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Dear Friends

We touched a little bit on the importance of lust and how it plays into our lives as male and female.  My current study of the TotB has been focused on how lust has influenced us in our history.  Two of John Paul II’s quotes have stood out to me.

 

“It is one thing to be conscious that the value of sex is a part of all the rich storehouse of values with which the female appears to the man.  It is another to “reduce” all the personal riches of femininity to that single value, that is, of sex, as a suitable object for the gratification of sexuality itself.”

 

“Lust turns away the intentional dimension of the man’s and woman’s mutual existence.  It turns away from the personal perspectives, ‘of communion,’ characteristic of their perennial and mutual attraction.  It reduces it, and pushes it toward utilitarian dimensions, within which the human beings uses the other human being, for the sake merely of satisfying his own needs.”

 

Lust is nothing more than the objectification of personhood.  It takes a person and doesn’t regard them as such, but transforms them into a means to seek a sexual end.  It’s no longer about the love or feelings of communion, but about gratification.  The value of the objectified person has been lowered towards that of some object which exists merely to please them, not to complete them.  This is what he means when he speaks of it as ‘utilitarian.’  Utilitarianism says that if there are two choices, the one which will bring the most happiness or good feeling should be chosen.  At this point, it’s not about sharing love or the gift of one’s self.  In fact, there is no gift.  There is no giving completely, but only taking.  A person consumed by lust merely takes what he wants from the person without seeking it as a gift. 

 

But oh how wonderful is the gift of a person when sought as such!  To be able to say, “I love you so much that I wish to give my whole self to you as a gift and not as some object,” is a wonderful thing.  If only more and more people understood this; we’d have a wonderful world to live in which promoted life instead of death. 

 

May peace reign in your heart,

Jeff