Personality Growth and

Maturity
Being Ready for Marriage

Being Ready for Marriage

PsychoSocial Readiness

Personality Growth and Christian Maturity

The Need for Christian Maturity
Personality and Its Influence
Growing towards Christian Maturity:
Deterrents
Maintaining and Improving Christian Maturity

Personality

The characteristic pattern of thoughts, feelings

and behavior that make a person unique.

Personal growth

A process that produces change and progress.

And it starts from within you.
Personal development will happen when one
makes:

a firm decision to understand oneself,

improve ones awareness,
work on ones attitude,
believe in oneself and ones potential,
developing skills, and goals.

Maturity

The stage of growing up that is reached when a

person sufficiently develops powers of the body and
mind to understand what he/she wants.
Maturity is having the capacity to become a
productive and contributor to society, with the
process of becoming more, deliberate, and decisive;
More considerate and charitable in traits
encompassed by higher levels of emotional stability,
consciousness, and agreeableness

The Need for Christian Maturity

A man and woman in marriage are not simply

two human persons relating to and loving
each other.
It is a Christian man and a Christian woman
loving each other as Christ loves them.

It requires one to improve ones personality in

terms of maturity;
To look to Christ and His grace in loving
relationship with Him.

Predisposing Factor that Shape

Personality: Influences

Heredity = genetic inheritance makes person

distinct
Environment = conditioned by the people
Education = opportunity to acquire right
knowledge & influence
Sanctifying Grace = the gratuitous gift of
Gods life to us, infused by the Holy Spirit.

Characteristics of a Christian Mature

Person

Flexibility quality of being adaptable to a new

situation
Responsible reliable and independent of his actions
and decisions in life; competent, decisive, faces
consequences, also penitent
Fidelity faithfulness, true to ones promise or
commitment or obligation
Prayerful and humble always in communication
with God

Characteristics of a Christian Mature

Person

Full of Christian hope: looks at the brighter side of

the future; exerts effort for excellence but leaves the
rest to God's mercy.
Morally upright: prudent, self-disciplined, just and
courageous
Loving: forgiving, compassionate, respectful, helpful
Self-sacrificing: patient, perseveres in doing good

Maintaining Improving Christian

Maturity

To be vigilant in maintaining ones responsiblemindedness and ability to act correctly. This will
maintain and also strengthen a mature Christian
personality.
Human virtues acquired by education, deliberate acts
and by perseverance are purified and elevated by
divine grace.
Everyone should ask for grace and strength, frequent
the sacraments, docile to the Holy Spirit, and follow
his calls to love what is good and reject evil (CCC
1811).

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-126)

Sex and sex-related matters are discussed openly due

to print and media
Misinformation and misinterpretation led to
corruption of morals
Womens revolution of the 60s; women
emancipation 70s; Scourge of AIDS
Sexuality: vital role in formation of personal identity
Sexuality: affecting many if not all

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-126)

Gods Design for Human Sexuality

Bible: not detailed teaching especially in its
scientific aspect
Gives origin, purpose and final end of sexual
nature

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-126)
Gods Design for Human Sexuality: Maleness &
Femaleness
Gen. 1:27 Imago Dei
Gen. 1:28 Be fruitful
Gen. 5:1-2 Male and Female He created

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-126)
The tremendous impact of our sexuality that
there arises a great need to find its proper
place and meaning in our lives.

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-125)
Gods Design for Human Sexuality: Original
Solitude
It is not good for the man to be alone, I will
make him a helpmate,
Gen. 2:18-20

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-126)
Gods Design for Human Sexuality: Original
Solitude
Observations by PJP II Understanding that he is unique
Exclusive relationship with God
Does not completely fulfill himself: fundamental
deficient
All generations proceed from this occasion

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-126)
Gods Design for Human Sexuality: Original
Solitude
The union of man and woman in marriage is a
way of imitating in the flesh the Creators
generosity and fecundity.
All generations proceed from this occasion.
It is through sexuality that we can assist in
Gods power to love and to create.

Lesson 2: The Total Man, The Total

Woman (pp.122-126)
Gods Design for Human Sexuality: Creation of
Woman
Gen. 2:21-24
The woman is an aid to the humanity of man.
She completes it, fulfills it and creates in a special way.
Woman fulfills the creation of a human person.
Gen.2:24
The summit of the whole account of creation: Man and
woman are made for an intimate communion of
persons in reciprocity

Gods Design for Human Sexuality:

What is Sex?

Not exclusively biological = generation

Immediate aim: genital activity

Real purpose is being missed: procreation and

education of children;

Act of having/engaging in sexual activity

Other ways of describing

SEX

Totality of ones personality, that gives distinction;

That makes man as man, woman as woman;
Mode of relating to other human being;
Being with other sexual being: interrelate, communicate and
commune;
Capacity to form a stable relationship
Integration of somatic, emotional, intellectual and social
aspects (WHO)
Determinant of human personality
Sexual expression is communicative
Cannot be separated from love: maturity

Sex Education: Is there a need?

To attain maximum fulfillment in attainment of

infinite good through knowledge and love and moral
behavior
Determination of ones sexual role
SIECUS
Far beyond the facts on reproduction
Parents questioned the recent need for sex education
Sex education aims to develop men and women

SIECUS

Instruction to strengthen family life;

Increase self-understanding & respect;
Develop capacities for wholesome human
relationship;
Build sexual and social responsibility and
Enhance competency for responsible
courtship, marriage and parenthood.

Role of Parents

First educators especially during childhood and

adolescence
To counteract unhealthy influences that
contaminated sex education
Prevent imparting sex information dissociated from
moral principles.
PAREF: individualized formation with moral
explanation; chastity and sexuality understood in the
context of love; provide information with care,
clarity and propriety

Male-Female Differences

Awareness for better understanding and

acceptance of opposite sex
Male and female differ in their ways of
thinking, feeling and acting but not absolute
Maleness or femaleness is a matter of
predominance of attributes
Differences reveal Gods plan for marriage

Male-Female Differences: Identify

Less religious

More religious

More realistic

More idealistic

Learn love through sex

Learn sex through love

Shorter life span

Live longer

More logical

More intuitive

Less patience, endurance

More patience, endurance

Sex Attraction

Natural attraction that complements male and

female
Classification:

General Sex Attraction: intriguing interest

towards opposite sex
Personal Sex Attraction: plays a role in Gods
plan of marriage

Sexual Ethics

Man is a sexual being but also a moral being

Sex is a divine gift
Sacred function
In marriage, it is given in unique expression
of union that is associated in Gods creativity.
Anything that contradicts this sacred reality of
sex involves an essential degradation

Sexual Ethics:

When giving in to their animal instinct,

They become more like animals;
Less able to respect one another as persons;
One sees the other as an object
Respect becomes meaningless &
impossible

Sexual Ethics:
What act is Permissible or Not?

Human being is a moral agent.

Active participant in moral development
A responsible being

Knows how to relate

How he/she should become
Knows how to act

Sexual Ethics:
What act is Permissible or Not?

Declaration on Some Questions of Sexual

Ethics upholds Judeo Christian Morality

Sex is morally acceptable only in marriage

To procreate
Raise children in a stable family

Sexual expressions outside marriage are immoral

Sexual Ethics:
Sexual Expressions Outside Marriage

Pre-Marital sex
Pornography
Adultery
Masturbation
Homosexuality
Promiscuity

Sexual Ethics:
Sexual Expressions Outside Marriage

Pre-Marital sex

Sex before marriage

Living together
Having an affair

Declaration on Sexual Ethics:

Not lawful
Contrary to Christian Doctrine:
No indissoluble union demanded by the Lord
Sexual Intercourse outside marriage is formally
condemned (1Cor. 5:1; 6:9: Eph 5:5; 1Tim 1:10)

Sexual Ethics:
Education in and for Chastity

The authentic sex education is education for

chastity
6th Beatitudes: The pure of heart shall see
God
CCC: Chastity = the successful integration of
sexuality within the person and the inner unity
of man in his bodily and spiritual being.

Integrity of Person: 6th Commandment

The chaste maintains the integrity of life and love

placed in him.
Chastity is self-mastery; training in human freedom;
governing his passion; choosing good
Comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance
Has laws of growth which progress through stages
Personal task; also cultural effort
Moral virtue: a gift from God, grace, fruit of spiritual
effort

Integrality of the Gift of Self

Chastity influenced by charity appears as a

school of the gift of the person
A practice to become a witness to his
neighbor of Gods fidelity and loving
kindness
Chastity blossoms in friendship with ones
neighbor and leads to spiritual communion.

Various Forms of Chastity

Who are called to live a chaste life?

All the Baptized. All Christs faithful are called to
live a chaste life.
Consecrated celibacy to give themselves to God
with undivided heart
As prescribed by the moral law
Single
Married are called to conjugal chastity
Those who are engaged to marry. Reserve

Offenses Against Chastity

Lust: inordinate desire for sexual pleasure

Masturbation: deliberate stimulation
Fornication: carnal union of 2 unmarried
Pornography: removing real sexual acts
Prostitution: sex for hire
Rape: forcible violation of another person
Homosexuality: sexual attraction of same sex

9th Commandment

Forbids all malicious and evil thoughts that are

impure.
Warns against lust or carnal concupiscence.
Demands Purification of the Heart: prayer, practice
of chastity, purity of intention and vision.
Purity of heart requires: modesty; patience, decency
and discretion
Purity of heart enables us to see God; see things
according to God.

Catholic: 10 Commandments

I. I am the Lord your

God: you shall not have
strange gods before me.
You shall not make for
yourself a graven image.
II. You shall not take the
name of the Lord your
God in vain.
III. Remember to keep
holy the Lord's Day.
IV. Honor your father
and mother.
V. You shall not kill.

VI. You shall not commit

adultery.
VII. You shall not steal
VIII. You shall not bear
false witness against
your neighbor.
IX. You shall not covet
your neighbor's wife.
X. You shall not covet
your neighbor's goods

END