Dads be sure you are living a pure life.
Any allowance for the sins of lust must be eradicated.
Your sons and daughters are watching, your God is watching, and, yes, your heart continues to be formed.
Did I already write about the man who sat next to me telling me casually about how, at the age of 13 or 14, he had stumbled upon his father's stash of pornography?
I stopped him from skimming over this statement as if it was no big deal. I told him it certainly was a huge deal! No mistake about it.
I asked something like: "So at that impressionable and very critical time of development you added the habit of looking at porn as something that a man (your father) does? He said, "yeah, I guess so."
And did I already tell you this man was in the process of leaving his wife and children because they "got in the way" of the lifestyle he wanted? He chose to leave his family to pursue his addiction to this sin.
I tell the teens I speak to (clasping my two hands together) "Here is authentic manhood and here is purity. The two are always together. If they are not yet together, the heart of a real man is making every effort to bring them together. There is no in between. Toss out the gazillion lies you've heard from our sex-hyped media and walk in the direction of purity.
Teen boys listen up: Chances are you are being bombarded with images coming over your phone, the web, TV, movies, etc. If you think looking at porn somehow means your are becoming more of a man; think again. Porn makes men sick one of two ways. It ether makes them sick because they are addicted to it; or it makes them sick because they recognize it for the filth it is."
For the rest of the Lenten season, I invite you to pray each of the weekly meditations each day. If you cannot do ten minutes then do five or two - but pray for strength and grace to help you in your effort to allow your heart to continue forming.
It can be done. Don't give up. What you do in the midst of temptation matters a great deal. Lead by example - and if you don't have any sons or daughters, lead by example for those who suffer because their father chose sin over family.
I'm praying for miracles in the lives of those who were never given a solid example of how to walk in purity.
1 comment:
I too was exposed to pornography along with most of the other young boys in my neighborhood. We were between the ages of 7 and 10. So some of us were very young and we had no clues what sex was nor the proper words, we did have the photos though. This set me up for a distorted awareness of sex called properly lust. I caused me a great deal of pain and hurt all of my relationships with girls and young women as I burned to fulfill the lust before marriage and before establishing emotional intimacy. It took a long time before I heard a man deal honestly with masturbation and encourage us to purity.
I can tell you that distortions of so called soft porn like Playboy do set young men off on the wrong relationships to them selves and others in sexuality. The only way to effective deal with lust is to call it what it is and go in prayer to Jesus and participate in the sacrament of reconciliation. I did not have to become chaste before I was able to receive the grace of confession. It is medicine for the journey to become holy.
Don't wait just go tell father what you are involved with and get the grace you need in you battle for control of your eyes and emotions.
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