The CatholiCity Message
Volume XVIII, Number 11 – September 30, 2014
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
On the Feast of Saint Jerome, welcome to Part One of my first-ever two-part CatholiCity Message. Part Two, in my more familiar short-item format, will arrive tomorrow, October 1, Feast of Saint Therese of Lisieux (and my birthday). I have prayed and pondered deeply about what to write for you this month. I've decided to address the pornography epidemic and how to overcome deeply-formed sinful behavior in general. I definitely want to read your personal reaction. Let's begin by considering a simple list of things which can dramatically alter our lives, particularly in the context of conversion and our own striving for holiness:
1. Grace from God
2. A relationship with a person(s)
3. Acts of our will
4. Experiences
5. Truth
These five things clearly overlap. As a theme over the past two years, for example, I've tried to help you recall how our relationships with saints and angels along with our friends and relatives in heaven is a hidden yet powerful force in our lives. Last month, for example, we prayed for intercession to the guardian angels of the billions of surgically and chemically aborted human beings snuffed out during the past half century. Our communal act as tens of thousands of individual CatholiCity Citizens tapped into many things on the above list: We came into a relationship with immortal holy persons: the angels of the aborted. God's life-altering grace surely entered into the world. Acts of our wills were required to pray, reinforcing good habits, which are better described as virtues.
Please begin by considering the greatly underestimated fifth item on the list: truth. A truthful idea has power because it taps into the unimaginably potent source of all truth, the Holy Trinity. Often, in terms of personal change, a truthful idea begins a beautiful cascade of life-changing actions. Truthful or right thinking, to use the classic Catholic term, is necessary for right action. We Catholics must never forget the power of introducing truthful ideas to others, especially in a secularized culture inundated with, even founded upon, false ideas.
10¢ Per Soul
For example, the power of truthful ideas, presented openly and confidently, is why distributing Mary Foundation CDs, booklets, and novels is such a uniquely effective means for changing countless lives. Would you be willing to spend $1 to help someone you don't even know return to Confession after years or even decades? Send us $1 and 10 people will get a chance to read a Going Back to Confession booklet. Send us $100 and 1,000 people will get that chance.
God willing, each person you helped influence will thank you in heaven.
Hello Bud
Second on the list is relationships. You have a relationship with me—some of you for many years. Most of you were sent to us by Our Lady through materials produced by the Mary Foundation—novels, talks, booklets, the CatholiCity website. Almost always, another person introduced you to us by giving you a gift of these materials, even if indirectly by distributing them at a parish or other social venue. A little bit down the line, you signed up for the CatholiCity Message.
You know when I write to you it comes from my heart; you can sense this. I trust, through the supernatural hope that is the fruit of the grace of my baptism, that grace flows through our relationship in the Mystical Body of Christ to some greater of lesser extent—but that it does flow. Through Jesus, you are my sister or brother. Sometimes I wish there were 50,000 of me so I could hang out with each of you and pray with you in person.
There doesn't need to be more than one of me (which would be weird) because Jesus, through the miracle of the Eucharist, makes us One in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. True God and True Man, he solved the problem of the limitations of time and space. When I receive Communion and pray for you at Mass every day, we are connected through Jesus—and are also connected to the saints and angels in heaven. Eventually, we will all hang out together.
Acts of the Will: Difficult to Easy?
It is also helpful to think of our moral acts in terms of our bad or good habits (vices or virtues). I recall a television character, when asked to do something so difficult it seemed impossible, remarked along these lines, "Well, my dad used to tell me that everything easy starts out hard." Fostering a virtue is how to make a difficult task easier. Saint Thomas Aquinas provided the analogy of digging out a channel for water in a field. Each act of digging is difficult until the water flows easily.
My longtime readers might recall a certain wisdom I shared about building a good habit: address it seventeen times. Go to Mass for seventeen days to foster the daily Mass habit. Exercise or lay off the bad foods for seventeen days. Fast on bread and water once a week for seventeen weeks. Watch one hour of television instead of three hours for seventeen days. And so on. On the eighteenth consecutive act, whatever it is will be easier. There is no magic to the number seventeen; it is a metaphor for an extended repetition of acts of the will.
Pornography Pandemic
By way of example, but also as a serious exhortation for certain readers, according to my friend, Fr. John McCloskey (and numerous studies), pornography use has become a "pandemic," even among the small percentage of practicing Catholic men who go to Confession, and increasingly, among women. A contributing factor is certainly the unprecedented ease of availability via smart phones, computers, and on-demand television. The damage to very young children (especially through their phones and computers) is staggering. If you are among its victims and have been frustrated in your attempts to cease this behavior that gravely jeopardizes your salvation, mars your innermost person, and harms your closest relationships, please return to the top of this message and review the five "Life Change" items. You are going to need all five!
First, the truthful idea: your eternal salvation is at risk. You must accept that use of pornography is gravely immoral. Virtually all of the tens of thousands who receive this Message agree, so I will not go into the "why" of the immorality.
In addition to sincere repentance, including going to Confession and frequent reception of the Eucharist (daily, if possible, and not until after you've gone to Confession to be able to worthily receive Jesus), one should adopt a combination of three habits: prayer, fasting, and tithing.
The problem involves your "flesh" compelling you to take certain actions followed by your acquiescence to the temptation. Your flesh, damaged by Original Sin, does not have the capacity to reason; as such it is a harsh master and is influenced by demonic temptation. This is why such behavior is often compared to slavery: your lower desires rule over your belief in the need to be a morally sound, temperate, chaste person.
There are also biological changes to one's brain chemistry which mimic alcoholism. We are all born with disordered fleshly desires (that is, an attraction to evil or damaging behaviors), which the evil one and our consumerist western secular society prey upon. If sinful behavior becomes habitual—that is, easy—you have a vice.
Once any vice takes root, you will be tempted to despair—a state of mind and possibly the sin of not believing you can overcome the problem with God's help. How does one remove the vice, avoid despair, and re-enthrone right reason, informed by faith, as the ruler of your moral life, relative to pornography use or any other serious habitual sin?
Fasting, Tithing, Prayer
Fasting on bread and water and abstaining from certain favorite foods (unless imprudent for medical reasons), because these involve disciplining your "mindless flesh," are crucial tools. By definition, the problem is "in your flesh," so the solution should properly be addressed "in your flesh." Fasting sends a clear message to your flesh: "You are not in charge. Do as I say." Fasting is also reparation for your sins if undertaken in union with Christ Crucified, and reparation is much needed in this case. Fasting merits grace, which is essential for overcoming any sinful behavior. In short, fasting is training in the virtue of temperance, a cardinal virtue which informs chastity, the virtue of properly moderated sexual desire.
Tithing (giving a portion of your income to charity), which indirectly disciplines your flesh, is you demonstrating by action that God is the source of all that you have in terms of material possessions. He also gave you the family, talents, and opportunities which fostered all prosperity from which you benefit. He gave you the civilized Judeo-Christian society (now crumbling at its foundations) through which you receive material, social, and other goods (such as education, employment, etc). Tithing, in addition to fostering the virtue of gratitude, because it places us in proper relation to God, is a concrete form of practicing the virtue of humility.
Retraining the Eyes
Of course, there is more involved with overcoming the problem of pornography use, and it is probably true that there are degrees of habitual behavior which vary by individual. For men especially, sexual temptation begins with images, so virtually all who struggle with this problem will almost certainly need to re-train their eyes to refrain from looking at other persons as objects of pleasure and to discipline their imaginations to cease indulging in lustful images.
How to go about doing this is not complicated: take a daily "inventory" of how often you look improperly at others and the images you see (including television, advertisement, and other media images). Then, now that you are self-aware, you know under what circumstances you must cease visual indulgence. If you digress, immediately tell Jesus you are sorry and ask for his help. Along with fasting, this kind of behavior modification will initially elicit strong resistance from the "flesh." Do not be alarmed, eventually your flesh will fall into line.
It will help to look people in the eye when you are out and about; smile. See them as your Savior Jesus sees them: immortal and beautiful, brother and sisters. You will need to put much effort into this for weeks, months, even years. It will help you to offer your struggles and inevitable setbacks up for someone you love or for a priest or bishop who needs grace.
As for inappropriate images from your memory (which demons are sometimes allowed to nudge, but not force, into your mind), modern science shows that memories are reconstructed from various parts of the brain every time you recall them. When tempting images come to you, use your imagination to overlay balloons or elephants (or some other object) onto them and these images will often be lost when sent back "to storage" and therefore be rendered unretrievable.
Address the near occasions of sin in your particular circumstances. You might need to discard your computer, television, pay TV service, and even replace your smartphone with a dumb one. (Can you hear your flesh screaming "Noooooooooo!"?) Take an inventory of the music you listen to regularly: does it affect your mood in terms of temptation? Does it incite your flesh? Measure your progress over months and take heart with every small improvement. When you backslide, remember that Jesus fell three times on the way to the cross. Let him help you up and begin again.
I recently came across a wonderful essay on this subject from Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington. Among other sage insights, his excellency observes that pornography use "is not a problem a person can solve on their own. Alongside the central commitment to prayer, a communal element of the recovery process needs to be given special emphasis." Whether it involves consulting with a trusted priest, an addiction group, or a close friend, it can only benefit you to seek help from others. You can read Bishop Loverde's entire article here.
The Ultimate Prayer
Of course Bishop Loverde prescribes prayer. The Catholic Church has always acted upon one truth: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the ultimate prayer, with the Eucharist as the "source and summit" of our faith. Daily Communion is the unsurpassed medicine for healing any sin. Even if indulgence of pornography is not a vice that plagues you, we all have vices, venial and grave.
Take a moment to consider which sins have taken root in your life.
And again, take heart. Do not be discouraged, even if you have struggled for many years with any particular sinful habit.
More Jesus
There are other tried and true forms of prayer to add to your daily routine, all listed in Fr. John McCoskey's brilliant booklet, Seven Daily Habits for Faithful Catholics: Morning prayer, the Rosary, nightly Examination of Conscience, the Angelus, Mental Prayer (in modern terminology, Quality Time with Jesus), and prayerful Scripture reading. These, as Father John advises, should be added gradually. Altogether, they will add an hour or two each day with Jesus, and depending on your individual circumstances, often can be done with family members (Mass, the Rosary, Bible reading).
In short, one may consider any kind of a habitual sin as breaking the First Commandment: replacing God with a false god. A "god" vacuum occurs when you cease habitual immoral behavior, so replace your bad habit not merely with good habits, but with a person, Jesus.
In sum: Daily Eucharist supported by regular Confession. Fasting, tithing, prayer. Retrain your eyes. Make practical changes regarding the near occasions of sin. Share your struggle with someone who can help. Replace sin with the person of Jesus. Be hopeful: virtue is the transformation of difficult acts into easy ones. This is the path to holiness.
This is how your life can change. Please ponder this profound truth:
Conversion is a matter of a moment, sanctity is a matter of a lifetime.
Saint Josemaria Escriva
Above I have presented guidelines, based not upon my own wisdom, but upon proven and successful principles tested by hundreds of millions of saints and virtuous people during a two thousand year period within a divinely-founded Catholic Church.
Saint Jerome: Sinner
Today is the Feast of Saint Jerome, who is responsible for giving the world the amazing Latin Vulgate Bible. During the homily at Mass today, the priest pointed out that as a young priest, Jerome was plagued by sins of the flesh. As a way of disciplining and redirecting his passions, he immersed himself into the study of languages, which ultimately led to his work on the Vulgate. Did you know that?
By changing himself, Jerome changed the world. The same can be said for Saint Augustine, one of a handful of the most important intellects in the history of the world, who was addicted to fornication.
Jerry and Gus. They changed. So can you.
As always, let me know your reaction to today's message. Just hit reply.
So find your path. We need you to be holy. I need you to be holy. Every person reading today's message can be holy or holier. Together, we have the power to change the world.
Praying Together to Saint Michael
Let us now pray for each other, tens of thousands of us together, for every one of us to have the courage to take the first difficult steps in overcoming whatever sinful habit plagues us. Yesterday was the Feast of the Archangels, so we will pray Pope Leo's inspired prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel, the lowly angel who, by the power of God, overcame the superior angel who defied God, beginning in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Saint Monica, Saint Gabriel, and Saint Raphael, pray for us! Amen.
I'll Be Back...
...tomorrow, my friend. Hang in there. Thank you for reading and for being a part of our work and our lives. I remain yours
With the Terror of Demons, Saint Joseph,
William Noble "Bud" Macfarlane Jr.
