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3. Abstinence?
Till the present day, spouses who really sought to live their conjugal relationship as God wished, to sanctify themselves in and through their marriage, received little orientation from the teaching of the Church, aside from the idea that a certain abstinence is a recommendable means not just of family planning but of positive growth in married sanctity.[81] Abstinence in this view often seemed to be presented as the ideal, or at least as the main means to union with God and the sanctification of one's life. One senses here (and this is the heart of the problem) a continuing underlying presumption that marital intercourse is something so "anti-spiritual" that spouses would do better and grow more in love for God by abstaining from it than by engaging in it. This presumption should be firmly resisted.
If marriage is in itself a divine way of holiness, then all of its natural elements, including of course intimate conjugal relations, are a matter of sanctification. Certainly (as we will see below) these relations must be marked by temperance; yet total abstinence from such relations cannot be proposed as an ideal or ascetical goal for married people.[82] Total abstinence as a means to counter the problem of lust is not a practical proposal for married people, and yet lust has to be countered.