It's Summer and I'm Shutting Up.

Every once in a while I'll read something that strikes me profoundly.  This time it was not only the words which stroke me as inspirational but also the person whom the words came from.

First read this blog here.

If you took some time to scroll all the way down you'll notice a slew of comments that were encouraging to say the least.  I happen to know this young lady and would like to compliment her post with a post of my own for my fellow brothers in Christ.

Lets start with this one quote to build on:
"God has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman." - Blessed John Paul II

Give it a second... Let it simmer.

When I read that it led me to a serious examination of conscience.  How much of a man have I been in my life towards our sisters in Christ?

Now take a second and think back to the Garden of Eden a little while after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God and ate the fruit from the Tree.

In Genesis 3:11 God asked Adam a pretty straight forward question:

'Have you been eating from the tree I forbade you to eat?'

What was Adam's response? The following verse in Genesis 3:12 tells us Adam's response:

'It was the woman you put with me; she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.'

Going back to the question God asked Adam.  Do you think God, All Powerful and All Knowing, needed Adam to admit his infidelity for Him to know that Adam had been disobedient?  No.  This wasn't an inquiry to his disobedience but an opportunity for repentance, humility and an amendment to do better.

Do you see what just happened?  God asked Adam if HE had been disobedient.  Adam's response?  He passes the buck and blames Eve.  This is what men, Christian and non-Christian, still do with regards to the question of purity and modesty.  We blame our lack of both sometimes on the fact that it's all around us and we are helpless victims to the onslaught of immodest fashions.  We point at the dress, or lack thereof, and ask for help from them yet fail to help ourselves.

Sure as gentlemen we can speak up and start shouting at the rooftops about modesty during these times.  But what do our actions preach?  Are we going to the beach where we know there will be a plethora of flesh?  Do we mortify our sight and even speech from impure things?  Yes, our female counterparts have the duty and power to assist us in our journey to chastity and purity but we are not simply at their disposal.  We too have our own will and have the power to exercise it as we please.

We must train and literally exercise our own will in small acts of mortification.  Prayer, Penance, Fasting and mortification of the senses.  When we see someone dressed immodestly, do we gaze intently, or do we look away and flee from such occasions.  Some of the great saints were so mortified in their sight they only looked up from the floor to gaze upon our Lord in the Eucharist.  Their mortification of the sense of sight was so great some saints could not even tell you what the walls of the very Church they adored looked like since they reserved their eyes only for our Lord.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church #2015 says:
The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes

In the Gospel of Matthew 5:29 we hear:

“If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”

Not to say that we should LITERALLY pluck out our eyes, but rather take upon ourselves a more forward approach to avoid that which leads us to hell.  Fasting and mortification of the other senses (sight, speech, etc.) allow us to practice our 'No' to ourselves.  We give up willingly good and legitimate things not because they are evil but because this practice of mortification strengthens our will against temptations further on which require our firm 'No' in a permanent and definite way.

Our duty is to guard the dignity of our sisters in Christ, but the easiest way to strip them of that dignity within ourselves is to look at them as just empty vessels of flesh.  As Christians it's more than having a sense of respect for our sisters.  It's having a deep charity for them who have immortal souls and bear the very Image and Likeness of God.

Where do we start?  By praying for them.  Let all our endeavors begin with our Lord in the Eucharist and let all our endeavors end with us practicing faithful what we believe and teach.  For as we know and as St. Francis of Assisi so beautifully put it, "Words tickle but Actions Thunder."

+AMDG