Reflections on April 23, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb24.htm

I like the image that when Christ is speaking to the man on the mount, He is speaking to every man, to historical man, to us included. We may take that for granted many times when we read the words of Christ, take for granted that He was speaking to the crowds or to His Apostles and not really speaking to us. I think that JPII, in saying that Christ was speaking to historical man, wants us to dissect that into what we have discovered about historical man and what that entails. Historical man is not just the physical man that we see, although that is part, but the sum of his experience, the inner being, more specifically in this use, the “heart”. What man holds in his heart is part of him, part of his experience, and part of what he is and who he will be. We are more than what people see and what is inside is a large part of who we are.

When you think of that, that Christ is talking to historical man, not just the physical man in front of Him, and historical man is made up of his experience and what he experiences in his heart, you read His words in a different and deeper context. “Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her IN HIS HEART”. What happens in the heart is part of the experience that makes us who we are as human. It is not innocent. We are not sinless as long as we do not physically act. We sin in our heart, which effects us as a human because our experiences, physical and non-physical, make us who we are.

Putting what Christ said in another way in light of this reflection, “If you look at any other woman the way to look at your wife, you commit adultery in your heart.” I think that is correct, unless you look at your wife in a way of desire that reduces her, which is a bad desire. But the way you are to look at your wife is unique to her and looking at any other in the same way, a way of desiring to become one flesh, is sinful.