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The Deal on Porn
What’s the big deal with pornography? If lust is a fire that we must allow Christ to extinguish, pornography is the fan for the flame. No amount of rationalization, no number of excuses that “it’s normal” or that “men will be men,” can change what pornography is and what it does to the way men think of women (and women think of themselves). If men are to be men, they must learn how to love women. They must learn how to see them not as things for their sexual gratification, but as persons made in the image of God.
What’s the big deal with pornography? It does nothing but foster in a man his fallen inclination to treat women as things for his own sexual gratification. A man who uses pornography, so long as he remains in its clutches, has incapacitated himself to love women properly.
So long as he remains in its clutches, he cannot hope to have a healthy, pure relationship with a woman. He cannot hope to enter marriage honestly, fruitfully, and faithfully. Men who use pornography have emasculated themselves.
This is not because the naked body is bad. Nor, for that matter, is it bad to desire to see images of the naked body. What’s wrong is the lust in the human heart and the desire to foster that lust. What ‘s wrong is portraying the naked body in a way that intentionally incites lust and reduces a human being to an object to gratify that lust...
The antidote to pornography is to fill that deep interior need for revelation of the meaning of sexuality with the truth. When we see the truth of sexuality, the profound mystery of God’s plan revealed through our bodies, we find what we’ve been looking for our whole lives. When we find the truth, the lies no longer attract because we see them as the empty counterfeits they are.
Praise God! The true beauty of real men and real women is far more satisfying than the computer-altered glossy prints of pornography. We need to ask God to give us the eyes to see it. We must pray for the virtue of purity, which John Paul II describes as the glory of God revealed through the body. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). If you’re addicted to pornography, if you’ve been exposed to pornography at any time in your life and are seeking to undo its effects, or if you’re the wife, girlfriend, or fiancée of a man using pornography, don’t despair. Seek help. You’ll find that there is hope, and you can be healed.
What’s the big deal with pornography? It does nothing but foster in a man his fallen inclination to treat women as things for his own sexual gratification. A man who uses pornography, so long as he remains in its clutches, has incapacitated himself to love women properly.
So long as he remains in its clutches, he cannot hope to have a healthy, pure relationship with a woman. He cannot hope to enter marriage honestly, fruitfully, and faithfully. Men who use pornography have emasculated themselves.
This is not because the naked body is bad. Nor, for that matter, is it bad to desire to see images of the naked body. What’s wrong is the lust in the human heart and the desire to foster that lust. What ‘s wrong is portraying the naked body in a way that intentionally incites lust and reduces a human being to an object to gratify that lust...
The antidote to pornography is to fill that deep interior need for revelation of the meaning of sexuality with the truth. When we see the truth of sexuality, the profound mystery of God’s plan revealed through our bodies, we find what we’ve been looking for our whole lives. When we find the truth, the lies no longer attract because we see them as the empty counterfeits they are.
Praise God! The true beauty of real men and real women is far more satisfying than the computer-altered glossy prints of pornography. We need to ask God to give us the eyes to see it. We must pray for the virtue of purity, which John Paul II describes as the glory of God revealed through the body. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). If you’re addicted to pornography, if you’ve been exposed to pornography at any time in your life and are seeking to undo its effects, or if you’re the wife, girlfriend, or fiancée of a man using pornography, don’t despair. Seek help. You’ll find that there is hope, and you can be healed.
—Christopher West, The Good News About Sex and Marriage, pp. 84-85. Published by Servant Books, copyright 2004. Used with permission of St. Anthony Messenger Press, www.americancatholic.org.
Some support services: www.pornnomore.com, www.helpandhope.org, www.sa.org, www.pureintimacy.org, www.filterreviews.com
Some support services: www.pornnomore.com, www.helpandhope.org, www.sa.org, www.pureintimacy.org, www.filterreviews.com
Faulty Construction
Sterilizing Your Love
Our modern society has been sold a promise of peaceful, ecstatically happy marital bliss free of responsibility and fear of children, and that promise comes in packages of pills. The Church, too, promises a life of peaceful, truly joyful marital bliss, but one filled with responsibility and with gratitude for children. One is shallow and sterile; the other is deep, rich, and fertile. Society promises a sterile relationship and that is what people get with society’s plan—sterility in relationship. The Church’s plan is God’s plan, a fruitful plan generating in the hearts of spouses a rich harvest of generosity and other-centered love. God’s plan and grace help to create and foster a life-open relationship wherein spouses see children as gifts of a loving God. —Most Reverend Robert F. Vasa
That Lovin’ Feeling...
Nowadays, it is easy to confuse “feelings” for love. This is a false concept that has brought about many failed marriages. Love is not a feeling but an act of the will. To say “I love you” means “I decide to share my life with you and to give myself to you completely.” Of course, feelings also come into play here, with an intensity (or lack there of) that depends on one’s temperament or on the circumstances that one is presently undergoing. In other words, one can really love without “feeling” and one can “feel” without loving. The elements of true love are faithfulness, understanding, generosity, and sacrifice. And everybody knows that one does not love something but someone. Thus to love truly is to look at the entire person and at the entirety of the person: body and soul, virtues and defects, points of convergence and points of discord.
—Javier Abad and Eugenio Fenoy, Marriage, A Path to Sanctity, pp. 40-41
Lay a Firm Foundation:
Pray with Your Spouse
Pray with Your Spouse
by Vince Sacksteder
Building a Great Marriage
Order in quantity for your parish!
(see p. 2)
(see p. 2)