Wholehearted living is made possible for the Christian through faith in God's love for the world and God's promise of eternal happiness for all human beings. It could be argued that there are two ways that one might decide to live wholeheartedly. The first would be to say that the world is an absurd place where the inevitability of one's death and the infinity of the universe makes an individual human life insignificant. In the face of human insignificance and the apparent meaninglessness of life the individual can only choose between accepting death and despair or living in a whole-hearted life-giving way. The second, more Christian way is a more hope-filled one. Certainly, the Christian is also exposed to the same experiences that suggest a meaningless universe but the decision to nonetheless live wholeheartedly is based on an affirmation that contrary to these experiences, the world is fundamentally a good place, freely created by a rational and loving God. For the Christian there will come a time when suffering will no longer have any place in the world. The Christian view is thus a hope-filled one rather than despairing one. The Christian view is based on faith in God, and hope in God's promises. The Christian view chooses love over destruction and joy over misery.

Key to understanding the notion of emotional and affective maturity is a proper acknowledgment of the importance of human freedom in the integration of our emotions. Created in the image of God, human beings are rational and free. When emotions come to dominate our thinking and acting in a way that compromises our freedom, then we are not living the fully human lives that we are created to live. When, however, our emotions are integrated through our rationality and freedom into our efforts to fulfil our calling to live wholeheartedly—to stand up for love—then emotions play an essential part in realizing human flourishing. The classical language of the Catholic tradition expresses this human flourishing using the emotive term happiness.

Happiness, beatitude, or flourishing is, according to classical philosophical and Catholic tradition, the thing that all human beings desire and which will ultimately be found in eternal life with God. Because we are endowed with reason and freedom by God we are able to experience a 'not-yet' perfect version of that happiness here and now. As images of God, that is, as God's representatives on Earth, we are able to work for the realisation of this happiness, this flourishing. Through our moral behaviour, moral choices and moral actions we can incarnate God's love in the world. In this way, we can literally make the world and ourselves, happier. Our emotions function to help us to perceive those things which are good because they contribute to this happiness, and those things which are bad or evil because they may ultimately frustrate the realisation of true happiness.

Forgiveness, healing and reconciliation are important features of the Catholic perspective on sexual and relationship health. This is so for two simple reasons: First, God is love and we are created and called to be images of God; and second, we are all sinners, and that means we all almost inevitably find ourselves doing things that we know are not good for our own flourishing, or that we know hamper the flourishing of others. Our sinful actions damage the high quality of relationships characterised by love, justice, and chastity that God intended for human beings and indeed for human beings' relationship with God. Since God is love and God loves us so much that Jesus was prepared to die for us and for the truth that God wants us to live in a world of justice, peace and joy, God will forgive our sins. But, as free and rational beings, this forgiveness requires that we take responsibility for our sinful actions by sincerely acknowledging that what we did was morally wrong. Moreover, because we are free and created in the image of God who is just and merciful, we are also called to seek forgiveness from those we have harmed and in our turn forgive those who have harmed us. This is why, in the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples, 'the Lord's Prayer' or the 'Our Father', we ask God to forgive our sins (debts or trespasses) as we forgive those who sin against us (Matthew 6: 9-13). As Pope Francis has said, Listen carefully to this: each of us is capable of doing the same thing that that man or that woman in prison did. All of us have the capacity to sin and to do the same, to make mistakes in life... Mercy overcomes every wall, every barrier... And it is mercy which changes the heart and the life, which can regenerate a person and allow him or her to integrate into society in a new way (Pope Francis, 2014). The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (1991) makes a similar point and contextualises it in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church: 'We are aware of our own frailty and sin as well as God's abiding presence and promise of forgiveness. As members of the Church, we draw strength, comfort, and renewed challenge from the Word of God, the Eucharist, and the healing and strengthening power of the sacrament of reconciliation.' Central to Jesus' message was that God unconditionally loved every human being and that this love is not conditional on 'being good'. This love cannot be earned, and no matter what human beings do, they cannot prevent God's love being available to them. Jesus taught that God would unconditionally forgive anyone who showed any sign of wanting to come to him and that real love always forgives... In many cases, the weakest and most vulnerable human beings are those who have difficulty in accepting themselves and their sexuality, and these are the people to whom the Church, if it is following Christ, should show the most love, commitment and understanding... None of us can or should condemn others (Vardy 1998, pp. 224-225). Though we might help others to see the truth of the moral wrongness of their actions, we cannot condemn them as human beings, who, like us, are seeking to live a meaningful life in a morally complex world. If we condemned people as human beings because of their sinful actions then forgiveness would be impossible. Forgiveness and healing are possible precisely because the Catholic tradition emphasizes an essential difference between the person, eternally loved by God, and the moral behaviour of that person. Our moral behaviour may change the way we relate to God, but it never changes how God loves us. As Vardy (1998, p. 225) points out, our task is to strive daily to align our moral behaviour with the belief that we, all human beings, and all of creation, are created and loved by God, who desires only our flourishing and happiness. Our task is to progress on our life's journey and, as we do so, to help our fellow travellers with care, compassion and understanding.