At the start of the general audience today, the Pope announced that a circus would perform for the pilgrims present in the Paul VI Hall. To see that performance, go to minute 40 of this video of the general audience: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-01/pope-at-audience-resist-the-vice-of-lust.html
Here are some Vatican photos:
My summary of the audience catechesis is a bit longer than usual but the Holy Father’s words on love are very beautiful and powerful and bear repeating.
POPE SAYS “EMBRACE PURE LOVE, BEWARE OF LUST”
Beginning today’s general audience. Pope Francis told the faithful who filled the Paul VI Hall, “today, let us listen well to the catechesis, because afterwards there will be a circus that will perform for us.
“Let us continue our journey concerning vices and virtues. The ancient Fathers teach us that, after gluttony, the second ‘demon’ – that is, vice – that is always crouching at the door of the heart is that of lust, called porneia in Greek. While gluttony is voracity with regard to food, this second vice is a kind of ‘voracity’ with regard to another person, that is, the poisoned bond that human beings have with each other, especially in the sphere of sexuality.”
“Be careful,” Francis emphasized, “in Christianity, there is no condemnation of the sexual instinct. There is no condemnation. A book of the Bible, the Song of Songs, is a wonderful poem of love between two lovers. However, this beautiful dimension, the sexual dimension, the dimension of love, of our humanity is not without its dangers, so much so that St Paul already had to address the issue in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. St Paul writes: “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans” (5:1). The Apostle’s reproach concerns precisely an unhealthy handling of sexuality by some Christians.”
The Holy Father then goes on to “look at the human experience, the experience of falling in love. There are so many newlyweds here: you can talk about this.
Why this mystery happens, and why it is such a shattering experience in people’s lives, none of us know. One person falls in love with another, falling in love just happens. It is one of the most astonishing realities of existence. Most of the songs you hear on the radio are about this: loves that shine, loves that are always sought and never attained, loves that are full of joy, or that torment us to the point of tears.”
The Pope then turned to the vice that is opposed to love: “In our catechesis on the virtues and the vices, we now turn to lust, which is opposed to the beauty of that love which the Creator has implanted in our hearts and called us to cultivate in our relations with others, especially by the responsible use of our sexuality. Lust poisons the purity of love by turning it from a chaste, patient and generous acceptance of another person in all the mysterious richness of his or her being, into a egotistic desire for possession and immediate satisfaction. God’s gift of sexuality, which finds sublime expression in conjugal love, is at the service of human fulfilment and authentic freedom, whereas lust enchains us in selfishness and emptiness. May our hearts always treasure the beauty of love, which shares in the mystery of God’s own unconditional love for us, created in his own image.”
Pope Francis exclaimed that, “This ‘garden’ where wonders are multiplied is not, however, safe from evil. It is defiled by the demon of lust, and this vice is particularly odious, for at least two reasons. At least two.
“First, because it destroys relationships between peoples. To prove such a reality, unfortunately, the daily news is sufficient. How many relationships that began in the best of ways have then turned into toxic relationships, of possession of the other, To love is to respect the other, to seek his or her happiness, to cultivate empathy for his or her feelings, to dispose oneself in the knowledge of a body, a psychology, and a soul that are not our own, and that must be contemplated for the beauty they bear. That is love, and love is beautiful. Lust, on the other hand, makes a mockery of all this: lust plunders, it robs, it consumes in haste, it does not want to listen to the other but only to its own need and pleasure;
“But there is a second reason why lust is a dangerous vice. Among all human pleasures, sexuality has a powerful voice. It involves all the senses; it dwells both in the body and in the psyche, and this is very beautiful;…Sexual pleasure that is a gift from God is undermined by pornography: satisfaction without relationship that can generate forms of addiction. We have to defend love, the love of the heart, of the mind, of the body, pure love in the giving of oneself to the other. And this is the beauty of sexual intercourse.”
In concluding remarks, Francis said, “Winning the battle against lust, against the “objectification” of the other, can be a lifelong endeavour. But the prize of this battle is the most important of all, because it is preserving that beauty that God wrote into His creation when He imagined love between man and woman. … That beauty that makes us believe that building a story together is better than going in search of adventures – there are so many Don Juans out there; building a story together is better than going in search of adventures; cultivating tenderness is better than bowing to the demon of possession – true love does not possess, it gives itself; serving is better than conquering. Because if there is no love, life is sad, it is sad loneliness.”
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Joan's Rome 