Monday of the
Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
(I Corinthians 5:1-8; Luke 6:6-11)
Donald Trump’s “locker room banter” many times is more
than bravado. Men will brag of actual sexual
exploits as if they were still school boys propelled by excess dopamine. The same coarseness has long been in comic
routines and now appears even among strangers. St. Paul takes the Corinthians to task for showing
acceptance of a similar display of lewdness.
Paul is outraged upon hearing how the Corinthian
community gossips about sexual sins. Evidently the community is more amused than
affronted by a member’s sleeping with his father’s wife. He chastises everyone for
finding delight in the travesty. He implies
that this kind of practice indicates a loss in the Christian quest for
holiness. He says like leaven in dough
they have been inflated by sin. He
exhorts them to renew the quest by distancing themselves both spiritually and physically
from the guilty party.
In this time of sexual license many will think it normal,
even healthy to describe sexual adventure.
The ancients labeled such description “obscene” to relegate it to the
periphery. We should be wary that such
talk does not become familiar. It will
lure us into thinking the sexual intimacy may be pursued by anyone at any
time. Surely such an idea will detour us
from the road to sanctity.
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