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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 17 SEPTEMBER
More than fifty thousand faithful took part in Wednesday's Audience
in St. Peter's Square. The Holy Father continued his theme of adultery
which he had been developing for several weeks.
1. During our last reflection, we asked ourselves what the lust was
which Christ spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28). Let us
recall that he spoke of it in relation to the commandment: "Do not commit
adultery." Lust itself (more exactly: looking at lustfully), is
defined as "adultery committed in the heart." That gives much food for
thought. In the preceding reflections we said that by expressing himself
in that way, Christ wanted to indicate to his listeners the separation
from the matrimonial significance of the body felt by a human being (in
this case the man) when concupiscence of the flesh is coupled with the
inner act of lust. The separation of the matrimonial significance of the
body causes at the same time a conflict with his personal dignity, a
veritable conflict of conscience.
At this point it appears that the biblical (hence also theological)
meaning of lust is different from the purely psychological. The latter
describes lust as an intense inclination toward the object because of its
particular value, and in the case considered here, its sexual value. As it
seems, we will find such a definition in most of the works dealing with
similar themes. Yet the biblical interpretation, while not underestimating
the psychological aspect, places that ethic in relief above all, since a
value is being impaired. I would say that lust is a deception of the human
heart in the perennial call of man and womana
call revealed in the mystery of creationto
communion by means of mutual giving. In the Sermon on the Mount (Mt
5:27-28) Christ referred to the heart or the internal man. His words do
not cease being charged with that truth concerning the principle to which,
in replying to the Pharisees (cf. Mt 19:8), he had reverted to the whole
problem of man, woman and marriage.
2. The perennial call, which we have tried to analyze following Genesis
(especially Gn 2:23-25) and, in a certain sense, the perennial mutual
attraction on man's part to femininity and on woman's part to masculinity,
is an indirect invitation of the body. But it is not lust in the sense of
the word in Matthew 5:27-28. That lust carries into effect the
concupiscence of the flesh (also and especially in the purely internal
act). It diminishes the significance of what wereand
that in reality do not cease beingthat
invitation and that reciprocal attraction. The "eternal feminine"
(das ewig weibliche), just like the "eternal masculine" for that
matter, on the level of historicity, too, tends to free itself from pure
concupiscence and seeks a position of achievement in the world of people.
It testifies to that original sense of shame of which Genesis 3 speaks.
The dimension of intentionality of thought and heart constitutes one of
the main streams of universal human culture. Christ's words in the Sermon
on the Mount exactly confirm this dimension.
3. Nonetheless, these words clearly assert that lust is a real part of
the human heart. When compared with the original mutual attraction of
masculinity and femininity, lust represents a reduction. In stating this,
we have in mind an intentional reduction, almost a restriction or closing
down of the horizon of mind and heart. It is one thing to be conscious
that the value of sex is a part of all the rich storehouse of values with
which the female appears to the man. It is another to "reduce" all the
personal riches of femininity to that single value, that is, of sex, as a
suitable object for the gratification of sexuality itself. The same
reasoning can be valid concerning what masculinity is for the woman, even
though Matthew's words in 5:27-28 refer directly to the other relationship
only. As can be seen, the intentional reduction is primarily of an
axiological nature. On one hand the eternal attraction of man toward
femininity (cf. Gn 2:23) frees in himor
perhaps it should freea
gamut of spiritual-corporal desires of an especially personal and
"sharing" nature (cf. the analysis of the "beginning"), to which a
proportionate pyramid of values corresponds. On the other hand, lust
limits this gamut, obscuring the pyramid of values that marks the
perennial attraction of male and female.
4. Lust has the internal effect, that is, in the heart, on the interior
horizon of man and woman, of obscuring the significance of the body, of
the person itself. Femininity thus ceases being above all else an object
for the man. It ceases being a specific language of the spirit. It loses
its character of being a sign. I would say that it ceases bearing in
itself the wonderful matrimonial significance of the body. It ceases its
correlation to this significance in the context of conscience and
experience. Lust arising from concupiscence of the flesh itself, from the
first moment of its existence within the manits
existence in his heartpasses
in a certain sense close to such a context. (Using an image, one could say
that it passes on the ruins of the matrimonial significance of the body
and all its subjective parts.) By virtue of axiological intentionality
itself, it aims directly at an exclusive end: to satisfy only the sexual
need of the body, as its precise object.
5. According to the words of Christ (Mt 5:27-28), such an intentional
and axiological reduction can take place in the sphere of the look (of
looking). Rather, it takes place in the sphere of a purely interior act
expressed by the look. A look (or rather looking) is in itself a cognitive
act. When concupiscence enters its inner structure, the look takes on the
character of lustful knowledge. The biblical expression "to look at
lustfully" can indicate both a cognitive act, which the lusting man "makes
use of," (that is, giving him the character of lust aiming at an object),
and a cognitive act that arouses lust in the other object and above all in
its will and in its heart. As is seen, it is possible to place an
intentional interpretation on an interior act, being aware of one and the
other pole of man's psychology: knowledge or lust understood as
appetitus (which is something broader than lust, since it indicates
everything manifested in the object as aspiration, and as such always
tends to aim at something, that is, toward an object known under the
aspect of value.) Yet, an adequate interpretation of Matthew 5:27-28
requires usby
means of the intentionality itself of knowledge or of the appetitus
to discern something more, that is, the intentionality of the very
existence of man in relation to the other man. In our case, it is the man
in relation to the woman and the woman in relation to the man.
It will be well for us to return to this subject. Concluding today's
reflection, we add again that in that lust, in looking at lustfully, which
the Sermon on the Mount deals with, for the man who looks in that way, the
woman ceases to exist as an object of eternal attraction. She begins to be
only an object of carnal concupiscence. To that is connected the profound
inner separation of the matrimonial significance of the body, about which
we spoke in the preceding reflection.
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