Search This Blog

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Lust


Today's RCIA class was on the last capital sin, "lust."  It wasn't as bad as I feared.  I mean, think about it; I'm the only female in the room.  Everyone else was a "cloistered brother."  But of course, they were gentlemen.  I asked them how they handled chastity.

One said that whenever a sinful thought entered his head, he put his mother or his grandmother's face in the picture.  He would not like people looking at them, in a lustful way.

Another powerful thought was presented by 1 Corinthians 6:13-20.

Now the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.  Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?  By no means!  Or do you not know that he who cleaves to a harlot, becomes one body with her?  "For the two," it says, "shall be one flesh."  But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit, with him.  Flee immorality.  Every sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.  Or do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been brought at a great price.  Glorify God and bear him in your body.

Lust doesn't think of the other person.  Lust is selfish; it is satisfying oneself.  It dehumanizes the object of the lust.  It has nothing to do with love.  When you love someone you want what's best for them.  Lust wants without regard for others.  Human beings are not to be used and exploited.

My "cloistered brothers" impressed me with their discussion.  

Praying from the Heart

 The book I chose for my Lenten reading was Inner Life A Fellow Traveler's Guide to Prayer, by David Torkington.  I finished it this Sun...