The Call for Sanctification

Battling the Sin of Lust

It is not only important for us to live good lives, but we must be sanctified in our lives day in, day out. And specifically, the sin that he is warning against the Thessalonians is that of lust. The sins of the flesh. We must make sure that we are doing what we can to protect ourselves and defend ourselves against this particular sin. It is pernicious. It is everywhere. And this is much more important to talk about now in this time and age, because I don't think there's ever been a time where attacks against chastity have been so prevalent, so universal and so accessible.

The Internet and Attacks on Chastity

The worst times in history. There's never something quite like the Internet. The worst times of morality throughout human history. There was never such attacks on the nature that God created as there are today. And so therefore it redounds to us to talk about this much more thoroughly.

Delicate Approach to a Sensitive Topic

Now, of course, there are little ears in the audience. And so I'm going to have to be delicate in the way that I approach this topic. It is delicate, but I think I hope everybody understands what I am talking about here. The fact is, this particular appetite, this particular action is only validly and legitimately to be fulfilled in marriage.

The Importance of Marriage

This is how God created it. This is why he created it. Why? Because marriage is a good thing. It is a beautiful thing. It is a necessary thing. And God created us not to be alone, but to be with other people.

Chastity and Marriage

There are obvious exceptions, and we'll we won't talk about them right now. But the fact is, this is what shall we say, socially speaking? God has created us geared towards. Does that mean everyone has to get married? Obviously not. I'm standing right before you. So that's not the that's not the essential point. The point is chastity and for the vast majority of people that the easiest and best path to that virtue of chastity is going to come through marriage.

Controlling Carnal Desires

Because this is one of the ends of marriage, the control over percents, which, again, if you want to reduce it into one word and one virtue is the virtue of chastity which you know how I talk about silence a lot and how silence is not actually never speaking, but it is just a control over the faculty of speech. So it is with chastity.

The Modern Challenges to Marriage

It is not an absolute abolition. Of the Carnal Act, but it is a control of it. To be used only in the circumstances that are permitted and blessed by God, and only in the manner and way that God has given to us. And only at the service of something like marriage. It's not an absolute prohibition, but it is a channeling. It is a control. But the problem is so we have many different issues with this situation. People aren't getting married as much as they should. Why is that?

The World's Influence on Marriage

The world is making it harder to do so. The world is making them more difficult and more complicated to do so. My parents generation, they were considered old because they got married at 22. My brothers were considered young because they were married at 26. I think somewhere in their. Or average, more or less. Now you're considered young if you're married by 26. Very young. Because the world has made it harder to establish yourself to be able to get married.

Consequences of Delayed Marriage

So what is one of the consequences of that fact? The allegation of cardinal sins. The perpetuation of lust. The slavery. Two pornography. In self-abuse. This is one of the consequences. Another issue, which it goes hand-in-hand with, that is the lack of maturity.

The Importance of Chastity in Strengthening Marriages and Families

Introduction to Chastity in the Home

People don't get married because they're not mature enough. That's because we're not demanding enough of them, and partly because they're not driving themselves to take responsibility for their own lives so that they can take upon themselves the responsibility of a family. So, this is something we must also correct. And one way that we need to start correcting this is by practicing chastity in our own homes.

Chastity Among Parents

• The Role of Parents: Now, starting from the top and going towards the bottom. Parents need to be living in a life of chastity because they are married, because they are together. And so therefore, that is the only that is the path that is given to them to be able to enjoy this this this act that God has given to them. But it is also a way for them to control their appetites and desires. It is also a way for them to be able to utilize their appetites and desires to draw closer together. Because one of the purposes of that act is a sharing of a union that is second to none as far as its intimacy.
• Against the World's View: Second to none. The world hating this desires more than anything else to divide. And so what is it? What does it do? It. Rudy romanticizes. Sensuality. And instead of making it an expression of love and an expression of appreciation of each other and a bonding experience between the two spouses, it is all about just simple self-fulfillment. Or slaking one's desire. And that's it. Alleviating a pressure, whatever else, they mechanize it to the point that it has not even human. It's just another animal instinct, nothing else according to the world. And they also cause destruction in families by trying to introduce through the proliferation of pornography and impurity, through other through every possible means to introduce, shall we say, third parties into the intimacy of marriage. This is something that is absolutely to be abhorred.

The Exclusive Role of God in Marriage

• God's Place in Marriage: The only other person that is to be involved in any way, shape or form in a marriage is God. We must keep that very close in our minds. And unfortunately, people don't put the practical. Married couples oftentimes don't put the practical steps in place to be able to defend oneself. Against these kinds of attacks. Your home is a castle. It is a fortress. You are supposed to defend it from all enemies, from the outside, never forgetting that there is one big enemy on the inside, and that is yourself.

The Grace of Chastity in Marriage

• Utilizing Marital Grace: So first and foremost, the self-discipline that is supposed to be perpetrated by marriage, the chastity that is supposed to be practiced by the use of marriage, must be utilized as such. And there is an actual grace that is given to every married couple through the sacrament of marriage that at every moment and every instant of their of your married lives, you have at your fingertips the grace of chastity. You have the ability to fight every possible temptation you have at your fingertips. Every ability to reject what the world is trying to drive into your marriage. You have that grace always available at your fingertips, but it demands that we utilize it and we invoke it.

Educating Children on Chastity

• Parents' Responsibility: Now from there, we go down to children. Parents. This is going to fall mainly on your ears because it is your responsibility to teach children, chastity how to practice it. It would be very comfortable for you to just pawn that off on schools or priests. It doesn't work that way. That is a discussion you are supposed to have with your children. It's uncomfortable. Yes. They don't like it. And trust me, I'm getting dirty looks from parents and kids right now. We are not supposed to like it. Is part of the uncomfortable part of growing up. But our parents need to be there to teach us how to handle emotions, passions, temptations, influences. We have to become more powerful than those things. But the only way we're going to be able to understand that is if our parents take responsibility enough to be able to confront these issues and to tell us about them.

The Realities of Children's Exposure to Immorality

• Understanding Children's Exposure: One of the reasons that so many children are lost is because parents have given up that obligation. That's one of the reasons schools picked it up. And trust me, as things are going right now, that is the last place you want your kid to be learning about morality. Your children need you to educate them. And don't think for a second ever that your children are as sweet and innocent and perfect as they as you tend to think they are. They're not. Don't think they don't have an inkling about these things or have never heard of these things. I can almost guarantee you they have. And at a much younger age than than you think. The reason being, this is the world we live in. This is human nature. This is not something to be swept under the rug. This is not something to be exposed and sung about from the rooftops either. Obviously, it's deeply intimate and personal, but it is something that needs to be discussed because we are talking about one of the crucial virtues in this world that is going to protect the innocence of your children as well as their virtues.

The Consequences of Lust

• Lust's Impact on Mind and Will: Because chastity has the, shall we say, the sins against chastity. Lust has an unfortunate series of consequences, darkening of the intellect, weakening of the will much further than the wounds of original sin do. It has a the effect of a sedative in the mind and a will. Trust me, I've been under a lot of sedatives lately because of different operations and the like. That feeling is very disagreeable because making decisions, figuring out, trying to think makes it makes it so much more difficult. So if we think about lust in that light, it becomes quite frightening because it becomes harder and harder every instant that we're under its influence to be able to resist. And it makes it more complicated. The moment we need to think most clearly our mind is deadened. The moment that we're supposed to be strongest to fight against temptation, our will is sapped of its strength. These are things. These are realities we have to address.

Addressing Sensitive Topics with Children

At what age should you address these things with your children? That's actually a case by case thing. I cannot tell you that. But it should be addressed before puberty, at least in its introductory phase. They have to be prepared. They have to know what's going to happen to them. They have to have that mercy shown to them and that discipline, too.

The Issue of Cell Phones and Privacy

Now, one particular aspect I'm going to talk about in the kids, you are going to hate me. Why on earth if we talk about and mock and scorn the world for the multitude of sins against the flesh. That are out there in the world. Why on earth would we give them free access to everything the world has to offer? In gas. I'm talking about cell phones. And sometimes at absurdly young ages.

Would anyone give a an eight year old child a gun and not teach them how to use it, not teach them its dangers and its properties? And how to practice safety with it. If you would. We need to talk. Much less a cell phone. Much less a cell phone is absolute access to anything. And you may think, oh, my kids don't know how to get around the safety the safety things that I have on my phone. I can guarantee you they're a whole lot more handy with a phone than you are guaranteed.

And it's never going to be a question of respecting privacy. That's one of the things that I just don't quite get my head around. What right do kids have to be able to have so much privacy that parents can't find out what they're doing? As they get older, yes, they'll have more rights to privacy. But only according to the way that they have won it. With privilege comes responsibility and vice versa. And privacy is a privilege. Should be in homes. But it also means. But the parents have to make the uncomfortable steps. Of being part of their children's lives. That's uncomfortable for kids and is uncomfortable for parents, but it's also very necessary.

Open Conversations and Restrictions

Certain open conversations need to be had. Certain restrictions need to be placed upon their access to the world. And certain restrictions need to be placed upon what access the world has to them. You need to be the gatekeepers of your children's lives in general, not absolute gates. You can't keep everything and everybody out. But you have to be part of the restriction. You have to be part of the image that is protecting them from everything. And you have to be the one teaching them what to do and how and when.

Advice to Children

On your end, children. Yes. It's uncomfortable. Yes, it's embarrassing. It's something that is not easily talked about. If you have questions or doubts or confusion. Talk to your parents. There may not always be the most approachable people. They may have difficulties with this. It may be very embarrassing. But do trust them with this. This is their job.

The Importance of Chastity

It is important that we understand what is at stake here. When Daunted created the divine comedy and he was describing how the second, second circle of hell, the first circle of the tortures of hell, was actually for the lustful. And it was by far the most populous of all the circles. Our Lady of Fatima warned that by this sin, the sin of lust are more souls lost than any other. We need to be on the lookout for this sin. More than that, we have to be actively practicing the virtue of chastity every day of our lives because parents want other things no one can give what they do not have. If you are not trying to practice it and to use the use the gift of marriage. Well. And how are you going to be able to teach to your kids without being hypocrites? You must dominate that within yourselves as well. And you must make that effort. You must make restrictions into your home about what is allowed to come in. You must. Not just for their sakes, but for your own.

The Role of Marriage in Reflecting God's Love

Let's not ever believe that marriage is just a free license. It is a. Channel. For passion and desire to go in its proper course according to the will of God. But it is also a way for us to reflect the love of God. Marriage is a beautiful thing. By which we are actually. Revealing the love of God to the rest of the world, and we are able to comprehend it in a far deeper, far more beautiful way because of the fact of the fact that we share in some aspect of the image of the love of God for our souls, which is the love of spouses for each other. It is something that is beautiful and noble, and that is why we need to defend it. It is something that is excellent and that is why we must fight for it.

The Call to Action for Parents and Children

But the first fight, rather than throwing scorn out at the other the rest of the world. Or mockery at the rest of the church because the church has changed some of the purposes of marriage, especially the the the order and the importance of the ends of marriage, as well as the reduction of certain, uh, certain restrictions that the church had put on them on marriage. Instead of doing that, instead of focusing so much on that, let's focus on our own selves. Are we doing our jobs correctly as married couples? Are we doing our jobs correctly as parents kids? Are we trying to trying to sort out all of this turmoil that is coming along or things that confuses or frighten us or we don't understand? Are we trying to understand them the right way round by actually talking about them with somebody that we trust, namely her parents, not just anybody. Are we doing this the right way round? It's easy for us to condemn what is so condemnable. But as Saint Paul pointed out. We cannot be like the rest. We have been separated from the rest of the world. The Gentiles that do not know God will be judged according to a different standard. We know him. We see him. We receive him on Sunday. We see his sacrifice every Sunday. Therefore, we are going to be called to a higher and much more exacting standard of how we live, his commandments, and whether or not we live according to his virtue. And this is one of the most basic ones we need to fight against how we hold ourselves, how we dress, how we comport ourselves, what we let into our homes. Everything about it needs to be a needs to be an expression of chastity. Not all of us are religious. I have to wear the cassock. You all don't. Women. You're not all nuns. You don't have to dress like them. You don't have to behave like them. But there is a certain way in which you comport yourself, which is modest and which is chaste. That is not just for religious. It is for all of us. It is for all of us to practice this virtue in our lives. Let us, therefore, not be so ready to judge the rest of the world and let's focus on our own selves and make sure that we are living according to the commandments of God and according to the virtues that he has given to us. This is the way that we will be able to fight against the onslaught of the world. This is the way that we will be able to protect our children from the evils of the world. And this is the way that we will be able to give to them the heritage that is most important, the heritage of faith and virtue.