Conquering Lust in the Human Flesh

Catholic Guilt by Michael Carson

Jesus warned us: "If you look at a woman with lust, you commit adultery with her in your heart." (Matthew 5:28) In the Old Testament, adultery was understood by the Jews only in the physical sense. But Jesus in the New Testament made a stricter rule on chastity, that even if mere lustful thoughts about a woman are harbored by a person, he is already committing adultery with her in his heart and therefore sinning and offending God. It is noteworthy to point out that this divine principle still governs the present time. It is not archaic nor abandoned despite the rise of technology and the modernization of life. Time and circumstances may change, but the words of God will remain unchanged forever. Nonetheless, unfortunately, even if Jesus' words are unchanged by time and circumstances, such meet a malignant opposition from the present situations of life—the rise and spread of modern pornography—operated by no less than the devil himself. With the immense proliferation of pornography in the internet, effortlessly accessible to everybody and spreading like a virulent virus, it makes Jesus' command on strict chastity more arduous to achieve, as much as it also makes easier for all men to be shackled and enslaved by lust.

The word pornography was derived from the Greek words "porne" which means "prostitute" and "graphein" which means "to write or to record." So in the basic sense, pornography means "a prostitute's record." The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is the repository of the Catholic doctrines, teaches that pornography is a grave offense against chastity. It is gravely immoral for it violates the dignity of the participants in the act and desecrates the sanctity of marital union, thereby "perverting the conjugal act." (CCC 2354) The unnoticed problem in the world now is many people perceive pornography as a common and natural thing, as if an accepted norm which is utterly normal—that there is really nothing wrong about it. This is a huge mistake for all who believe so. If God instituted the sacrament of marriage, the devil instituted pornography precisely to destroy that sacrament. The sexual act must be kept in the privacy of marital intimacy and ought to be respected. It should not be publicized and mocked, through pornography, for it plays a divine role in God's plan for humanity. It is ultimately made for procreation and for sharing of marital love between the spouses whose proper sexual acts within the marital union are holy. By watching pornography, a person is violating the sacrament of marriage and is "looking at a woman with lust, and therefore committing adultery with her in his heart." When fully consumed by lust, he looks for a new channel to produce another grave sin—masturbation.

Likewise, the world sees masturbation as a normal and natural act of any person. But the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines masturbation as the "deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure," and it is an "intrinsically and gravely disordered action." (CCC 2352) Masturbation is an offense against chastity and is not a normal action of a morally normal individual. Through masturbation, a person is defiling himself and going out of the bounds of moral order, with his body the subject of desecration directed towards the degradation of his own dignity. Infused by the lustful thoughts of pornography, a person is impelled by his urge to succumb to the immoral act of masturbation—thus, he sins doubly.

We ought to remember that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit in which God resides. (1 Corinthians 6:19) Such divine truth is a seriously important thing to consider, for the debasement of the body, being the temple of the Holy Spirit, provokes the unusual anger of God. In the New Testament, when Jesus entered the temple, He saw that the temple was being made a market place, with merchants selling animals of different kinds and other things therein; Jesus showed for the first time an unusual anger—an anger that will shock every reader of the Gospel. Incited by His divine anger, Jesus "overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves." And He told the merchants, "My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers." (Matthew 21:12-13) Equally true, if we invite into our bodies the sins of pornography and masturbation, it is as if we are making our bodies the "dens of robbers" or shall we say, the "havens of the devil." This would then provoke God's anger, for our bodies are supposed to be His abode and not of the devil. On the contrary, nevertheless, we are not without a remedy; Jesus Himself in the said passage shows how to drive away those merchants of sin from our bodies: You must, in fervent prayer and through frequent Communion, let Jesus enter your entire being, let Him witness your weakness, and let Him do the work to clean you; but you must humbly cooperate without any opposition, and let Him freely out of love "overturn the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves" within you—to overthrow the slimy filth of lust in thy flesh. 

How do I cooperate with Jesus in the work of cleansing myself?

In The Imitation of Christ composed in 1418-1427 by a monk named Thomas Kempis, it is given as an advice that, "The man who only shuns temptation outwardly and does not uproot them will make little progress; indeed they will quickly return, more violent than before." Thus, to overcome lust and to let chastity triumph, we must first uproot in our hearts the immoral desires for pornography and masturbation. They must be totally obliterated in the mind; since if we would not do so, no matter how we struggle to be chaste, the seed of impurity would keep on sprouting and its branches would grow greater than before—and would soon choke us to death when the time comes. Corollary, in the same book, it is further advised to resist the temptations of sinning from the beginning, "for the enemy is more easily conquered if he is refused admittance to the mind and is met beyond threshold when he knocks." This is because, Thomas Kempis wrote, "First, a mere thought comes to mind, then strong imagination, followed by pleasure, evil delight, and consent. Thus, because he is not resisted in the beginning, Satan gains full entry. And the longer a man delays in resisting, so much the weaker does he become each day, while the strength of the enemy grows against him." This was the problem in the aforementioned Scriptural passage; the priests of the temple merely let, without opposition and resistance, the merchants enter the temple and do whatever they want according to their businesses. If the priests, who had control of the temple, refused from the onset admittance of the merchants to the temple, most probably it would have been a different story—a laudable one that would have not made Jesus angry. Same with any person who is now firm to live a chaste life, any temptation or mere thought to watch pornography or to commit masturbation (or any lustful thoughts of whatever kind) must be refused admittance to the mind and imagination. They must not be entertained—do so with all your might! You must be ruthless in murdering such sinful thoughts in your imagination, and I tell you, you will win this war for chastity.

Another thing a person can do is to guard his eyes. One should avoid looking at things that would ignite lustful thoughts and desires; for through the eyes, evil enters the mind, and consequently leads to commit a sin. In the words of a saint, written in his book The Way: "The eyes! Through them many iniquities enter the soul. What experiences like David's! If you guard your sight you have assured the guard of your heart."

The struggle to live a chaste life is not a simple thing. It is one of the greatest internal battles the world will witness in your life. It cannot be done and settled for one day only. It is a long and exhausting journey—an everyday skirmish against your own flesh. But it is a noble self-denial the fruit of which is the crown of chastity that will make you confident to face God in prayer. Always remember, your flesh would cry out for its lost privileges as you resolve to live a chaste life—it will hunt you, but you can overcome it. Bear in mind also that what is pleasurable to the senses is often repugnant to the soul. And your soul will find refreshment as you eliminate those things that are pleasurable but destructive to the soul. One would ask: "Is this really possible?" Yes, it is. In the Old Testament, before the first murder in the history of humanity was committed, God already advised and cautioned the crestfallen Cain, who was so jealous and resentful of his brother, Abel; He said, "If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door: his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master." (Genesis 4:7) Definitely, although the sin of the flesh struggles to overcome you, yet you can be the master of your own lust.