Recently I read a critic of the Church’s lectionary (the book of Scripture Readings used for Mass) who complained that whereas in the Latin Mass of former times there was only a single, yearly cycle of readings, the new three-year-cycled lectionary, while admittedly much richer in content, often forces concocted and irrelevant biblical themes upon the congregation. I have to admit that this is sometimes so: today’s first reading paired with the Gospel may be a case in point. The "theme" (if you will) of the readings would be something like this: discipleship for the Christian in the New Testament, as it was for Elisha in the Old Testament, necessitates leaving behind former attachments. In this case, the homiletic moral would be detachment and perseverance: "keep your hand to the plow and never look back." This kind of sermonizing, which can have its merits, easily descends to those platitudinous generalities that weary the listener. And so, the critic of the new lectionary may have a point. On the other hand, the epistle reading for this Mass, taken from the new book, is hearty grist to the preacher’s mill. It’s about the devastating, consuming power of lustful cravings. No charge of irrelevancy can be made here!

Lustful cravings are not exactly the same as what we usually call "sins of the flesh." The commission of these sins and the damaging personal and societal consequences that ensue from committing them have been, from time to time, the subject of our Grotto sermons. This passage taken from Saint Paul’s letter to the Galatians concerns a subject more foundational than those ‘fleshly sins’ that points to their root problem.

At issue here is the universal human experience of sensing that one has inherited a disturbing internal emotional conflict. Everybody feels that there is a movement within him that causes him unrest and is the source of all his moral trouble. Our religion has a word for it, derived from Latin, concupiscence. Reflecting on this disturbance lodged in every man’s heart, theologians have come to understand that this queasiness is the internal proof that we all have (or at least once had) original sin. The Church figured that this disorder couldn’t have come from the good God from whom proceeds only good. Rather, it appears that the ability of being in control of oneself has been taken away from us and that, as a consequence, there’s an unruliness in us that causes a strange attraction to things we know are evil. The very fact that we can recognize this conflict in us proves that we are not brute beasts: we have an intellect that knows this and recognizes that there ought to be the contrary movements within us that tend towards goodness, order, and decency.

Although some people are bred in and constrained to live in a depraved environment that prompts rather than quells this volatile tendency, people generally find that society that demands that they hold in check at least some of these forces to preserve social order and tranquility. Thus, civil law and the threat of its penalties are enlisted to forestall what Saint Paul here speaks of as "biting and devouring one another." But just how far civil authorities (police, prosecutors, judges, jail wardens) can keep the public order successfully depends on something beyond their professional competence. If controls on human behavior can only be imposed by the fear of fines, weapons and prisons, we will have peace. The all-pervasive malady of concupiscence can’t be remedied by these extrinsic measures. What will keep us from becoming a barbarous and violent society must come from within a person. There needs to be a self-installed manager of this restlessness that tends to erupt in savage behavior. How is this to be done?

The solution commonly proposed but which is always of itself insufficient is education, or knowledge (the solution once proposed by Plato). This now often takes the form of ‘values education’ classes for our youth, or talks and seminars on ‘inappropriate behaviors,’ or in the ever more popular recourse to counselors and therapists. (Drugs that so readily administered to alter mental states is whole other subject worthy of another sermon.) The inadequacy of these techniques stems not from their irrelevance (they are to the point and even necessary), but that they are address the mind rather than the will. One needs not merely to know what’s right and wrong, but to be motivated to do right and suppress the urging of concupiscence. This is where religion enters in its own proper sphere, not only by moving us through preaching and by the good example of the good (needed as these things are), but by the transformative power of God that we call sanctifying grace. Saint Paul speaks of this as the doing of the Holy Spirit, the Producer of grace. The true remedy for our internal discontent and waywardness is the possession of grace. Sanctifying grace is the possession of a divine power that effectively quiets these stirrings. I quote this reading: "Live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want."

Being a Christian engages a supernatural possession that makes possible the permanent and obstinate decision to say No! to evil inclinations. At the very first movement of concupiscence’s tugging, one must refuse: "Danger ahead! Do not travel this road!" One must not only deny, refuse, renounce, reject, disavow and repudiate the sinful thing itself, but the very first movement, the initial suggestion of evil. Our failures to do this successfully are the devil’s gossamer threads by which means he keeps otherwise good Christians from giving up their sinfulness.

This ‘nipping it in the bud’ strategy applies not only to the suggestions of lust, but also to temptations to lie, steal, cheat, gossip, get angry, take revenge, be lazy, and over-eat, among others. Everyone will have times, chances, opportunities to do sin, sometimes great sin, mortal sin. When that time of decision is placed before you, you need to act fast and with a will of iron. Doing that for God’s sake, and only with His help, wins the victory that makes saints–those heroes and heroines of habitually seizing the present moment.

I finish again with Saint Paul: "Christ set you free for the sake of freedom; so, stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery."