Friday, June 15, 2018

Friday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

(1 Kings 19:9a.11-16; Matthew 5:27-32)

Of the longings of the human heart sexual desire takes a primary place.   Beyond intimacy, men want to dominate women and to use them for self-propagation.  Women seek to manipulate men for protection and for children to mother.  Jesus addresses this mutual exploitation with his commandments in today’s gospel.

Once again Jesus calls for a change of heart.  His disciples have to avoid lust, the inordinate desire for sexual pleasure.  Desire becomes inordinate when one seeks sexual relations with someone other than his wife or her husband.  Desire also looms inordinate when it views one’s wife or husband as an object for sexual pleasure.  As Jesus’ instruction on divorce indicates, spouses are to cherish one another.  Marriage commits two people to love one another in order to raise children in the likeness of God.

Jesus equating lust with adultery has caused many people to feel a burden of guilt. Is such guilt warranted?  We think so.  It is not that we want people to feel bad about themselves.  To the contrary, we want people to feel accomplished by foregoing pernicious desires.  Lust can lead people beyond adultery to abandonment of family.   By itself, it redirects a person from his or her primary responsibilities to dwell on fantasies.  Although painful, guilt moves one to repentance.  It is part of the journey to holiness.

Homilette for Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Tuesday, XXIII Week of Ordinary Time

(Colossians 2)

Paul uses several terms suggestive of carnal desire in the reading from the Letter to the Colossians today. Lest we think that sexual gratification is a peculiarly contemporary challenge, Paul reminds us that it has long caused human undoing. He speaks of “seductive” philosophy that can “captivate” and the need of “stripping off the carnal body” through a “circumcision” of “flesh.” People often allow wealth or power to undermine their stability, but sexual flights are more likely to unmoor humans from families and bob precariously on the sea of oblivion.

Christ offers us the way to salvation from this relentless urge. Paul urges us to anchor ourselves in him. “Rooted” in Christ we can stand up to desire choosing in its face what will truly bring us happiness. One young woman talked about the time she almost submitted to the desire for sex outside marriage but somehow found the courage to stop. Since that day, she said, she has worn a ring to hold the place where her wedding band will go to remind her of the gift she is saving for her future husband.

With the Internet sexual fantasies float freer than ever. If we are to overcome them we need to turn to Christ who is even more omnipresent. Assured of his love for us by his death on the cross, we will want to live for him. Not for sex or wealth or power, we will want to live for Christ.