Lust

THE third of the seven chief sources of sin is Lust. This loathsome vice, which has plunged millions of men, women and children into the fire of hell, is the source of all the different kinds of sins of impurity and immodesty. It is the source of all thoughts, desires, words and actions against the sixth and the ninth commandments. In the mind, in the heart, on the tongue and in the body, whatever is mean and dirty, impure or filthy, comes from lust.

"God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification," says the great Apostle. "Therefore he that despiseth these things, despiseth not man, but God, Who also hath given His Holy Spirit in us" (I. Thess., IV., 7-8). And again he says: "Do not err: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers ∗ ∗ ∗ shall possess the kingdom of God" (I. Cor., VI., 9-10). For the temptations of lust are in almost every instance temptations to mortal sin. Evil suggestions and bad impulses, arising from the other chief sources of sin, from pride and avarice, anger and gluttony, envy and sloth, are very often temptations to venial sin; but those that come from lust, are nearly always temptations to mortal sin. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly from temptation," says St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, "but to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented, and especially those who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness" (II. Pet., II., 9-10).

So temptations of lust are almost always temptations to mortal sin. Nevertheless, if people overcome those temptations, all is well. No matter how often they are tempted and no matter how foully they might be tempted, they should never be discouraged, but rather always cheerful and thankful to God so long as they are careful not to yield to the temptation. Many of the saints were tempted far worse than we ever are. They fought a harder battle than we have to fight, and they won a greator victory than we can hope to win. So no matter how vile and disgusting, and no matter how persistent a temptation might be, so long as you give no consent to it, so long as by God's grace you pray against it, fight it, banish it and conquer it, that is a victory for your guardian angel and an overthrow for Satan.

Are people allowed then to go into temptation without necessity, or to stay in temptation when they can escape from it, in order to win victories for their guardian angel? Oh, no. The person who would do that, would be a rash, presumptuous fool in this world and very likely a lost soul in the next. Just the opposite. It is our strict duty to avoid temptation as much as we can, and especially in this matter of cleanness and purity. You pray to God in the " Our Father": "Lead us not into temptation;" and even as you ask Him so often to keep you from temptation, so it is also your part to take every precaution to keep yourself from it. For " God helps those who help themselves."

In these affairs the brave soldier and the victorious hero is the one who runs away at the very beginning of the fight, the one who, if possible, doesn't meet his enemy at all, whether that enemy be dirty reading, dirty pictures, dirty theatre plays or songs, dirty conversation; or whether that enemy be filthy men or women, or shameless boys or girls. If it were a decent, honorable enemy, a soldier would accept the battle and fight it out; but when it's a crawling, poisonous snake, or a male or female moral leper, then flight is victory, and a swift retreat is honour and glory.

The male and female moral lepers, corrupt and reeking with the foul leprosy of their impurity! O, the wretched ones! "Les miserables!" Pity them if you will—at a distance—and pray for them— at a safe distance. "God pity them all, God pity the worst, for the worst are reckless and need it most!" What a fearful disease is the leprosy of impurity!

You know what an awful disease bodily leprosy is, how catching and contagious. You know how it begins on the skin and very slowly and gradually rots its way inwards through nerves and flesh and bones; that sometimes the joints of the fingers and toes drop off one by one at long intervals, and sometimes a hand or a foot; there have been cases where after many years of it an arm or a leg has fallen away from the body, just as rotten branches drop off from a tree. This disease of leprosy is so contagious that formerly, in many places, as in many places I believe, even now, a leper was never allowed to enter a city or town or village. Even out in the desert places where he was forced to pass his life, he had to carry a bell with him constantly, and if any healthy person by any chance approached him, he would ring this bell to warn him and would cry out: "Shun the lepers! Shun the lepers! " Impurity is leprosy of the soul, just as foul and fatal and just as catching. The impure and the immodest, the indecent and the shameless are all moral lepers. They are not always isolated. They are allowed in towns and cities, because they can hide their impurity to a great extent from the public gaze. In some cases they are living in decent families among decent people; in some cases they are working in factories and shops and offices where decent people work; in some cases they are attending the schools which are attended at the same time by hundreds of clean and wholesome children. Often to our bodily eyes they may appear sound and pure; for they frequently wear good clothes and disguise themselves with collars and cuffs, or with perfumes, feathers and furs. But their souls are filthy with the foul leprosy of their impurity. The stench and rottenness of their dangerous and most infectious disease is oozing out from every pore of their blackened and decaying souls, and they are moral lepers.

Therefore, as you value the health and cleanness of your immortal soul, shun the lepers; avoid bad company. As you value the everlasting heaven that you are working so hard for, do not select for your associates those persons who must be constantly talking about the things that should not so much as be named among Christians:—"All uncleanness," says the Scripture, "let it not so much as be named among you, ∗ ∗ ∗ or obscenity, or foolish talking, or scurrility" (Ephes., V., 3). Do not choose for your companions those whose behaviour, either in public or in private, is anything else than Christian, those who are unmanly or unwomanly, lacking in self-control or lacking in self-respect.

Respect for yourself is absolutely necessary. You'll never be fit for heaven unless you have some respect for yourself here on earth; not pride, of course, but self-respect; manly and womanly respect for yourselves as God's men and women; respect for your immortal human soul, and respect also for your human body.

We are not brutes nor beasts nor reptiles. The human body is the most wonderful thing on earth. It is the crown of material nature, the glory of the material universe. Our souls, which belong to the spiritual world, are far nobler still; but in the material world there is nothing so wonderful, so holy, so worthy of honour and reverence and respect as the human body.

Those eyes of yours, that after your resurrection are going to gaze forever on the all-holy God—how careful you should be of those eyes, how beautifully you should control them, how strict and firm, how prudent and cautious you should be about what they look at and what they read—those eyes that will gaze upon God! Those ears that will hear the angels, those hands that Mary will take in hers to welcome you; that tongue that will speak to Christ! Therefore the Apostle says: "The body is ∗ ∗ ∗ for the Lord; and the Lord for the body" (I. Cor., VI., 13).

Holy things to things that are holy. "Sancta sanctis." Why even when the soul has left it at death, that body of yours will be solemnly and reverently carried into the holiest place on earth, into the house of God, and laid down there as near as possible to the altar itself, and over it the great Sacrifice will be offered. Christ Himself, I may reverently say it, Christ Himself is at the funeral. During the most solemn part of the funeral Mass He condescends to be there on the altar, under the sacramental species, in the presence of that lifeless body. For it is a member of Christ. "Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ" (I. Cor., VI., 15), says St. Paul. And he adds immediately about those unmentionable sins of lust, that he that committeth them "sinneth against his own body." "Or know you not," he says, "that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, Who is in you, Whom you have from God. And you are not your own. For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body" (I. Cor., VI., 18-20). And when the funeral Mass is finished, and holy water has been sprinkled even on the coffin that contains that holy body, and the smoke of blessed incense has been wafted all around it, then it is reverently borne out again, to be laid as something holy in consecrated, holy ground.

"Sancta Sanctis." Holy things to things that are holy. Therefore how holy is the human body! And therefore how foul and hideous are all the different dirty kinds of vile, unthinkable, unspeakable sins, which insult and disrespect that human body either in oneself or in others! See the abominable foulness of impurity. Pride may be stultifying and avarice may be debasing, but it would require hell itself to reveal to us the full horrors of lust.

Hell is crowded with its victims. More souls are there through impurity, many of the saints thought, than from any other cause. They refused to be men and women. They preferred to be filthy brutes. And hence for all eternity they are vastly worse and lower than brutes. They are lost souls now, and will be damned bodies and souls after the judgment day.

God grant that you may prefer to be, not snakes nor worms,but men and women, whether in the chaste, true love of holy married life, to which God calls the many—husband and wife, faithful forever and true to the last—or in the careful continence of single life, to which He calls the few; "that everyone of you may know how to possess (himself) in sanctification and honour: not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God" (I. Thess., IV., 4-5).

Shun the lepers: avoid bad company. Be careful as to what you read, and careful as to what you give others to read, or allow others to read if they are under your charge. Fly, if you can, at the very first beginning of temptation. Do not give yourself up to idleness. Be occupied and busy, either in labour or in recreation, either at work or at play. Above all, pray humbly and regularly every day of your life to God, and to His holy saints, and especially to His Virgin Mother.

"O Mary most pure and immaculate, pray for us who have recourse to thee!" "O my Lady, O my Mother, remember that I am thine! Preserve me, defend me, as thy property and possession!"

For you are her property and possession, given to her by Christ even while He was buying you with His Blood. With almost His last breath, from the cross where He was dying, He said to her: "Woman, behold thy son" (John, XIX., 26).

You are baptized Christians. It was His Blood that washed your soul from original sin while the water of Baptism was flowing on your body. "You are the children of light and children of the day," as St. Paul says in the Sacred Scripture. You "are not of the night nor of darkness. ∗ ∗ ∗ For which cause comfort one another and edify one another, as you also do. ∗ ∗ ∗ Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In all things give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you all. Extinguish not the spirit. Despise not prophecies. But prove all things; hold fast that which is good. From all appearance of evil refrain yourselves. And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ∗ ∗ ∗ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen" (I. Thess., V., 5-28).