Therefore we pray you, Lord, forgive;So when our wanderings here shall cease,
We may with you ever live,
In love and unity and peace.
(St. Gregory the Great)
Today's Readings
In the gospel today we might be brought to this thought: offending others, including ourselves, are most often actions that spring from a violation of one or more of the Ten Commandments.
Think of this: anger is often the cause of serious abuse. Most murders arise from anger.
Think of this: how many are the ways that lead to immorality or, as said so often in the confessional, sins of impurity? The ever present 6th Commandment! Conversations, movies, books, TV shows, magazines, the Internet. Yes, we are surrounded by challenges to a good moral life ... and not just teenagers! The basic question could be: How strong is the beast in our hearts? What beast? The beast called lust!
A major challenge to many today is the privacy that the Internet affords the world. Pursuit of pornography on the Internet, for example, has become so easy today. Unfortunately, this practice has cost individuals their jobs. And this immorality challenges both heterosexuals as well as homosexuals: it is a threat to the mental health of all.
Recently noted: Fr. Spitzer's words. "... violence begets violence, vengeance begets vengeance, resentment begets resentment...." Immorality begets immorality. Immorality begets servitude. Immorality begets isolation.
Shouldn't this make all of us more aware that the roadway to the suffering the immorality brings has many pathways that lead to the roadway ... just seemingly not-so-serious temptations that eventually lead to hurting ourselves or others.
Spitzer also points out in his book that there are four levels of happiness in a person's experience. Eventually one will become the dominant and the others recede or are ignored with the dominant becoming the person's personality. Can we not say that immoral activity can ultimately become a person's private personality ... that can lead to the destruction of a marriage and serious damage to others in the family? Immorality becomes not so much the great enjoyment of physical pleasures but of a very heavy cross begotten originally by something that might have been described as "that really isn't all that bad."
Oh, how painful human nature can be if we are not ever vigilant!
Think of this: anger is often the cause of serious abuse. Most murders arise from anger.
Think of this: how many are the ways that lead to immorality or, as said so often in the confessional, sins of impurity? The ever present 6th Commandment! Conversations, movies, books, TV shows, magazines, the Internet. Yes, we are surrounded by challenges to a good moral life ... and not just teenagers! The basic question could be: How strong is the beast in our hearts? What beast? The beast called lust!
A major challenge to many today is the privacy that the Internet affords the world. Pursuit of pornography on the Internet, for example, has become so easy today. Unfortunately, this practice has cost individuals their jobs. And this immorality challenges both heterosexuals as well as homosexuals: it is a threat to the mental health of all.
Recently noted: Fr. Spitzer's words. "... violence begets violence, vengeance begets vengeance, resentment begets resentment...." Immorality begets immorality. Immorality begets servitude. Immorality begets isolation.
Shouldn't this make all of us more aware that the roadway to the suffering the immorality brings has many pathways that lead to the roadway ... just seemingly not-so-serious temptations that eventually lead to hurting ourselves or others.
Spitzer also points out in his book that there are four levels of happiness in a person's experience. Eventually one will become the dominant and the others recede or are ignored with the dominant becoming the person's personality. Can we not say that immoral activity can ultimately become a person's private personality ... that can lead to the destruction of a marriage and serious damage to others in the family? Immorality becomes not so much the great enjoyment of physical pleasures but of a very heavy cross begotten originally by something that might have been described as "that really isn't all that bad."
Oh, how painful human nature can be if we are not ever vigilant!
