Posted on 06/26/2018 8:57:37 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
At the start of the fall semester of my senior year of college, I was receiving the Eucharist every day. The problem was, I was not Catholic. I had begun attending daily Mass four months before, drawn less by the Catholic faith than by the soothing regularity of the liturgy. Whenever the host was administered, I went up with the rest of the parish and received it without a second thought.
But by September, I could no longer plead ignorance. I had begun to participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and was learning about church doctrine and the theology of the sacraments, including how the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life.” I also learned that people were not supposed to take the Eucharist unless they had received first Communion. How could I live with this contradiction: breaking the rules of the very church I wanted to join? At the start of my senior year of college, I was taking the Eucharist every day. The problem was, I was not Catholic.
Around that time, I posed the question in my journal: “Maybe I should stop taking the Eucharist until I’m confirmed, but could I bear that?” I had developed a burning desire for the body and blood of Christ. And when I went to Mass, that was the only thing that mattered: fulfilling this personal desire to commune with God through the Blessed Sacrament.
But by fulfilling this desire, I was isolating myself from others. By continuing to receive Communion I was taking myself out of the adult initiation process and creating division between myself and the other catechumens and candidates, who were patiently waiting for their first Communion. I was also distancing myself from the greater Catholic community by ignoring the stages that the church in her wisdom has laid out for catechumens and candidates prior to full reception into the church. But the thought of waiting for the Eucharist seemed too much to bear. My faith was growing, yes, but it was also becoming increasingly individualistic.
How could I live with this contradiction: breaking the rules of the very church I wanted to join?
There was another problem. In addition to my daily Eucharist habit, I was watching pornography nearly every other day.
People often worry that pornography encourages men to view women as expendable and interchangeable sex partners, that it prioritizes sexual “intimacy” over emotional intimacy. I am sure that is true for some users. But I had been viewing pornography since middle school, and it was not leading me to have casual sex with all kinds of women. Instead, it led me to completely isolate myself, both sexually and emotionally.
In college, I developed a fear of sex. It seemed so risky. The potential for awkwardness, rejection and pain hung over me whenever I thought about sexual intimacy with another person. Watching pornography was much better, I felt, because it was safe. There was no potential for hurt because I was alone with a screen. This fear seeped into my friendships, too. It was much easier for me to fence myself off from others and not let anyone get too close because the potential for pain was more than I could bear.
My decision to refrain from Communion also forced me to reconsider how I thought about sex.
Deep down, however, I wanted more. I wanted to experience intimacy with others. I started by giving up Communion. In the week following my September journal entry, I decided to abstain from the Blessed Sacrament until my first Communion. Abstaining meant abandoning a certain “cave mentality” of living my faith on my own. It invited me to share my budding faith with others who were walking with me on the journey.
But my decision to refrain from Communion also forced me to reconsider how I thought about sex. The parallels were all too real. If abstaining from my strong urge to have the body and blood would allow me greater communion in the end, could the same be true of giving up porn?
I started taking seriously the prospect of marriage and how watching pornography might inhibit my ability to be intimate with my future spouse. I acknowledged its disconnecting properties—that it ultimately separates me from others. I asked, how could I share in the beautiful gift of sex with my future spouse if I kept teaching myself, through every porn clip, that sex was a solitary activity? How could I possibly survive the intimacy and vulnerability of marriage when I was fencing myself off from those exact things by using pornography?
I saw that I had to expel pornography from my life in order to free myself from its narcissism. Ultimately, I had to free myself to pursue something greater. And it was the end goal itself—experiencing intimacy in marriage—that made pornography less and less appealing to me. Through the grace of God, I stopped a decade-long habit of giving in to the safe, self-gratifying act of watching porn.
Sex was never meant to be a solitary activity, but for 10 years that was all sex was for me. In a similar way, the way of the Christian was never meant to be solitary. The process of Christian initiation illuminated these truths and taught me that immediate passions must give way in order for us to experience true communion.
Four weeks before Easter Sunday, the members of my R.C.I.A. cohort were asked to examine our lives in preparation for receiving the sacraments. After a moment of reflection, we went around in a circle and shared our reflections. I was shocked to hear another candidate speak about the struggle she had with a self-gratifying sexual practice. When this person finished, I jumped in to talk about my own similar experience. She thanked me for sharing, and for a moment, I felt the solidarity that is our true end. We were two Christians, yearning for more.
He's changed. And I think that's a sign he's having a true encounter with Christ.
Porn isn’t just an issue Catholics deal with. This can apply to any Christian.
Not only "any Christian" but "any human being."
Too long a story to relate here, but I once had a long, thoughtful discussion with a thoroughly secular agnostic man about porn vs purity of heart.
It began with his question to me, "Hey, you're a Catholic, so..." but it ended up with an agreement that if you don't want to objectify women, you shouldn't immerse yourself in sexually compelling images of objectified women.
He was sincerely interested in, shall we say, the human or "humane", social/psychological/ethical aspect, because he really didn't want to demean women or demean himself. I absolutely respected him for that.
Lately I’ve been recommending “Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism” by F. Carolyn Graglia.
The author makes a strong case that Feminism has done enormous damage to women, to men, and to relations between men and women. She indicates that Feminism has always been championed by lesbians, barren women, and women with children but with no material instinct (Betty Friedan). Feminists basically hate women who value children. Feminism is primarily anti-children and had led society to embrace anything which gets away from valuing children (abortion, homosexuality, pornography, disrespecting housewives in favor of “women who work”).
The author also provides plenty of evidence that prior to the sexual revolution, married couples had truly satisfying sex lives (the whole notion that we were repressed prior to 1960 is a myth). After the sexual revolution, things went wrong in ways which are not always easy to see, but that (in general) our sex lives are not as good and we do a lot of things wrong today (because we’re so liberated).
I’m glad this young man has been changed.
No doubt about it. It can be an issue for people of all walks of life.
Because of abortion because it's so ugly on every level. But also, maybe equally, because I saw the ugly bitterness growing up between men and women. "Equal" had come to mean equal callousness, equal contempt.
Equal hell for equal hubris.
Thanks be to God I got far, far away from that.
Sounds like you can get all the same info just by reading the following statement by Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream."
As someone who works in the area of annulments, it was revealing to me how lonely porn makes the partner of the porn user. The person can be in the same room, ready for a happy romp in the hay, but the porn user is getting off by him/herself. Just doing the act, without the companionship. Sad.
She was near-despairing. So heartbreaking.
but it also demeans men....think about total waste of time, money, emotion,intellect, and yes, even physical waste of energy that is involved with porn..
bkmk
The other thing I love is that this was published in the eeeevil Jesuit publication America Yeah, I get why people might assume that a Jebbie publication would be all-crap, all the time. But it's not. Not ALL the time. It's got surprising dollops of Catholicism, even in the combox.
From the article as you posted it.
First two paragraphs:
At the start of the fall semester of my senior year of college, I was receiving the Eucharist every day. The problem was, I was not Catholic. I had begun attending daily Mass four months before, drawn less by the Catholic faith than by the soothing regularity of the liturgy. Whenever the host was administered, I went up with the rest of the parish and received it without a second thought.
But by September, I could no longer plead ignorance. I had begun to participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and was learning about church doctrine and the theology of the sacraments, including how the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life.” I also learned that people were not supposed to take the Eucharist unless they had received first Communion. How could I live with this contradiction: breaking the rules of the very church I wanted to join? At the start of my senior year of college, I was taking the Eucharist every day. The problem was, I was not Catholic.
Now the article as it is written...first two paragraphs with the key omitted sentence in bold that mentions protestant.
At the start of the fall semester of my senior year of college, I was receiving the Eucharist every day. The problem was, I was not Catholic. I had begun attending daily Mass four months before, drawn less by the Catholic faith than by the soothing regularity of the liturgy. Whenever the host was administered, I went up with the rest of the parish and received it without a second thought. I did not think there was a difference between Protestant communion and the Catholic Eucharist other than that one was administered more frequently than the other.
But by September, I could no longer plead ignorance. I had begun to participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and was learning about church doctrine and the theology of the sacraments, including how the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life.” I also learned that people were not supposed to take the Eucharist unless they had received first Communion. How could I live with this contradiction: breaking the rules of the very church I wanted to join?
*****************
This is rather disingenuous attempt to manipulate an article for the sole reason of mis-using the caucus thread.
I was afraid I had posted it twice by accident, because I hit post hastily,m and twice (once before, and once after I had removed that line and intended to remove the Caucus) ---because FR went down for awhile.
I came back awhile later to see if FR was up again, and behold, the version was up with the omission AND the Caucus. So I thought "Well, leave well enough alone."
Feel free to ask the Mod to remove the Caucus.
Do not feel free to impute malice aforethought to someone who just makes dumb mistakes.
Were you not fussing about another thread than mentioned other denominations just a week or so ago that had been labeled as a catholic caucus?
Roman Catholics seem to have a number of these kind of violations of the caucus thread protection.
I was afraid I had posted it twice by accident, because I hit post hastily,m and twice (once before, and once after I had removed that line and intended to remove the Caucus) ---because FR went down for awhile.
Then you should have notified the RM as such.
FR has been up all today per this website:
http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/freerepublic.com.html
You admit you knowingly deleted the sentence mentioning protestants. You were able to copy the article with no problem....except for this one line????
That's a bit of a stretch.
I came back awhile later to see if FR was up again, and behold, the version was up with the omission AND the Caucus. So I thought "Well, leave well enough alone."
Again, you should have notified the RM on this. There have been several comments by you to other posters. There has been ample opportunity to notify the RM of the issue.
That said, may the Lord bless you.
Is it possible you somehow left out this key sentence in honest error? Yes.
The real question is how likely did this happen.
You're digging a hole right now.
Thank you.
I'd think we'd all agree on this.
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