A Spiritual Battle

While the secular world relates to excessive sexual desire as ‘sexual addiction’ or sexual compulsions, a sad fact is that many Catholics – and people of all faiths – quickly run to secular and psychological sources to try and understand, deal and treat adverse sexual afflictions and quickly skip over what our Catholic faith says about the subject.

Not that modern science and psychology cannot offer insightful information to the problem mind you, but CSI feels it would be a mistake to rest solely on the remedy of secular sources.

As Catholics, we need to understand and internalize this struggle also in spiritual terms.

It is about this time that many Catholics roll their eyes when the subject of demons enters the discussion. Often, we focus so much on the abundant love of mercy of Christ, that we forget that there is an ever-present battle for our souls…..then, and right now. Pick just about any page in the Gospels - before the Passion - and you see Christ and his disciples walking from village to village, town to town, healing the sick and casting out demons. Once you accept and internalize that this struggle has a significant spiritual component, things start to become clearer…and battle lines start to form.

Some argue that sexual immorality is the easiest way to get an ‘express pass’ to Hell. Our Lady of Fatima claimed – in her ecstatic vision - that more people are in Hell due to sexual immorality than all other reasons.

It really isn’t so hard to see why, is it?

Most sin is committed because it involves some kind of gain or it feels good...and certainly none is as hedonistically pleasurable as sexual sin. It is one of the easiest ways to sin and equally the easiest way for dark forces to install shame and guilt and make you suffer…the fertile ground to separate you from God, which is the ultimate goal. Once you understand the perspective that evil wants to separate you from God, you can then start to backtrack and see how those forces can best accomplish that.

For many people – and certainly for the sexually compromised - sex is an escape or a salve we use to self-medicate our emotional wounds. Our human condition has us running from pain, and our human failings – our fallen nature – (Catholics call this ‘concupiscence’) give us this inclination to run towards things to make us feel less of that pain. With that rubric – with that set-up – we are inclined heavily towards committing sexual sin, which makes the dark forces’ job that much easier.

For most of us, even the very devout, we love our Catholic faith and our relationship with God, but as soon as emotional pain is presented, we instinctually and reflexively run towards the very temporary and false comfort of sexual pleasure. All logic and rational thought stops – and often our faith gets put on the back burner - and all thought and attention is devoted to quelling that pain...and we all have those emotional buttons.

This is an individual struggle but there is a contemporary, societal aspect as well. From the drumbeat of media and educational support, to sycophant politicians, how many Catholics do you know that either support, are indifferent to, or sympathize with, sexual promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality behavior and same-sex marriage? As Catholics, we certainly shouldn’t judge others, but we must not re-define sin in order to not make others feel less ‘sinful’ or to make ourselves feel more tolerant. You can - and should - show love and compassion in the micro without abdicating your Christian values in the macro. They are not mutually exclusive.

Plug in the spiritual aspect and you start to see how evil forces corrupt whole societies and cultures.

But it all starts – and ends – with the individual.

This is why the faith aspect of the problem of sexual immorality needs addressing.

In addition to prayer – which is paramount - Catholics have some great tools at their disposal: Reconciliation (Confession), Sacrament of Healing of the Sick, Holy Rosary, Eucharistic Chapel, Mass, Novenas, etc.

The demonic realm is legion. The good news is that you have an army as well. Pray to Our Lord and Savior; you don’t have to know what to say, He knows your heart and your struggles. Tell Him your anguish, your sins and how sorry you are. “Knock on the door…”, he is waiting to answer and all are welcome.

Then go to Confession. The Lord loves you and loves to bring you new life...again and again. Go, repent of your sexual sins and be small, so God can be big in your life again. It’s never too late, but don’t wait.