Lec
# 142- 28th Sun of OT- Oct 12, 2014- Fr. Bresowar
My
brothers and sisters,
I
was fortunate enough this past week to take a trip to Orange Beach to be with
many brother priests to attend a conference for further education. The
conference was on the topic of Internet pornography. It’s not an easy topic to
address, but it is certainly one that needs to be talked about because of what
it is doing to society and to families in particular.
Many
of you I’m sure know someone who struggles with this, or someone who has given
into this and believed the lie that it’s not something that needs to be
struggled with.
I don’t want to spend too much time
talking about this subject, but one of the interesting points they made at the
conference was they have reliable data that the earliest age children are
typically exposed to pornography is 11 years old! That’s the average age!
A
few points need to be made from the pulpit concerning pornography: one, it’s
destroying families everywhere and that’s truth, and two, parents need very
much to monitor what their children are doing on the internet, and that
especially concerns teenagers. We all know a search for something on the Internet
can be innocent, and the next thing you know something pornographic pops up. I
would go as far as putting filters on everything, and making sure I know
exactly what is happening on the devices in my family if I was a parent. Trust
me when I tell you that children are good at hiding what they are doing.
Now
its not always easy to monitor what is happening on the internet at home, and
it certainly won’t make you popular, but it’s worth the effort because of how
dangerous the internet can be, and it is vital that parents try to protect
their children from those dangers. Eventually, bad things will be found, it’s
impossible to avoid (unless you just turn off the tv and never get on the
internet), but you can teach the dangers of it at home so that they are
prepared.
Lastly, maybe you know someone who is
struggling with pornography in your home, a spouse, or a relative, this
happens, and the quicker they get help, the better. Therapy, accountability,
prayer, fasting, mortification, the sacraments, these things are all necessary
in overcoming addictions. It can be a very hurtful reality, many know that. It’s the same with alcohol or drug
addiction.
If
we continue to act as if this isn’t a problem, or we don’t address it in our
families, then like alcohol or drugs, or abuse, or a varying other things that
often times occur, it will run its course and cause destruction in it’s path.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to; it just needs to be addressed.
Worse
though then destroying our families, or skewing our sense of sexuality, abuse
of pornography, or abuse of other substances like alcohol or drugs, or even
video game addiction or addiction to the internet in general, puts us in a
place where we often times become like the guests invited to the wedding feast
in the Gospel, but we refused to accept the invitation.
God
says if you love me, keep my commands. There is no gray on judgment day. Sin is
black and white, it’s serious. His commands are too.
We
need to live our lives taking seriously his command to avoid sin. It’s not
easy, especially if you are addicted to a sin, but our Lord is merciful when we
seek his forgiveness, but if we aren’t battling against the things we struggle
with, we can’t except that we are going to sit at the banquet in the Kingdom of
God. Even the person who tried to sneak in, believing that he was good enough
to go, was tossed out because he wasn’t wearing his wedding garment. Meaning he
wasn’t like the others there, he wasn’t prepared. Sin is destructive, and we
should feel bad about it. That’s why we go to confession. It should give us a
hopeless feeling, because living is sin is hopeless. We need to try to live in
a state of Grace. Mortal sin kills the soul.
We
live in a society that doesn’t want to feel bad about the things they struggle
with, the don’t really want to believe in sin, and really, they don’t want to
feel bad at all about anything. But that’s not reality. We aren’t getting into
Heaven without the cross, and we can’t come to know God or have really any
resemblance to him at all, if we don’t accept his invitation, his grace in our
lives, or if we continue to persist in our sinfulness.
God
is inviting us to spend eternity with him, he is inviting us to know and to
love him in a very real and intimate way, but he is no fool and he is not
calling us to a half-hearted effort. A half-hearted effort will find us thrown
out of the banquet. We know we can do better, all of us know this. So let’s
try. The grace is there, he will make us saints, and in the process destroy our
addictions and make us happier people, more charitable people, if we begin to
accept the invitation to do so.
May
God Bless each us as we continue on this journey towards our final judgement
and hopefully we will find ourselves sitting at the banquet in paradise.
Everything else is unacceptable.
