Reflection on October 1, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb41.htm

There was a time when SAINT JPII’s logical argument about desire in your heart for your own wife made a lot of sense to me. I don’t know if I ever thought about it in those terms or thought about it in general, but I know that is exactly the attitude I had. Adultery is the conjugal act outside of marriage, adultery in the heart is looking on a person with desire that is outside your marriage, therefore you cannot commit adultery in your heart with your own wife. If A and B, then C. That is logic and that makes sense. In order to see the flaw, we must go past the logic and look to all the revealed Truths about being human that we have seen so far. When you reflect on all that we have seen, it become plainly obvious that this logic leads to a complete objectification of the other, a reduction in who they are, and a complete distortion of what is meant to be in this communion.

When you look at the 4 parts that SJPII has broken this into (“to commit adultery, to desire, to commit adultery in the body, to commit adultery in the heart), I was wondering if the Jews that were listening were able to digest it at all. Christ starts by changing their interpretation of what adultery is, so the very foundation of the argument is something that they have to climb. After they get over that, then they must understand what is meant by desire, and only after that, understand the difference in physical and “heart” adultery. I would think that many couldn’t get past the first understanding. Western civilization has a much clearer understanding of adultery, in the idea of one husband, one wife, although that definition is deteriorating. We might understand the idea of desire, although in modern times the understanding is twisted into indulging in them and not suppressing them. But I don’t know if we still have a solid understanding in our age of the idea of adultery in the heart and what effect that has.

It made me think that Christ knew all, He knew how what He was saying was not going to be understood by those hearing it, but it would be taken down and digested and analyzed and someday understood and shared. It makes you think about what those that heard Christ really got and what He might have said knowing it was going to speak to us, and what He said that we don’t understand but will be understood in the future. I think the same can be said of SJPII’s talks given on Wednesday audiences to different groups every time. There might have been a small percentage that heard and comprehended some of it, but he was speaking to the future, to those that would digest it more fully. I am looking forward to him going more into the adultery of the heart and how it can apply to a spouse, although I think it flows from what we have already read, I hope he explains it in a clearer way.