The concupiscence of the flesh is the inordinate love of sensual pleasures. . A) The evil of concupiscence. Pleasure in itself is not evil. God allows it when directed toward a higher end, that is, toward moral good. If He has attached pleasure to certain good acts, it is in order to facilitate their accomplishment and to draw us on to the fulfillment of duty. The moderate enjoyment of pleasure, if referred to its end moral and supernatural good is not an evil. In fact, it is a good act, for it tends towards a good end which is ultimately God Himself. But to will pleasure without any reference to the end that makes it lawful, that is, to will pleasure as an end in itself and as an ultimate end, is a , moral disorder, for it is going counter to the wisdom of a God-established order. Such disorder leads to further evil, because when ones sole motive of action is pleasure, one is exposed to love pleasure to excess; one is no longer guided by an end which raises its barriers against that immoderate thirst for enjoyment which exists in all of us. Thus, God in His wisdom willed to attach a certain enjoyment to , the act of eating, to offer us an incentive towards sustaining our bodily forces. But, as Bossuet remarks, Ungrateful and sensual men use this enjoyment rather to serve their own bodies than to serve Almighty God... The pleasure of eating enslaves them, and instead of eating in order to live they live rather in order to eat. Even those who know how to curb their desires and who are guided in taking their meals by the needs of the body, are often deceived by pleasure and taken in by its allurement; they soon go beyond due measure; they gradually come to indulge their appetite and do not consider their needs satisfied, so long as food and drink gratify their palate. Hence, excesses in eating and drinking. What shall we say of the still more dangerous pleasures of lust, of that deep-rooted and unsightly sore of human nature, of that concupiscence that binds the soul to the body with ties at once so tender, so strong, so difficult to break ; of that lust which brings down upon the human race such frightful disorders Sensual pleasure is all the more dangerous as the entire body is inclined to it. Our sight is infected by it, for is it not through the eyes that one ( begins to drink in the poison of sensual love? Our ears. are a prey to the contagion ; a suggestive word, a lascivious song enkindles the fire, fans the flames of an impure love and excites our hidden tendencies to sensual joys. The same is true of the other senses. And what heightens the danger is that these sensual pleasures act as stimulants one to the other. Even those enjoyments which we fancy the most innocent, will, unless we are ever on the alert, lead on to guilty pleasures. The body itself labors under a softening languor, a delicate and responsive sensitiveness that craves relaxation through the senses, quickens thenvand whets the keenness of their ardor. Man so cherishes his body that tie forgets his soul. Over-solicitous for his health, he is led to pamper the body at every turn. All these sensual cravings are but the branches of the same tree, the concupiscence of the flesh. B) The remedy for this great evil is found in the mortification of the senses. As St. Paul tells us, They that are Christs have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences. - But to crucify the flesh, according to Father Olier, is to fetter, to smother all the. impure and inordinate desires we feel in our flesh. To crucify the flesh is likewise to mortify our exterior senses> those channels that put us in contact with things about us and stir within us dangerous desires. The motive, at bottom, giving rise to the obligation of practising this mortification, is none other than our baptismal vow. Baptism, by which we die to sin and are made one body with Christ, obliges us to mortify in ourselves all sensual pleasure. According to Saint Paul, we are no longer debtors to the flesh that we should live according to the flesh, but we are bound to live according to the spirit. If we live by the spirit let us walk according to the spirit which has written in our hearts the law of the Cross and has given us the strength to carry it. The symbolism of baptism by immersion (the more common way of administering baptism in Apostolic times and in the early centuries) teaches us the truth of this doctrine. The catechumen is plunged into the water and there he dies to sin and the causes of sin. Coming but he shares in a new life, the life of the Risen Christ. This is St. Pauls teaching: We that are dead to sin, how shall we live any longer therein? Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in His death? For we are buried together with Him by baptism into death : that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in the newness of life. Thus/ the baptismal immersion represents death to sin and to the concupiscence which leads to sin. The coming out of the baptismal waters typifies that newness of life through which we are made sharers in the risen life of the Savior. Hence, our baptism obliges us to mortify the concupiscence that remains in us and to imitate our Lord who by the crucifixion of His flesh merited for us the grace of crucifying our own. The nails wherewith we crucify it are, the various acts of mortification we perform. This obligation of mortifying our love for pleasure so imposes itself upon us that our. spiritual life and our salvation depend upon it. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die : but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 04:02:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015