Coming Together: Advent of Integration 1

‘It is time to wake up from sleep’ (Romans 13:11).

Wake up. Welcome the wholeness that is yours. Receive it. Lay hold of it. At the dawn of a new church year, arise into all that Jesus won for you.

New year, new book. Wake up and read. I am proud of this book and the perseverance it required—many years of writing and refining. Rediscovering Our Lost Fullness: A Guide to Sexual Integration is my best one yet. Makes sense: integration is a lifetime goal. If I am true to the Way, then I will only have better and clearer things to write.

‘Rediscovering’ probes the meaning of wholeness—integration—the coming together of different parts, both personally and interpersonally, and so creating fullness, a whole. What a dynamic and creative adventure! What a joy to trounce the disintegrator—our common enemy—by becoming whole-enough to relish what Jesus intended for us from the start!

That’s what ‘devil’ means in Greek—‘dia-bolos’, literally ‘to tear apart.’ While he strives to disintegrate us, Jesus draws near to unite, compose, and reconcile our divided selves. We need His saving work more than ever, especially in the sex game. Admit it: the diabolical one has scored a lot of points here.

How else can we explain the lunacy of women’s ‘right-to-choose’ the death of her child? Or a young girl’s right to pose as a boy and take her family, school, and culture down with her? Or the current ‘Respect Marriage’ Act, which has nothing to do with either marriage or respect? Note-to-self: marriage can only be defined as one man committed to one woman for life. Period. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s but give to God what is God’s.

Wake up. Jesus can unite us to our deepest, most authentic selves, beginning with who we are as profoundly male or female, inclined to dignify one another. This book helps us unite with sweet Jesus and the sexual gifts that we are…

But integration must involve a social reality—coming together with others. Christians cannot become whole without wholly relying on members of Christ. Integration means being reconciled to one’s own body through His Body. This book details my own reconciliation with the Catholic Church—not everyone’s choice to be sure, but a challenge to anyone stranded in isolation due to hurt and judgment toward the Church. Personal integration must involve corporate reconciliation. Though admittedly from many different starting points, we move together in One Body toward the same wholeness. This book details how integration hinges on letting go of disordered distinctions and urging one another onto wholeness.

Lastly, ‘Rediscovering’ majors on the cardinal virtues and our agency in exercising prudence, justice, fortitude, and self-control. Wake up! God entrusts us with a hand in our integration! We can integrate—own—come together with our authority and act on it. I love that!

We are so much more than victims, objects batted about by others’ lusts or our own. We can know the truth, act on it for others’ good, and patiently endure trials and temptations. ‘Rediscovering’ accesses Divine Mercy and Power through our identifying the help we need and crying out for it together.

Let’s get free and stay free this Advent. Give the gift of Rediscovering Our Lost Fullness. It will help you own the gift you are.

‘Wake up, O sleeper, and Christ will shine on you. Be careful how you live, not as unwise but wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil’ (Eph. 5:14, 15).