanishad calls yoga "this complete stillness in which one enters the unitive state", something that the review says may be a surprise to practitioners of modern Ashtanga yoga and other hot styles. It quotes Patanjali as saying that "The physical postures should be steady and comfortable" when all effort is relaxed, commenting "but nobody said it would be easy". also at Independent.
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McNamara proposes that religious experiences may help in "decentering" the self, and transform it into an integral self which is closer to an ideal self. Transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology describes transpersonal psychology as "the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness" (Lajoie and Shapiro, 1992:91). Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance and other metaphysical experiences of living.
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She wrote with equal facility in Latin and Italian, and who was accounted one of the most accomplished scholars of her day. Camilla wrote extensively. Her work includes Pregheria a Dio (1488–1490), Remembrances of Jesus (Ricordi di Gesu) (1483–1491), Praise of the Vision of Christ (1479–1481), and The Spiritual Life (Vita Spirituale) (1491), an autobiography from 1466-1491 which is considered a "jewel of art" and of the spiritual life. In this work, she describes how two seraphim with wings of gold, appeared to her because they were assigned to help her understand the mysterious working of unitive love.
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Contraception is gravely opposed to > marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life > (the procreative aspect of matrimony), and to the reciprocal self-giving of > the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies > the sovereign role of God in the transmission of human life. A summary of the Scriptural support used by Catholics against contraception can be found in Rome Sweet Home, an autobiography by the Catholic apologists Scott and Kimberly Hahn, both of whom are converts to the Catholic Church from Protestantism.Scott Hahn, Kimberly Hahn. Rome Sweet Home.
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McNamara proposes that religious experiences may help in "decentering" the self, and transform it into an integral self which is closer to an ideal self. Transpersonal psychology is a school of psychology that studies the transpersonal, self-transcendent or spiritual aspects of the human experience. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology describes transpersonal psychology as "the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness" (Lajoie and Shapiro, 1992:91). Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance and other metaphysical experiences of living.
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The significance of what is happening is often placed within the memory or in the inner contemplation of what is described. This focus on the relationship between experience, memory and writing and the radical de-emphasizing of the outward plot, have become staples of the modern novel but were almost unheard of in 1913. Roger Shattuck elucidates an underlying principle in understanding Proust and the various themes present in his novel: > Thus the novel embodies and manifests the principle of intermittence: to > live means to perceive different and often conflicting aspects of reality. > This iridescence never resolves itself completely into a unitive point of > view.
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In the purgative way, when the appetites and inordinate passions still possess considerable strength, mortification and self-denial are to be practised more extensively. For the seeds of the spiritual life will not sprout unless the tares and thistles have first been weeded out. In the illuminative way, when the mists of passion have been lifted to a great extent, meditation and the practice of virtues in imitation of Christ are to be insisted on. During the last stage, the unitive way, the soul must be confirmed and perfected in conformity with God's will ("And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me": Galatians 2:20).
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These neuroimaging studies have implicated a number of brain regions, including the limbic system, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, superior parietal lobe, and caudate nucleus. Based on the complex nature of religious experience, it is likely that they are mediated by an interaction of neural mechanisms that all add a small piece to the overall experience. According to the neurotheologist Andrew B. Newberg, neurological processes which are driven by the repetitive, rhythmic stimulation which is typical of human ritual, and which contribute to the delivery of transcendental feelings of connection to a universal unity. They posit, however, that physical stimulation alone is not sufficient to generate transcendental unitive experiences.
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Interior recollection is simplicity of spirit and a right intention, as well as attention to God in all our actions. This does not mean a person has to neglect the duties of his state or position in life, nor does it imply that honest and needful recreation should be avoided, because these lawful or necessary circumstances or occupations can well be reconciled with perfect recollection and the most holy union with God. The soul in the illuminative way will have to experience periods of spiritual consolations and desolations. It does not at once enter upon the unitive way when it has passed through the aridities of the first purgation.
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In cases in which sexual expression is sought outside marriage, or in which the procreative function of sexual expression within marriage is deliberately frustrated (e.g., the use of artificial contraception), the Catholic Church expresses grave moral concern. The Church teaches that sexual intercourse has a two-fold unitive and procreative purpose; and that outside marriage, sex is always contrary to its purpose. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "conjugal love ... aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul", since the marriage bond is to be a sign of the love between God and humanity.
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These two organizations, along with APTOS (Advanced Plating Technologies on Silicon), formed the nascent out-sourcing market. During this same time, companies began to look at reducing or streamlining their packaging, from the earlier multi-chip-on- ceramic packages that IBM had originally developed C4 to support, to what were referred to as Chip Scale Packages (CSP). There were a number of companies developing products in this area. These products could usually be put into one of two camps: either they were scaled down versions of the multi-chip on ceramic package (of which the Tessera package would be one example); or they were the streamlined versions developed by Unitive Electronics, et al.
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Imitation of Christ is the duty of all who strive after perfection. It lies in the very nature of this formation after the image of Christ that the process is gradual and must follow the laws of moral energy; for moral perfection is the terminus of a laborious journey, the crown of a hard-fought battle. Ascetics divides those who strive after perfection into three groups: the beginners, the advanced, the perfect; and correspondingly sets down three stages or ways of Christian perfection: the purgative way, the illuminative way, the unitive way. The means stated above are applied with more or less diversity according to the stage which the Christian has reached.
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Based upon this study the authors proposed the following definition of transpersonal psychology: Transpersonal Psychology is concerned with the study of humanity's highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness. In a review of previous definitions Walsh and Vaughan suggested that transpersonal psychology is an area of psychology that focuses on the study of transpersonal experiences and related phenomena. These phenomena include the causes, effects and correlates of transpersonal experiences and development, as well as the disciplines and practices inspired by them. They have also criticised many definitions of transpersonal psychology for carrying implicit assumptions, or presuppositions, that may not necessarily define the field as a whole.
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Sexual activity must always be open to the possibility of life; the church calls this the procreative significance. It must likewise always bring a couple together in love; the church calls this the unitive significance. Contraception and certain other sexual practices are not permitted, although natural family planning methods are permitted to provide healthy spacing between births, or to postpone children for a just reason. Pope Francis said in 2015 that he is worried that the church has grown "obsessed" with issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and contraception and has criticized the Catholic Church for placing dogma before love, and for prioritizing moral doctrines over helping the poor and marginalized.
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He was a vocal critic of many of the ways in which the Second Vatican Council was implemented, especially the new liturgy. Because of this, he helped to promote appreciation of and attendance at the traditional Mass. He was a founder of Una Voce America and vice director of Luigi Villa's Chiesa viva ("Living Church") But his personalist work—for example, on the freedom of persons and on the unitive end of sexual intercourse—also helped prepare for many aspects of the Second Vatican Council's teachings, and Hildebrand always advocated reading the Council's texts in continuity with the Catholic Church's tradition. Hildebrand died in New Rochelle, New York in 1977, after a long struggle with a heart condition.
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Adi Da during the Garbage and the Goddess period, 1974 In 1973, Adi Da began to use more unconventional means of instruction he called "crazy wisdom", likening his methods to a tradition of yogic adepts who employed seemingly un-spiritual methods to awaken observer's consciousness.The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice By Georg Feuerstein; p25 Some followers reported having profound metaphysical experiences in Adi Da's presence, attributing these phenomena to his spiritual power.Feuerstein, "Holy Madness," (1992) p.84 "(students) experienced visions, spontaneous body movements known as kriyas, bliss states, heart openings, kundalini arousals, and several were apparently drawn into the mystical unitive state or even into temporary sahaja-samadhi" Others present remained skeptical, witnessing nothing supernatural.
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The Orthodox Church holds the opinion that sexuality, as we understand it, is part of the fallen world only. In Orthodox theology, both monasticism and marriage are paths to salvation (sotiriain Greek; literally meaning, "becoming whole"). Celibacy is the ideal path of exclusive concern for the Kingdom of God, exemplified in monasticism, while marriage is a reflection of the Messianic covenant and blessed under the context of true unitive love ("Man must love his wife as Jesus loved his Church": this phrase is part of the Orthodox marriage rite) with openness to procreation ("bearing fruit"). This context can be interpreted by the non-Orthodox as not being exclusive of homosexuality; whereas it is seen as exclusive of homosexuality by all Orthodox Christians.
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Prior to this encyclical, it was believed by some Catholics that the only licit reason for sexual intercourse was an attempt to create children. At the time, there was no official church position on any non-procreative purposes of intercourse. Casti connubii does repeat several times that the conjugal act is intrinsically tied with procreation: However, Casti connubii also acknowledges the unitive aspect of intercourse as licit: Casti connubii also reaffirms the dignity of the human conjugal act as distinct from the conjugal acts of animals, by its volitive nature; that is, the act is not merely biological but rooted in the will and therefore a personal act. The 'natural reasons of time or of certain defects' are universally accepted as meaning menopause and infertility.
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Three early Methodist leaders, Charles Wesley, John Wesley, and Francis Asbury, portrayed in stained glass at the Memorial Chapel, Lake Junaluska, North Carolina Christian doctrine generally maintains that God dwells in all Christians and that they can experience God directly through belief in Jesus, Christian mysticism aspires to apprehend spiritual truths inaccessible through intellectual means, typically by emulation of Christ. William Inge divides this scala perfectionis into three stages: the "purgative" or ascetic stage, the "illuminative" or contemplative stage, and the third, "unitive" stage, in which God may be beheld "face to face." The third stage, usually called contemplation in the Western tradition, refers to the experience of oneself as united with God in some way. The experience of union varies, but it is first and foremost always associated with a reuniting with Divine love.
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At the meeting of 11 June 1911, the council proposed the publishing of a newspaper titled The Unitive (L'Unitif) which was released in September of the same year, with a printing of 400,000 copies for the first issue, and 6,000 subscribers.Debouxhtay, 1934, pp. 181–85 In the context of legal proceedings for the worship registration, secretary of the Antoinist committee Deregnaucourt wrote to the Minister of the Interior on 29 March 1910 and to the Minister of Justice and Religious Affairs on 19 April 1910.Debouxhtay, 1934, pp. 271–73. A petition of 160,000 signatures to demand official recognition of the Antoinist religion was sent to the House of Representatives on 2 December 1910, and forwarded to the Minister of Justice on 27 January 1911.Debouxhtay, 1934, p. 275.
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And last she devotes a chapter to the unitive life, the sum of the mystic way: > When love has carried us above all things into the Divine Dark, there we are > transformed by the Eternal Word Who is the image of the Father; and as the > air is penetrated by the sun, thus we receive in peace the Incomprehensible > Light, enfolding us, and penetrating us. (Ruysbroech) Where Underhill struck new ground was in her insistence that this state of union produced a glorious and fruitful creativeness, so that the mystic who attains this final perfectness is the most active doer – not the reclusive dreaming lover of God. > We are all the kindred of the mystics. ..Strange and far away from us though > they seem, they are not cut off from us by some impassable abyss.
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Casti connubii explains the secondary, unitive, purpose of intercourse. Because of this secondary purpose, married couples have a right to engage in intercourse even when pregnancy is not a possible result: John and Sheila Kippley from the Couple to Couple League say that the statement of Pope Pius XI not only permitted sex between married couples during pregnancy and menopause, but also during the infertile times of the menstrual cycle. Raymond J. Devettere says that the statement is a permit to undertake intercourse during the infertile times when there is "a good reason for it". The mathematical formula for the rhythm method had been formalized in 1930, and in 1932 a Catholic physician published a book titled The Rhythm of Sterility and Fertility in Women promoting the method to Catholics.
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Marriage is a sacrament, and a public commitment between a man and a woman."Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan", USCCB, November 2009 Marriage builds the family and the society. The Church considers the expression of love between husband and wife to be an elevated form of human activity, joining husband and wife in complete, mutual self-giving, and opening their relationship to new life. As Pope Paul VI wrote in Humanae vitae, “The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, ‘noble and worthy.’” Much of the Church's detailed doctrines derive from the principle that "sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive [between spouses] purposes".
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As Ven. Luis de Lapuente says, :Though the mysteries of the Passion belong to the illuminative way, especially in its highest degree, which approaches nearest to the unitive way, nevertheless, they are exceedingly profitable for all sorts of persons, by whatever way they walk, and in whatever degree of perfection they live; for sinners will find in them most effectual motives to purify themselves from all their sins; beginners to mortify their passions; proficients to increase in all kinds of virtue; and the perfect to obtain union with God by fervent love.Introduction to Meditations on the Passion The fundamental virtue of this state is recollection, that is, a constant attention of the mind and of the affections of the heart to thoughts and sentiments that elevate the soul to God. Exterior recollection is the love of silence and retirement.
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Pervading all the areas mapped by the oval diagram, distinct but not separate from all of them, is Self (which has also been called Higher Self or Transpersonal Self). The concept of Self points towards a source of wisdom and guidance within the person, a source which can operate quite beyond the control of the conscious personality. Since Self pervades all levels, an ongoing lived relationship with Self—Self- realization—may lead anywhere on the diagram as one's direction unfolds (this is one reason for not illustrating Self at the top of the diagram, a representation that tends to give the impression that Self-realization leads only into the higher unconscious). Relating to Self may lead for example to engagement with addictions and compulsions, to the heights of creative and religious experience, to the mysteries of unitive experience, to issues of meaning and mortality, to grappling with early childhood wounding, to discerning a sense of purpose and meaning in life.
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Souls, however, who have attained to the unitive state have consolations of a purer and higher order than others, and are more often favored by extraordinary graces; and sometimes with the extraordinary phenomena of the mystical state such as ecstasies, raptures, and what is known as the prayer of union. The soul, however, is not always in this state free from desolations and passive purgation. St. John of the Cross tells us that the purification of the spirit usually takes place after the purification of the senses. The night of the senses being over, the soul for some time enjoys, according to this eminent authority, the sweet delights of contemplation; then, perhaps, when least expected the second night comes, far darker and far more miserable than the first, and this is called by him the purification of the spirit, which means the purification of the interior faculties, the intellect and the will.
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This is seen as the culmination of the three states, or stages, of perfection through which the soul passes: the purgative way (that of cleansing or purification, the Greek term for which is κάθαρσις, katharsis), the illuminative way (so called because in it the mind becomes more and more enlightened as to spiritual things and the practice of virtue, corresponding to what in Greek is called Θεωρία, theoria), and the unitive way (that of union with God by love and the actual experience and exercise of that love, a union that is called θέωσις, theosis). The writings attributed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite were highly influential in the West, and their theses and arguments were adopted by Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure. According to these writings, mystical knowledge must be distinguished from the rational knowledge by which we know God, not in his nature, but through the wonderful order of the universe, which is a participation of the divine ideas. Through the more perfect knowledge of God that is mystical knowledge, a knowledge beyond the attainments of reason even enlightened by faith, the soul contemplates directly the mysteries of divine light.
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