Impure thoughts….

impure thought from we bought a zooThis if from the Movie “We Bought a Zoo”  It made me laugh and we all need to laugh more.  Especially when we talk about what an impure thought is!

This entire concept has gone crazy.  When I hear, “Bless me father it has been 2 days since my last confession.”  Immediately I know what I am going to hear next.

Let us take a step back.  Those that are married, what was it that initially attracted you to your spouse?  Is the basis of most marriages impure?  My dad used to joke that his day wasn’t compete unless he fell in love a few times.  I didn’t get that at first because, he and my mom had an amazing marriage, but that was his way of keeping his thoughts in check.  He was a very holy man.

Did God create us so that we are tempted to sin, have an impure thought, every time we see an attractive person?  I don’t see that fitting with the God that died on a cross for us.

From the very beginning of the Bible we learn that God created us in the image and likeness of our Creator.  We all have an unique part of the divine entrusted to us to share with the rest of creation.  Part of that has to be in our physicality.  If there wasn’t something otherworldly about the human form, why would it be the topic of art through our entire history?  If we can see a mountain range and see God’s majesty, why can’t we see another person and see the same as opposed to an impure thought?

So how do we determine what constitutes an impure thought.  The Catechism is very quiet on this topic.  Even with google and index I found this only in the one section.  Not surprisingly in the section on the 9th commandment.  This is the only glimpse we get of what the Church means by impure thought.  From #2520-

– by purity of vision, external and internal; by discipline of feelings and imagination; by refusing all complicity in impure thoughts that incline us to turn aside from the path of God’s commandments: “Appearance arouses yearning in fools”;314

By discipline of feelings and imagination…  This tells me is that the initial thought is natural.  The challenge is where we allow our minds to wander and where we can create issues for ourselves.

So again the challenge as Christians is to buck the societal trend that sexualizes everything.  We need to train ourselves, that when we see a beautiful person, we see another amazing revelation of God’s Majesty.  We need to see these people with the same awe and wonderment as any other awe inspiring aspect of creation and not as an impure thought.  Once we adopt that attitude, we can enjoy the beauty of the human form for what it is.  We can than allow the business of impurity become the marketing companies realm, not ours.

From the original TV preacher…

Didn’t even Bishop Fulton Sheen say that even though he was on a diet didn’t mean he couldn’t look at the menu?

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