sexual union

The tale pulses with images of opening and entering, into the ground, into patients’ bodies, in sexual union.

Conference of Catholic Bishops teaches that God desires “a loving, sexual union” when creating children, which precludes using donor eggs or sperm or creating embryos in a lab.

The gift of marriage brings husband and wife together in the delight and tenderness of sexual union and joyful commitment to the end of their lives.

At the end, while solemn bells sound, everyone else bends as if having completed their mission, but the central couple are locked together in imagery that suggests their sexual union is harsh and involuntary.

Indeed, I was struck the following evening by how sheerly louder “Tristan” got from the very beginning, which builds to a ferocious evocation of sexual union.