Day 307: Offenses Against Chastity (2351-2356)

• It’s Day 307!!

• OFFENSES AGAINST CHASTITY

• There are ways we can sin against chastity

• Lust

• How can the sin of lust be given into?

• Masturbation

• Fornication

• Pornography

• Prostitution

• Rape

• Really serious topics

• When it comes to the Commandments, there is the invitation and the challenge

• We can be convicted by what we have done

• There is also what someone has done to me

• There is a uniqueness to sexual brokenness 

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about the TV show “Law and Order”...

• Sometimes these things are assaults that people experience 

• There is no finger wagging or accusation today

• The Evil One is the accuser

• The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts us 

• The Holy Spirit also consoles us

• There is such a thing as real guilt and such a thing as fake guilt

• Fake guilt is where I feel responsible but it was not my fault

• Whether this brokenness we have experience is a result of us doing it to ourselves or someone else doing it to us, our dignity is still intact

• Your dignity is still your dignity

• You are still made in God’s image and likeness

• You are still worth living for

• You are still worth dying for

• You are still worth conquering death for

• That is how much God loves you

• Let the Holy Spirit convict us and console us

• If this is part of your story, your story is not over

• God can and will bring you healing

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, I ask that all of those members of this Catechism in a Year community receive your healing in a unique way today. Receive the power of your Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ in a unique way today, that whether we are filled with self-inflicted wounds or whether our wounds have been inflicted on us by others, remind us of our value in your eyes. Remind my sisters and brothers of their great goodness, the dignity that you have not taken away, the dignity that you have affirmed in them right now. In this moment Lord God, please console their hearts. Where we need to repent, we repent. Where we need you to heal us, please Lord God heal us. We make this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Let’s start at the end

• Paragraph 2354 says, “Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.”

• So destructive

• And so many people find themselves caught

• The vast majority of marriages that end in divorce, pornography was part of that

• People think it is a victimless crime

• NOPE!!

• People think the people involved are willing participants

• NOPE!! NOT ALWAYS!!

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about Matt Fradd’s book, “The Porn Myth”…

• The book is a secular perspective on the devastating reality of the world of pornography

• It goes into the devastating reality of all that goes into producing and distributing it

• It goes into what it does to individuals, marriages, and families

• It goes into what it does to the culture

• This hurts our world

• Theft and lies hurt our world

• But this has a unique way of hurting our world

• Paragraph 2355 says, “Prostitution does injury to the dignity of the person who engages in it, reducing the person to an instrument of sexual pleasure. The one who pays sins gravely against himself: he violates the chastity to which his Baptism pledged him and defiles his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Prostitution is a social scourge. It usually involves women, but also men, children, and adolescents (The latter two cases involve the added sin of scandal.). While it is always gravely sinful to engage in prostitution, the imputability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or social pressure.”

• Paragraph 2356 says, “Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.”

• If this has been part of your life, it is worth hearing what the Church has to say about this

• The Church knows how deeply rape wounds us

• If you are someone who is a victim of rape, this might not help anything

• Maybe it helps

• Maybe it helps a little bit to realize that the Church knows this 

• The Church knows that it has caused you grave damage and can mark you for life

• There have been too many people who have been hurt

• Any adult who is supposed to be in a child’s life

• A teacher

• A coach

• A priest

• An authority figure

• That is even graver

• If this has been part of your story and you are carrying the wounds, the Church sees you

• The Catechism is not a therapy book

• The Catechism is not a book that is going to necessarily heal

• It is a book that teaches and reveals

• It teaches that rape and sexual assault are absolutely evil

• The Church knows the great wound this causes

• These three paragraphs talking about pornography, prostitution, and rape all start with LUST

• Paragraph 2351 says, “Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”

• Sexual desire on its own is not a bad thing

• Sexual desire on its own has been given to us by God

• We are built this way

• The sexual act is ordered towards the gift of self, ordered towards procreation, conception, and raising of children, and unitive purposes

• Conception does not always have to happen, but that is what the sexual act is 

• Paragraph 2352 says, “By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. “Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.’ ‘The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.’ For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of ‘the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.’ To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety, or other psychological or social factors that can lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.”

• Instead of mutual self-giving, masturbation is singular selfishness

• It trains a person in selfishness

• There are some factors that can mitigate one’s personal culpability

• It is ALWAYS a grave sin

• Your culpability may be lessened because of a few reasons

• People think just because it is a habit, there will be no struggle and they just give in to the habit

• We have to find the middle road 

• One person might have to be very patient with themselves when it comes to this lifelong battle with masturbation or pornography

• This disorder that has broken selfishness

• One cannot give themselves a free pass

• The priest in Confession should not give a free pass

• This is a battle that they are meant to actually fight

• It is a narrow walk and sometimes it is a razor’s edge of a walk

• Be patient with yourself, but ruthless with your environment

• If someone keeps going back to pornography or masturbation, if your phone is your problem then do something with your phone

• If your computer is your problem, do something with your computer

• “Ok God, let your grace come to me when I am ruthless with my environment. When I know I have taken every step I possibly can to free myself from having this poison in my home, then I can be patient with myself when I fall.”

• Don’t tolerate poison in your life

• Then you will find you can be at peace

• It’ll be fine for a week, then the day after that it won’t be fine 

• Be ruthless with your environment, but patient with yourself

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…