Lust

For some reason I am not often drawn to lust any more. I don't know if this is normal. I am now thirty eight years old. I became religious when I was twenty six. Then I started fighting temptations to lust instead of entertaining them. Now it is no longer an issue. I am not sure why. I could say, my mental condition and the medicine I take could contribute to it. The lack of practice. Addictions are easier to avoid as time goes on. When one breaks a habit. But I wonder because I see people who are always fighting such temptations and even see things such as a story of a young priest asking an old priest when the temptations to desire young women will end and the old priest tells the young one "I will tell you when they end if that ever happens." I still love women, but for some reason I do not lust after them or think of them in a lustful way.

I say this because while I was waiting for the pizza man to give me my pizza I saw a young black woman wearing a face mask who had a nice looking body and I was drawn a little bit towards the beginning of a temptation towards lust. She was wearing a dress and had slippers on her feet and was gabbing on the telephone. It was surprising because it does not often happen to me anymore so I noted it. Then I got my pizza and went home. Our family had pizza for dinner tonight as we do every Friday.

But there is a person who seems to have problems with lust. He can not get his head around the idea of Christian purity considering how man is naturally inclined to lust. As if God could not demand purity if he creates us with base instincts that make purity difficult. And the idea that procreation is necessary for the perpetuation of the human race contradicts this for him. He once admitted to being addicted to lust and masturbation, even joining some sort of masturbators anonymous, or perhaps it was sex addicts anonymous, based on AA, where he went to meetings and they talk about their addictions to sins of lust in hopes of overcoming them. This program is not religious but is secular. I guess it is like "no-fap". The person is not a Catholic, though he has tried various forms of Christianity including Catholicism in the past. I could advise him if he were interested. I wonder if in his time in Catholicism, if he ever had the true faith (the Christian beliefs he expressed in the time I knew him were not orthodox Catholic ones) and if he did if he was ever able to stay in the state of grace for a prolonged period of time, or if he was one of those Catholics who goes from week to week, always confessing and always falling back into the same sins soon after, in this case lust. I imagine he was one of these. He does not seem like the type to live in sin and not receive the sacraments at all, or worse, to live in sin but still take Communion. But it is interesting seeing him try to think about religion and God in his state. I wonder if his mind is clouded by his sins which keep him far from God or if God is near him in spite of his sins. We are not friends and have never interacted much, though I did rebuke him once for his beliefs, but I see him talking sometimes and sometimes think of him. He seems like he is politically correct, as far as Christians go, and not a right-wing "nutter." Peace be upon him. In talking about him I do not want to seem like I am looking down on him or am better than him, only that I do not habitually fall into the same sins that he fall into, by the grace of God. Who knows, hopefully he does not anymore either, and has overcome such urges, though I believe he is not now Catholic so he presumably does not have the grace of God, not being invincibly ignorant, if such exemptions do exist.

I don't know. I have a friend from Church who I will not name who told me he struggles with looking at pornography and masturbating, so I told him about the Three Hail Marys devotion for purity. He started praying it, but I have not seen him during this lock-down so I do not know how his struggle is going. I imagine if he is of good will it is going well as the devotion helped me very much and I imagine the Blessed Mother is giving her Christians extra graces to avoid sin now that confession is not easily available because of the lock-down. I am glad this vice is easy for me to avoid as it seems to cause so much trouble in the world and it is good because as an imbecile I do not and will never be able to have a lawful outlet for feelings of lust in a wife (though it is also a sin to lust after one's own wife, but they say it can help assuage concupiscence). I know that the world pushes all sorts of lust at us all the time and wants us to indulge in them so that we will be surely be damned. But I wonder how frequent it is for Catholics to fall into such sins. Am I uncommon in not often falling in to them? Or am I normal? I see that I could more easily fall into sins of drunkenness than into lust, but how goes everyone else? I have no idea. I imagine most of my friends from Church and the Christians I know on the computer are relatively pure and pious. But there are rumors and stories of impurity being everywhere, outside of my bedroom, even in the Church where I imagine things and persons are relatively pure of heart.