|
GENERAL AUDIENCE WEDNESDAY, 22 OCTOBER
On Wednesday, 22 October, Pope John Paul delivered the following
message to the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square for the weekly
audience.
1. At the center of our reflections, at the Wednesday meetings, there
has been for a long time now the following enunciation of Christ in the
Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not
commit adultery'. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman
lustfully has already committed adultery with her (towards her) in his
heart" (Mt 5:27-28). These words have an essential meaning for the whole
theology of the body contained in Christ's teaching. Therefore, we rightly
attribute great importance to their correct understanding and
interpretation. In our preceding reflection we noted that the Manichean
doctrine, both in its primitive and in its later expressions, contradicts
these words.
It is not possible, in fact, to see in the sentence of the Sermon on
the Mount, analyzed here, a "condemnation" or an accusation of the body.
If anything, one could catch a glimpse of a condemnation of the human
heart. However, the reflections we have made so far show that, if the
words of Matthew 5:27-28 contain an accusation, it is directed above all
at the man of lust. With those words the heart is not so much accused as
subjected to a judgment. Or better, it is called to a critical, in fact a
self-critical, examination: whether or not it succumbs to the lust of the
flesh. Penetrating into the deep meaning of Matthew 5:27-28, we must note,
however, that the judgment it contains about desire, as an act of lust of
the flesh, brings with it not the negation, but rather the affirmation, of
the body as an element which, together with the spirit, determines man's
ontological subjectivity and shares in his dignity as a person. In this
way, the judgment on the lust of the flesh has a meaning essentially
different from the one which the Manichaean ontology presupposes and which
necessarily springs from it.
Body manifests the spirit
2. In its masculinity and femininity, the body is called "from the
beginning" to become the manifestation of the spirit. It does so also by
means of the conjugal union of man and woman, when they unite in such a
way as to form one flesh. Elsewhere (cf. Mt 19:5-6) Christ defended the
inviolable rights of this unity, by means of which the body, in its
masculinity and femininity, assumes the value of a sign—in
a way, a sacramental sign. Furthermore, by warning against the lust of the
flesh, he expressed the same truth about the ontological dimension of the
body and confirmed its ethical meaning, consistent with his teaching as a
whole. This ethical meaning has nothing in common with the Manichaean
condemnation. On the contrary, it is deeply penetrated by the mystery of
the redemption of the body, which St. Paul will write of in Romans (cf.
Rom 8:23). The redemption of the body does not indicate, however,
ontological evil as a constituent attribute of the human body. It only
points out man's sinfulness, as a result of which he has, among other
things, lost the clear sense of the nuptial meaning of the body, in which
interior mastery and the freedom of the spirit is expressed. As we have
already pointed out, it is a question here of a partial, potential loss,
where the sense of the nuptial meaning of the body is confused, in a way,
with lust, and easily lets itself be absorbed by it.
Transformation of conscience and attitudes
3. The appropriate interpretation of Christ's words according to
Matthew 5:27-28, as well as the praxis in which the authentic ethos of the
Sermon on the Mount will be subsequently expressed, must be absolutely
free of Manichaean elements in thought and in attitude. A Manichaean
attitude would lead to an "annihilation" of the body—if
not real, at least intentional—to
negation of the value of human sex, of the masculinity and femininity of
the human person, or at least to their mere toleration in the limits of
the need delimited by the necessity of procreation. On the basis of
Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount, Christian ethos is
characterized by a transformation of the conscience and attitudes of the
human person, both man and woman. This is such as to express and realize
the value of the body and of sex, according to the Creator's original
plan, placed as they are in the service of the communion of persons, which
is the deepest substratum of human ethics and culture. For the Manichaean
mentality, the body and sexuality constitute an "anti-value." For
Christianity, on the contrary, they always remain a value not sufficiently
appreciated, as I will explain better further on. The second attitude
indicates the form of ethos in which the mystery of the redemption of the
body takes root in the historical soil of human sinfulness. That is
expressed by the theological formula, which defines the state of
historical man as status naturae lapsae simul ac redemptae (the
state of fallen, but at the same time redeemed, nature).
Question of detachment
4. Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 5:27-28) must be
interpreted in the light of this complex truth about man. If they contain
a certain "accusation" leveled at the human heart, all the more so they
appeal to it. The accusation of the moral evil which desire, born of
intemperate lust of the flesh, conceals within itself, is at the same time
a call to overcome this evil. If victory over evil consists in detachment
from it (hence the severe words in the context of Matthew 5:27-28), it is
only a question of detaching oneself from the evil of the act (in the case
in question, the interior act of lust), and never of transferring the
negative character of this act to its object. Such a transfer would mean a
certain acceptance—perhaps
not fully conscious—of
the Manichaean "anti-value." It would not constitute a real and deep
victory over the evil of the act, which is evil by its moral essence, and
so evil of a spiritual nature. On the contrary, it would conceal the great
danger of justifying the act to the detriment of the object (the essential
error of Manichaean ethos consists in this). It is clear that in Matthew
5:27-28, Christ demanded detachment from the evil of lust (or of the look
of disorderly desire). But his enunciation does not let it be supposed in
any way that the object of that desire, that is, the woman who is looked
at lustfully, is an evil. (This clarification seems to be lacking
sometimes in some Wisdom texts.)
Knowing the difference
5. We must, therefore, specify the difference between the accusation
and the appeal. The accusation leveled at the evil of lust is at the same
time an appeal to overcome it. Consequently, this victory must be united
with an effort to discover the true values of the object, in order that
the Manichaean "anti-value" may not take root in man, in his conscience,
and in his will. As a result of the evil of lust, that is, of the act of
which Christ spoke in Matthew 5:27-28, the object to which it is addressed
constitutes for the human subject a value not sufficiently appreciated. In
the words of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28) which have been
analyzed, the human heart is accused of lust (or is warned against that
lust). At the same time, by means of the words themselves, it is called to
discover the full sense of what, in the act of lust, constitutes for him a
value that is not sufficiently appreciated. As we know, Christ said:
"Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery
with her in his heart." Adultery committed in the heart can and must be
understood as "devaluation," or as the impoverishment of an authentic
value. It is an intentional deprivation of that dignity to which the
complete value of her femininity corresponds in the person in question.
Matthew 5:27-28 contains a call to discover this value and this dignity,
and to reassert them. It seems that only when the semantic significance of
Matthew's words is respected they are understood in this way.
To conclude these concise considerations, it is necessary to note once
more that the Manichaean way of understanding and evaluating man's body
and sexuality is essentially alien to the Gospel. It is not in conformity
with the exact meaning of the words Christ spoke in the Sermon on the
Mount. The appeal to master the lust of the flesh springs precisely from
the affirmation of the personal dignity of the body and of sex, and serves
only this dignity. Anyone who wants to see in these words a Manichaean
perspective would be committing an essential error.
|
