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World Sexual Health Day – 4 September

On World Sexual Health Day, WHO celebrates every person’s right to sexual well-being. The theme of World Sexual Health Day this year is ‘Consent!’, recognizing the importance of consent and mutual respect when it comes to sexual encounters. People should have complete and accurate information so they can make informed choices when it comes to their sexual and reproductive health.

“Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being related to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity.

Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled.”

What is WHO doing to promote sexual health and well-being?

Enabling all people to achieve sexual health and well-being requires tailoring normative guidance and national programming to meet their specific needs and lived experience: welcoming and inclusive of people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions, sexual characteristics, people living with HIV, and with disability.

 

Source: Text: https://www.who.int/    Image: World Association for Sexual Health (WAS)

31st Sunday of Year A

«God’s word is indeed at work in you who believe. »

 Did you know it?
Are you aware of it?
Do you believe it?…

It is the message we are given in the 2nd reading of this Sunday (31st Sunday Year A – 1 Th. 2:13).
Yes, God is at work in YOU; it is Paul who says it plainly as he writes to the first Christians of Thessalonica.
And, of course, his message is valid for us today.

I like to picture God as a POTTER – the Bible presents him in this way, working the clay (Jer.18: 6) (Is.64:8).
He molds us, fashions us, slowly, patiently to create in us the image that God had in mind from all eternity.

Or, I picture God as a SCULPTOR who carves and shapes a rough piece of wood or marble.
Again slowly, carefully he chips away, corrects this or that feature and… there comes a beautiful piece of art.

Or again, I see God as the artist PAINTER who works with imagination and creativity.
He softens a colour here, he deepens the shade there, adds a stroke or removes a spot and the final product is, indeed, a masterpiece!

As we go about day in, day out, busy with all kinds of activities, often occupied and preoccupied, we are not always aware that God also is busy – busy with us, for us and… for the glory of the Father.
And, one day, we will be given to see the outcome of God’s work in us.

He will bring about this astonishing realisation.
But he needs one essential element that he cannot provide: our consent!
Our willingness to let him do, with the rough material that we are, the creation that we cannot imagine!

Believe it or not: “We are God’s work of art”, Paul assures us of it as he writes to the first Christians of Ephesus (Eph.2:10).
If only… we allow him to make us so…

Source: Images: shortcourses.swtafe.vic.edu.au   aikidonorwalk.com  shutterstock.com