Reflection on September 17, 1980

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb39.htm

Concupiscence is a deception of the heart in regards to is perennial call to communion. I looked up the word perennial because I had heard it before, but didn’t see how it fit here. I had only heard it in dealing with plants that come back. But it can mean indefinite and enduring. That makes more sense here. We have an indefinite and enduring call to be in communion with others. I was at a conference yesterday that spoke on child development and the importance of relationship to the development. We are not supposed to be independent beings, but interdependent. No one makes it on their own, no one has “pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps”. We all require help, we all require guides, we all require relationships to develop, that is how God created us. It is interesting that the speaker was talking about research and studies and showing that we have proven something that JPII has developed from looking at the most ancient books in the Bible.

Look at what it means to think that concupiscence is a deception of the foundational idea that we need community. And if you see family as the foundational community that is the key to all human development, what are we doing as a society to our development when we are destroying the idea of family. This was by no means a religious speaker, but purely scientific, but his basic point was the importance of family, yet the world is toppling that idea. They will say that they are not and that family is important to them, but they are not seeking to save families, but “change the definition”, much like they want to do with marriage. (Basically all winds up in the same ball of wax)

JPII talks about the worldly idea that desire is a natural part of being human. The world uses this as a springboard for its arguments against the Church’s moral teachings. If desires are natural, it is unnatural to subdue them. Why should we stamp something out that is a part of us? But just because it is a part of us does not mean we need to indulge it. When you get your paycheck, do you send it all on junk? (Many might answer this in the affirmative.) You shouldn’t. You should save your money for when you might need it. That is the responsible thing, that is what we should be teaching. Yet the world tells us to spend, to indulge, to do whatever feels good. The Church teaches to push back that urge and to control it. Look at the example of homosexuality. The world says to indulge, the Church says it is sinful and you should restrain your urges, stay chaste. It has absolutely nothing to do with bigotry. The Catholic Church teaches the same restraint to heterosexual before they are married. They are to remain chaste and show restraint. It is the same teaching to both groups, but because on one’s lifestyle, its bigotry. (It might be like it you were selling alcohol and a white teen tried and you said “no, you’re not 21. Then a black teen showed up and you said “no, you’re not 21”. But in the second instance being called a racist for not selling to them.)

These desires trample on our original meaning. The more we allow these desires to be met, the further we move away from original man. The only objective they have is to satisfy an urge, a feeling, and in many cases, a sexual urge. When you are seeking only to satisfy this urge, a person becomes an object, a thing to bring pleasure, a means to an end, and it is an end that WILL NEVER MAKE YOU HAPPY, only take you further from happiness.

Words I looked up.

Perennial - lasting for an indefinitely long time; enduring

Axiological - the branch of philosophy dealing with values, as those of ethics, aesthetics, or religion.