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Conferences on the Virtues
By Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, OCD
Number 16
As stated in the last
conference, it is time to consider the vice that is opposed to Chastity, and
that is Lust. Along with Gluttony, Lust
is one of the Capital Sins. (The others
are Pride, Avarice, Sloth, Envy and Anger.)
The Cardinal Virtue of Temperance, or more specifically, Chastity (a
division of the virtue of Temperance), is the good habit that overcomes the
disordered tendencies that otherwise would result in the bad habit, or vice, of
Lust developing in the human soul. As
pointed out in an earlier conference, we don’t have to make any effort to
acquire vices, and that is especially true in the case of Lust. All one has to do is allow the disordered
instincts and appetites of fallen human nature to go unchecked, and behold! all
the capital sins take full possession of his/her soul. In such a state, the soul is incapable of
being united with god, so, in effect; the Life of God is extinguished in that
soul.
Definition of Lust…
Although Lust is defined as the inordinate appetite for
venereal pleasure, we must understand that, really, it is: the habit of indulging inordinate desires
to experience venereal pleasure. St.
Thomas, following St. Isidore, states that a lustful person is one who is, so
to speak, dissolved in pleasure.
That means, of course, that such a one has “come apart” completely. There is no INTEGRITY in that person. There is instead total disorder and its
resultant ugliness. Thus, in a lustful
person, the image of God, Who is supreme beauty and order, is wholly obliterated.
We
said in a previous conference that God has attached delight and pleasure of
sense to certain kinds of human conduct as both an incentive to, and reward
for, one to engage in that conduct. We
said that this is especially true for all those kinds of conduct which have a
specific role to play in the unfolding of God intents and purposes for His
human creatures. Thus, we have noted
that He has attached a great deal of pleasure to the act of taking food to
nourish the life of the body, the intent being the good of the
individual. But He has attached a
most intense pleasure to human acts that by their nature tend to the
procreation of new human life, the intent being the good of the
species. We saw, too, that it is very easy for us, due to the wounds of
fallen human nature, to violate the dictates of reason in the taking of
nourishment because the delight experienced very easily becomes the principal,
and in some individuals, the sole motive for eating. I don’t have to tell any of you, my dear
readers, that the venereal pleasure associated with procreative acts is so very
intense that it becomes extremely difficult for one to keep the enjoyment of
that pleasure from becoming the sole motive for engaging in sexual activity.
Degrees of Disorder…
St.
Thomas teaches that, ordinarily, when someone eats principally to enjoy the
pleasures of taste, his/her conduct is only “venially” sinful, i.e., NOT a
GRAVE disorder. (As you recall,
deliberate venial sins diminish the fervor of Charity and therefore harm
the Life of God in our souls, but do not extinguish it.) However, when the enjoyment of the
venereal pleasure associated with sexual activity constitutes the sole motive
for engaging in it, that conduct is mortally sinful, that is, it constitutes
such a grave disorder that, given the presence of sufficient deliberation and
consent, it extinguishes Charity (the Life of God) in the soul.
A Practical Application…
The
only time it may become difficult for a person to decide whether the pleasure
to be derived from sexual intercourse is the ONLY motive why he/she engages
therein occurs within the context of a valid marriage. That is because venereal pleasure is
intended to entice individuals to assume responsibilities for the procreation
and education of new human life, and to reward them therefore. We know it to be God’s express Will that
only within the context of a valid marriage and the CONSORTIUM that is an
integral part of marriage that human life is to be procreated and educated
[chiefly to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this life, and to be
happy with Him forever in the next.]
Therefore, outside the married state, sexual conduct of whatever
kind, which by its nature tends to induce venereal pleasure, is a gravely
sinful matter.
Within
the married state, the sure rule of thumb is this: Any kind of activity engaged in by validly married couples which
by its nature tends to produce what is called “satiative” (or completely
satisfying) venereal pleasure, must remain open to the possibility
of the conception of new human life in order_to_be_licit. Translated into modern terms, it means that
THE ONLY LICIT MEANS TO LIMIT FAMILY SIZE IS NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING, because
that alone remains open to the POSSIBILITY of a conception taking place,
even though the PROBABILITY is greatly diminished.
That
is so because genuine, disinterested, unselfish love is so
profoundly ORDERED TO LIFE that even within the context of natural family
planning it can cause an ovum to mature and be released several days before its
expected time, and thus conception is ALWAYS POSSIBLE.
The Nature of the
Disorder…
What
I have stated thus far about God’s express Will includes implicitly two of the
“reasons” why lustful conduct constitutes mortally sinful matter, namely, (1)
it is a serious violation of “legal justice,” and thus does great harm to human
society, to wit it withholds what one in justice “owes to the community of
mankind”: due, proper, well-ordered
procreation and education of children, by which the human species is duly
propagated and conserved. (2) In
lustful conduct, a “good” and a “delight” that is ordered to the common good
and the good of society is wrongfully diverted to an individual, personal,
selfish end. The third reason, from
which the first two are derived, is that lustful conduct usurps, or rather
violates, the right of dominion that God the Creator has over our human bodies
(ONE AUTHOR of ALL creatures). When
people say: “I have the right to
control my own body,” they are in stark error. The truth is, each and every one of us has a duty to control
our own bodies, but to “control them in perfect accord with God’s Will, which
Will He has made known to us in Holy Scripture. St. Paul cites neither his sources in the Old Testament nor the
words of Jesus that justify his teaching, but since these words are
themselves part of Sacred Scripture, we must accept them as God’s own
words: “Well then, the words of the
flesh are manifest, namely, fornication, impurity, lascivious
conduct,…orgies,…, which I warn you against, for as I have said before, whoever
does such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Gal. 5, 19-21).
A Capital Sin…
We
said above that Lust is one of the Capital Sins, which means that very often it
is the “final cause” [the ultimate reason why] many other sins are
committed. Since caput, capitis
is the Latin for “head,” the implication (and truth of the matter) is that a
Capital sin is the directive principle and guide leading to the committing of
other sins so that the “object” of the Capital Sin may be achieved. Lust, therefore, is like the leader of an
army composed of other, lesser vices, all leading up to the ultimate
gratification of lustful desires.
Effect on the psyche…
To understand the relationship between the Capital Sin of
Lust and its “followers and servants,” we have to return to the notion stated
above that a lustful person is dissolved in pleasures. When a substance dissolves, the forces
holding it together in a fixed, durable, molecular structure are utterly
overcome, and so what was previously a “solid” becomes indistinguishable from
liquid in which it is dissolved. Intense
delights of sense have a way of rendering utterly ineffectual any
and all integrative forces that maintain a person’s moral structure. Moral constraints disappear, and a person
will do anything, no matter how disordered in itself, no matter how disruptive,
violative or destructive of the rights of other individuals and societies, in
order to experience and enjoy the intense venereal pleasure the lustful person
craves. Our current society offers
overwhelming evidence every day of the truth of this statement.
The Species of Lust…
Lust
gives rise to so many grave disorders that there is a whole list of the ways in
which sins of lust are committed, and it reveals a gradation in gravity and
malice of those acts in which themselves are gravely sinful and malicious: masturbation, fornication, incest, adultery,
rape, and all kinds of sexual perversions (sexual sins contrary to nature) too
nauseous to name, and combinations thereof. It seems that in our current society three of the four
first named “species” of lustful conduct are utterly condoned, such that
many people no longer think that they are sins. Now that that has happened, and the “craving” for venereal
pleasure “has taken over” in entire segments of our modern society, it seems
that there is no lower limit to the depravities a person is capable of falling
into, and alas, does fall into.
Further Effects on the
Human Psyche…
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us what they are in answer to the
question: Can we rightfully say that
the Children of Lust are Blinded ness in the mind, Inconsideration,
Precipitation, Inconstancy, Self-love, Hatred of God, Love of the present world
and Horror of the world to come? Let
me paraphrase his response:
The
answer is “yes.” And the reason is
because, especially in the case of Lust, the lower appetite with very great
vehemence tends to its object, to with, what is delightful [to the
senses]. And because of the vehemence
of the passion AND the pleasure, it follows that the higher powers, the
intellect and the will, are thrown into confusion.
He
continues:
We
distinguish four aspects (or phases) of the operation of the intellect.
The
first is that of simple understanding, whose function is to apprehend
some prospective object or “end” under the aspect of GOOD or EVIL. However, accurate perception and discernment
by the simple understanding is impeded by lustful desires. And in this regard, we have blindness of
mind.
The
second is that of “taking counsel” (or consulting) with regard to the
best means to attain the end discerned as good or to avoid or escape
what is perceived as EVIL. This function
is also prevented by the concupiscence we know as lust. So in this regard we have precipitation.
The third function is to make a “judgment” concerning
what has been learned through consultation, which is again impeded as a result
of lust, and here we have inconsideration.
Fourth
and last, there is the function of “commanding” the will to act. [Remember the conference(s) on
Prudence?] Here too the vice of lust
prevents this phase of the operation of the intellect, and this is where we
speak of inconstancy.
I’m
still paraphrasing St. Thomas:
On
the part of the will there follow [from lust] two, two-fold disordinate
effects:
The
first two-fold effect proceeds from what the will “chooses” as its
“good,”
which is the venereal delight it
inordinately craves. One “side of the
coin” is [selfish] self-love.
And the other is hatred of God, because it is God Who forbids the
conduct which yields the pleasure for which the person craves.
The
second twofold effect has to do with those things that are a means
to the “good” chosen as one’s ultimate good.
Here
on the other side of the coin, is the love of this present world,
because it is only here that one is able to immerse himself/herself in carnal
delights; the other is horror of the world to come because while one is
immersed in delights of the flesh (or desires thereof) one is scarcely able
and not inclined to give though to spiritual delights, but rather has a
very strong distaste for them.
St.
Thomas adds a: TO BE NOTED: Lust has FOUR EFFECTS upon a person’s
SPEECH: Filthy-talk, (the Latin
word is turpiloquia) because “Out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaks.” (Matt. 12:34); Scurrilous
talk, (the Latin word is scurrilia) which means speaking without
giving thought to what one is saying; the telling of dirty jokes (the
Latin word is ludicra), which have to do with matters pertaining to
venereal pleasure; and stupid talk (the Latin word is stultiloquia),
that is, whatever proceeds from a mind blinded by lust.
Verification from
Scripture…
What
has been said above (and implied therein) is amply corroborated by Holy
Scripture. Once again we open to St.
Paul (Romans 1, 18-32), Knox translation:
God’s
anger is being revealed from Heaven; his anger against the impiety and
wrong-doing of men whose wrong-doing denies His truth full scope. The knowledge of God is clear to their
minds; God Himself has made it clear to them; from the foundations of the world
men have caught sight of His invisible nature, His eternal power and His
divineness, as they are known through His creatures. Thus there is no excuse for them; although they had the knowledge
of God, they did not honor Him or give thanks to Him as God; they became
fantastic in their notions, and their senseless hearts grew benighted; they,
who claimed to be so wise, turned fools, and exchanged the glory of the
imperishable God for representations of perishable man, of bird and beast and
reptile. That is why God abandoned
their lustful hearts to filthy practices of dishonoring their own bodies among
themselves. They had exchanged God’s
truth for a lie, reverencing and worshipping the creature in preference to the
Creator (blessed is He forever, Amen); and in return, God abandoned them to
passions, which brought dishonor to themselves. Their women exchanged natural for unnatural intercourse; and the
men, on their side, giving up natural intercourse with women, were burnt up
with desire for each other; men practicing vileness with their fellow men. Thus, they have received a fitting
retribution for their false belief.
And as they scorned to keep God in their view, so God has
abandoned them to a frame of mind worthy of all scorn that prompts them to
disgraceful acts. They are versed in
every kind of injustice, knavery, impurity, and ill will; spiteful, murderous,
contentious, deceitful, depraved, backbiters, slanderers, God’s enemies;
insolent, haughty, vainglorious; inventive in wickedness, disobedient to their
parents; without prudence, without honor, without love, without loyalty,
without pity. Yet with the just decree
of God before their minds, they never grasped the truth that those who so live
are deserving of death; not only those who commit such acts, but those who
countenance such a manner of living.
If
I were teaching a class on the subject of Lust, I would ask my students to go
over the foregoing quotation from St. Paul and point out where in it we find
corroboration of the fact that lustful hearts (v. 24) cause total dissolution
of the Moral Structure of the psyche, and the answer of St. Thomas to the
question on the Children of Lust. I
would probably ask also, “What can we do to keep ourselves from being numbered
among those who countenance such a manner of living? (I wonder how many would suggest that we
become actively involved in RESCUE)! I
would expect that most would suggest that we do what we can, considering our
individual, personal circumstances, to lend support to organizations fighting
pornography on all fronts (particularly in the media), the abortion mentality,
the so-called value-free sex education in our schools, and particularly safe-sex
AIDS education (?) of teenagers in our high schools. And I would be very, very disappointed if no
one of them were to suggest that we AT LEAST make diligent efforts to comply
with what the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Mother, has been asking of us for so
many years: That we embrace CHASTITY
according to our state in life, and to pray and make sacrifices for the
conversion of sinners. This is so
urgent, since our society has gone mad in pursuit of sensual pleasure.
The Remedy for Lust…
It
goes without saying that to avoid becoming slaves to the vice of lust we have
to wage war against the Concupiscence of the Flesh. That is done by the mortification of the
senses, as we have seen in a previous conference. In particular, it requires mortification of curiosity of
all kinds, not only in regard to sexual matters. Especially helpful is confession even of doubtful sins of
the flesh, no matter how slight. Bu the
best and most efficacious means to overcome the concupiscence of the flesh is frequent
and fervent reception of Jesus in Holy Communion.
Our
Catholic Moral Theology teaches us that the primary and proper effect of
Holy Communion is Sanctifying Grace insofar as it unites the recipient to
Christ and tends to further his/her transformation into Christ through Charity.
The
closer one’s union with Jesus through Love the more perfectly is the image of
God (Who is Supreme Order and Beauty) restored in such a one. That includes substantial diminution of
those spontaneous, instinctive, indeliberate, inordinate first movements we
spoke of above. In addition:
Secondarily,
Holy Communion has the same general effects upon the life of the soul as
material food and drink has upon bodily life, that is to say, it
sustains, nourishes, increases, repairs the Life of Grace within the soul,
and brings delight to the heart as well.
By
sustaining, increasing and nourishing the fervor of charity in the soul,
Holy Communion brings about a lessening of self-love, which is the cause
of all sins; and an increase of Faith, Hope and Love for God, which are
the beginning, the guide, and the underpinning of all the moral virtues.
As
ordinary food restores the strength and repairs the damage to tissue lost in
the efforts and activities of daily life, so also Holy Communion restores the
strength and repairs the damage to the fervor of Charity incurred in struggling
against the temptations of daily life, in the fulfillment of the Will of God
according to one’s state in life, and in the exercise of the moral virtues and
the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
The
Church interprets in a spiritual way this verse of the Canticle of Canticles
(5:1): I go to my garden, my sister,
my spouse, to gather of my myrrh and my perfume, to eat my bread and my honey,
to drink of my wine and my milk. Eat,
my colleagues, and drink, and become intoxicated [with joy], my friends. That is to say, everything Jesus has won
for us by His Life, Passion, Death and Resurrection, He makes available to us,
along with His Person, in the Blessed Sacrament; and so the Church applies to
the Eucharist what Scripture says of the manna: You have given them Bread from Heaven, containing within
itself all sweetness.
I
am positive that many among you, dear readers, know from experience what
chaste, spiritual delights Jesus does confer in Holy Communion upon the
souls who truly love Him.
* * * * * * * * * * *
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STATEMENT: This web site was created for the purpose of completing the work of
Fr. Bruno Cocuzzi, O.C.D. These conferences may be reproduced for private use
only. Publication of this material is forbidden without permission of the
Father Provincial for the Discalced Carmelites, Holy Hill, 1525 Carmel Rd.,
Hubertus, WI 53033-9770.