Those of you who come to daily Mass often know I like to
recommend books for your personal study.
Today I would like to encourage you to read Matt Fradd’s Delivered. It contains around ten inspiring stories about men and women
who have brought their pornography addiction into the light and have worked to
overcome it through the grace of Christ.
You
might be thinking, “Fr. Ben, why would you bring up this topic on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon?” Well, for three reasons.
First,
Christ speaks about the bondage of sin: “Amen,
amen, I say to you,
everyone
who commits sin is a slave of sin,” and pornography is an all
too common in our society. Second,
this theme dovetails nicely with Kevin’s [our youth minister] session on Theology of the Body right after
Mass. Third, I was struck that in
most of the stories shared in Delivered none of these individuals (many of whom
were faithful Catholics or Christians) ever
heard a homily about pornography.
This hit me hard—if a priest isn’t speaking about porn, who is?
Even
if pornography is not a problem in your life, it affects us all. The pornography industry is a
multi-billion (with a B) industry.
This industry makes $3,075 every second. Every second. It would take me a month and a half to make this much
money. Every year one million
children are abducted into the sex-trafficking industry. Think about that…our precious young
ones are being used and abused for adults’ devious pleasure. By the time students move from
elementary to junior high, many of our children have already been exposed to
pornography, especially through the internet on their computer or phone. Twenty years ago, someone had to find a
stash or intentionally buy a magazine to look at porn. Now it is just a mouse click away.
If
you are facing a struggle with pornography, know that you are not alone and
that Christ’s freedom is readily available for you. The first thing you should do if this is your cross is to come
to Confession! Experience Christ’s
mercy as you seek to be rid of this stronghold. Additionally, you will need the support of others in the
journey to freedom. Like any other
addiction, you can’t face this alone and you need God and others supporting you
on the way.
And
anyone working with our young people ought to be aware of the scourge of
pornography. The fact is our
students are often exposed to porn at a younger and younger age. We must open lines of communication to warn
about its dangers and show that pornography reveals too little (not too much)
of the human body. Porn reduces the
person to parts and we must help form our young people to correctly see the
beauty and wonder of the human body.
Delivered is an inspirational—if difficult—read. Whether or not pornography is a direct part
of your life I recommend it to learn more about this scourge and experience
ways several men and women have found freedom in Christ from a stronghold of
sin. And this is inspiring
regardless of what your habitual sin is.
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