God endowed our human nature with the capacity to give and receive love, and to beget new life, through the sexual act. In itself, it is good and, in fact, holy.
Lust is the disorder in our sexual drive due to the mystery of sin. It turns the giving of love into the selfish taking of pleasure. It involves a communion of bodies but not of spirits. Lust focuses not on the person, but on the person’s body. It demeans individuals by judging their value according to their physical attractiveness and availability. It strips the body of its dignity by turning it into merchandise, and robs sexuality of its mystery by reducing it to be an instrument of raw pleasure.
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By not recognizing lust for what it is, and by encouraging us not to control it, our culture trains us to relinquish self-restraint in every other dimension of life. It trains us to obey every impulse or appetite. While claiming freedom to live as we desire, we actually lose our freedom. Instead of controlling our passions, we allow our passions to control us. Reducing life to the search for self-gratification, we become self-centered and ignore the needs of others.
About Lust
April 7, 2007 by Paul Smith Jr
