Lust
One
Margaret of Cortona and Lust
St. Margaret of Cortona is probably a saint you’ve never heard of but she is the perfect patron saint against the deadly sin of lust.
Margaret possessed tremendous physical beauty and she craved affection. When she was sixteen or seventeen she fell in love with a wealthy young man and they began to live together. They had a son but never married. He was not the type of man who could make a mature commitment. Nine years into the relationship, tragedy struck. Her lover had gone on a hunting trip with business partners but did not return. Finally, his hunting dog came back, tugging at her dress to follow him. She followed the poor beast very far into the forest where the dog directed her to her lover. He had been murdered by his hunting companions who were settling a debt and left to rot in the woods. At the appalling sight, Margaret was stunned like one struck by lightning. Filled with terror she asked herself, "Where is his soul now?"
In the decaying corpse of her former lover, Margaret was given a dramatic vivid image of what lust does to the soul. Then and there she firmly resolved to change her life and like the Prodigal Son, she returned repentant to God.
How can we do what Margaret did?
Two
What is the Deadly Sin of Lust?
The desire for sexuality is a God-given good thing. Likewise, the desire to be loved and cherished, the desire for a family, for kids and grandkids, the desire for companionship, these are all good. But lust is bad.
Thomas Aquinas defines lust as a disordered desire for sexual pleasure. Lust is the desire to use another person sexually to get what you want. Both men and women suffer from lust but often in different ways.
Men use women to get what they want. Men often use women for physical gratification. Men use their wives in sex, in pornography, and with the second look. And women use men to get what they want. What does a woman want most? Boy, I wish I knew the answer to that… Actually, women want to be valued, cherished, protected, and loved and very often they want a family, they want kids and grandkids. All good things And women can fall into lust by using sex to get what they want. Recall, lust is to use a person sexually to get what we want. A woman shouldn’t view a man as a means to get her those things. The man she marries is a person she should love.
Love means to give a gift of oneself to do what is good for the other. So you get married and have a family because not only will it be good for you but it will also be good him. Marriage and sex is the way we grow in love and responsibility and build the kingdom of God by having and raising holy kids. That is the motivation, not simply getting what we want.
So, let’s examine our motives and make the decision to act out of love, which means to do what is good for the other person rather than use them to get what we want.
Three
Breaking the Addiction to Pornography
Pornography is one of the most vivid and exciting of all addictions. The first thing you’d better be aware of, if you decide to fight an addiction, is that it isn’t easy. And all addictions, but particularly lust, have the pernicious effect of making everything else in life seem dull and boring.
Which means when you turn your back on lust, it’s going to feel like all the light and color, all the excitement and vibrancy in your world has just been extinguished. But of course, it’s not true. When you turn your back on your narrow, ugly little addiction, what actually happens is that the rest of life’s deeper, richer, more continuous joys actually become possible again.
But it takes a while to feel that. And you may be angry, and irritable, and depressed. That’s okay. Just stay the course. Because life gets better. In fact, it will get better than it’s ever been before. Just stay the course.
Four
Restructure your situation/near occasion of sin
What are the practical steps to overcome the addiction to pornography? The first step is to restructure your environment so that you avoid the near occasion of sin. That means you have to find the patterns, the routines, the steps, some people even call them the rituals leading up to your falls. All addicts have these. They don’t decide to sin out of the blue. There’s almost always a pattern that leads up to the sin.
So what is the ritual that begins your descent into lust? Maybe you just start browsing YouTube, looking for something interesting. Maybe you have a work project due, but you just really don’t want to start it. Maybe you look at your phone after you get the kids to bed, during your lunch break, or after your wife has said goodnight. Maybe you watch a show or a sports game or a movie, and then when it’s over, you really don’t want to go back to real life, so you start wondering what other entertainment you could look for. Maybe you look at porn every time you’ve had a couple of drinks, but you still don’t want to go to bed.
Anyway, you need to figure out: What is the ritual? What is the place? What is the time? What is the device?
And you need to make a change. You need to avoid beginning that ritual, avoid that place, rearrange the furniture, and figure out what time a given device needs to be put beyond your reach. It takes strategy, so put in the thought, make the plan, and then put it into action. Because if you don’t, you’ll never get free of this thing.
Five
Prayer
Needless to say, Christ is Our Savior from sin, so good luck trying to beat any vice, especially lust, without His help. In confession He forgives sin and gives the grace to start over. In Mary and Joseph, He gives us the advocates in pursuing the purity their lives so perfectly embodied. And in conversation with Him during prayer, He will show us how to profit from our faults, and how to better strategize in overcoming them.
He has promised that He will heal us if we strive to follow Him and place our trust in Him. It may be difficult, and it may take a while, but it will happen.
Suggested Resolutions:
Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.
What are the habits that lead you to lust? Make an effort to avoid scrolling on media that might lead you to pornography.
If you find yourself using your relationships for alternative motives, make the effort to do something for the good of another that doesn’t benefit you.