Ask Christopher West

Questions answered this episode: In my previous relationship, we were trying to abstain from sex. I knew he was watching porn and working on that too. A week after breaking up, he started sleeping with someone else and since has been sleeping with many people. Word that I don't care to hear spreads quickly in a small town. I'm trying to identify the lie from the enemy in this. Right now, I...

Questions answered this episode: “I cry every Christmas season when I reflect on the baby Jesus. Like if I imagine myself holding him. And it's not just at Christmas, I've also cried during Advent, Lent, Holy Week, especially the Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday, and Pentecost Sunday. Sometimes I cry more than the prophet Jeremiah. Do you think I'm experiencing the gift of tears or just som...

Questions answered this episode: I want to fully understand Theology of the Body but struggle due to a history with porn addiction. Exposed at 13, I fell away from the Church and entered an ill-advised marriage where porn use was encouraged, ending in divorce. Now, by the grace of God, it’s been several months since I’ve slipped. Resources like the Matt Fradd show, Internal Family Systems, and Cov...

Questions answered this episode: I have a question about Second Chronicles, chapter seven, verse fourteen, which says: 'If my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.' My question is: how do we seek God’s face? I hear it all the time, but I’m not su...

Questions answered this episode: As a teacher of Theology of the Body, I was presented with a picture of Pope John Paul II by a former student. Before seeing it, I hoped for an image of his younger, energetic self—skiing, hiking, or writing. However, it was a close-up of him as an elderly man, hunched in a chair. I felt a wave of disappointment, realizing I struggle to see the beauty in the entire...

Questions answered this episode: I’m a first-time mom to an almost six-month-old, and motherhood is both the most beautiful and difficult thing I’ve ever done. I struggle with knowing what it means to lay down my life as a parent. In other relationships, we’re taught to set healthy boundaries and ensure our needs are met, but in motherhood, even my basic needs—sleep, exercise, seeing friends—feel...

Questions answered this episode: In Matthew 5:30, Jesus says, 'And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you...' In the spirit of the theology of the body, the idea of cutting off one's own hand seems like a gross insult to God's image in which we are made. I can understand amputation for medical reasons, but I cannot help but think that sin is a matter...

Questions answered this episode: I came into the Church about three years ago, and my fiancé is entering this Easter. He quickly came to know Mary, but it has been taking me some time. I buy her flowers and pray the Rosary, but I don’t seem to connect with her. In John, Jesus says, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' Yet there is the s...

Questions answered this episode: Growing up, my mom has always talked poorly about her body. As a kid, I remember her asking my dad if other women were attractive and making demeaning comments about women who weighed more than her. Now I’m engaged, and as she chooses a dress, she keeps saying she’ll lose 10 pounds and worries because my future mother-in-law is thinner. She didn’t have parents who...

Questions answered this episode: Is there any insight through the lens of theology of the body as to why God gave male humans and male mammals nipples? It has always baffled me. When I was 14, I watched the first person I ever loved choose my best friend instead of me, right in front of my eyes. This event seared into my body a story, or perhaps a lie, which is: the most beautiful one will never c...

Questions answered this episode: You often say the cross is the marriage bed. If Jesus took on all suffering there, can embracing our own suffering be a marital act? When we accept daily sufferings—from trauma to small annoyances—does that become, bluntly, a kind of spiritual intercourse? What would that mean practically? I’d love your thoughts. My husband and I have been married three years and h...

Questions answered this episode: I understand that the only place for a man’s seed is the woman’s garden, but what about during pregnancy? Since it’s not possible for the couple to conceive another child, I’m not sure if or why it would matter. I’ve always had a special devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist and knew from a young age that it is truly His body, blood, soul, and divinity. I receive Him...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: A man in his 50s had a vasectomy years ago and, after a conversion, is now discerning marriage with a Catholic woman of childbearing age. Must he attempt a reversal for the marriage to be valid? If it’s possible and not life-threatening, should he try to restore his generative power? If it fails and he remains sterile, that wo...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: How do you put into words what a soul is, especially when explaining it to a child in light of theology of the body—that our bodies and souls are both important and are meant to be together in heaven one day? I struggle with premature ejaculation and, despite years of sincere effort in marriage, haven’t found a real solution....

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: I am a single man in my twenties and have committed to reserving sex for marriage. People often try to dissuade me by bringing up “sexual compatibility,” telling stories of couples who waited and later divorced because they weren’t compatible in the marriage bed. I struggle to respond since I can’t speak from experience about...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: I have been a consecrated man for 40 years. Through theology of the body, I came to understand that my masculinity was not denied by my vow of chastity, but lived in another way. I learned to integrate natural bodily movements and the struggle for purity into my path of sanctification. Recently, due to age, these experiences h...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: About 10 years ago, my husband and I rushed into a vasectomy after my third child in 3.5 years and intense anxiety/depression. I wasn’t in favor, but agreed thinking he’d reverse it if we wanted more kids—then I learned he never intended to. For eight years I felt despair and our union felt unrepairable. In recent years, Chris...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: Recently I had mole excision surgery that led me into some unexpected reflection through a TOB lens. I was awake with only local anesthesia and watched the doctor use a scalpel to cut into my skin. Seeing the blood flow out made me lightheaded and nauseous, and I wondered why many people feel queasy at the sight of blood. In T...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: I’m experiencing my third very early miscarriage, and I’m having a lot of difficult feelings because the loss is so early. I never saw a doctor to confirm pregnancy—just a few days of faint positive tests that never got darker and eventually turned negative—and I’m dreading the coming bloodshed. I’m struggling with feeling lik...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– My wife and I have been married almost 1.5 years and we just had our first daughter 2.5 months ago. One challenge we’re struggling to discern is that my younger brother is transitioning from male to female and calling himself “Auntie” in front of my daughter. I love my brother dearly, and this has been a long journey tied to brokenness I and others caused whe...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: St. John Paul talks about woman being master of her own mystery—how a man must stand at the door and knock, then wait for her to open, even in marriage, respecting her right to reject his advances to the marital embrace. In light of this, how do we understand 1 Corinthians 7:4–5 (“the wife does not rule over her own body… Do n...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: I am a theology teacher of high school students at a Catholic school. How do I joyfully proclaim Theology of the Body—or any Church teaching—when my students look like the walking dead? A coworker calls them spiritually dead. They don’t seem to care and they fall asleep in class. Satan has used all of that to make me question...

–This episode is sponsored by Truthly– Questions answered this episode: There are many stories of Catholic men who experience same-sex attraction and go on to marry and have families, even though their predominant attraction remains toward men. Many encourage others not to dismiss marriage before exploring whether God could be calling them to it. I’m honestly confused. Would it be right for me to...

Questions answered this episode: I love marriage and my wife, but we’re facing our biggest challenge: understanding sex and its rightful place. We stayed chaste before marriage; I was a virgin and she’d been abstinent for years. I desire union daily, and while she enjoys our intimacy, she doesn’t need it as often, though she still wants affection. We’re trying to discern how often sex should happe...

Questions answered this episode: I’d like your opinion on popular songs that celebrate the pleasures of sexual union, like that Marvin Gaye song. Can their meaning—or the passions they stir—be redeemed within marriage? It seems many of these songs aren’t good in most contexts, especially those that objectify people. But are some of them acceptable for married couples to listen to privately, if the...