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.

So My Life Is Happy Now . . .

So My Life Is Happy Now. I am being bad today. I am having some beer. For the quarantine, to relieve stress I am indulging in alcohol once or twice a week. It is a preventative measure. I have been happy. You know how my life has been. I have my prayers and my walks and dinner and then to bed. I give a tithe of my time to the good God. Since I got out of the hospital in late July I have been pious for me. And very happy. I am happy for my family. But life is frightening. I worry that the devil has got me. That my soul is lost because of my sins. That I have no hope. But they say to "Never despair of God's Mercy." Witchcraft. But I never signed anything in my blood. Mrs. Greenblood was her name.

I was in the car with my father and "Like a Rolling Stone" was playing and when he squealed out "As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes And say do you want to make a deal" and I thought that was Dylan singing about how he sold his soul to the devil for fame and fortune and I wondered if my fate was the same as Dylan's. I do believe that most people who are famous have made deals with the devil. That is the price you pay to make it big. Even to make it little. I have made nothing. My life is very simple for American standards, though it is above the level of the homeless man. I have no resources, but no desires. So for all it is I am content. Mrs. Greenblood. Even the homeless man can look up at the sky, listen to the songbirds, and watch the seagulls, and the bees and the butterflies are coming soon. Such beauty is given to all, even in the big city. Acetylene. To cast oneself into the sea to drown at twelve noon on one's thirty-third birthday.

I can understand suicide. If one thinks one is damned and cannot stop sinning. If one is in despair, then suicide will end the length of ones' sins. So that if one ends it the eternal suffering will be less than if one lived a full length of days and continued to sin. But to face that eternity. Even if it would be better to end it than to live. A few years of alcoholism seem better than facing hell just right now even if overall the suffering would be far less.

There must be a lot of people in despair. I wonder. I fear I am among them, but I like piety and thinking about God. Is that all a ruse? Am I among the damned as well? As I feared when listening to Dylan's song? I have little attachment to sin. I do not lust. I could give up the little pleasure of a bit of beer if I had to and I do not drink to drunkenness. I am content. If I do go to hell, I want to love God a little now before I am damned and have a little happiness in my piety for a while. I have no doubts, thought I wrote about doubts in my stories. Everything is real and Jesus lives. Angels and demons. And those who have made a deal. But one can repent. I guess a lot of people believe but hate God so much that they do not want to repent. They would rather be with the devil and suffer than love God in heaven and be happy. The witches. Am I a witch then? My brother once said to his friend "we ruled the world". I don't want to rule the world. I only want to be one of Gemma's thousand friends in heaven. And perhaps know the good God. I cannot imagine that. I can imagine being friends with a beautiful girl.

The most beautiful living girl alive who I know is the beautiful Cecilia. I speak about how most people who I see look ugly as sin, but Cecilia looks beautiful as innocence. Remember how my delusion and the first thing that came to me as part of my craziness was the thought that I could see people's sin and that everyone was a horrible sinner. I hope she finds a good husband and lives a happy life and goes to heaven when she dies. And then there is the lovely Helena who plays the organ. I miss going to Church. It has been a month or so. I told Terry about my little devotion. The one I pray for me and my two friends who I love. The Hail Marys. Just a short post. God Bless You. I may purchase an Icon of St. Mary of Egypt to pray before. She is an important saint to me. Babylon.

Fasting Again

I am fasting again. So far it is going well. I will be fasting until Easter. The plan is to eat one meal a day at night, usually rice and lentils with an egg except for Friday and Sunday. Preferably no meat, but some dairy. I have been at it for a week and five days and I have lost five pounds. In my experience I should lose two pounds a week until I stop. The last time I did this I got so skinny everyone told me I was too skinny, so now I plan on not going too far. I was a glutton since I got free last time so now I want to tighten my belt. I have no wife to please. It is for myself and I guess for God. To have a strong will and not be a glutton. Eating is not ugly like sex, but too much is too much. I think that any eating above and beyond the level of sustenance and hospitality must be a form of gluttony, however mild. When people are starving in Africa so they say, how dare you feast on fried fish and chips or mutton. I bought another bag of lentils today.

I have been drinking coffee. More than I should because I am not eating. The plan is to cut it down to just a little. And I have been drinking diet soda which I also want to cut down if not eliminate. I will be having beer on Fat Tuesday but otherwise I will not be drinking any wine or beer. My father got a bottle of rum from work and I am the only drinker in the house, but that is too much. I will not be mixing rum with my diet sodas while I am fasting.

So far I have been having a little bit of food outside of my one meal. Today I had a small piece of cake, and on other days I have had some bread. But the hunger pains are going away. For some reason the more I eat, the more hungry I get. And now less than two weeks into fasting the hunger has gone away. The demons of my belly must be afraid of me or something.

The demons of the belly. The devils haven't bothered me much lately except that soon after I got out of the hospital I had strange temptations for a while which I discovered were from the devils and they have left me since they were discovered. The devils work in funny ways. Demons of alcohol are strong, but they do not last very long for me. Demons of tobacco were stronger but they only lasted for a week or so. Demons of sexuality are the strongest and they fought really really hard against me. But now I only face common demons of food and drink and normal living. My fasting is to fight these common demons. I still have the demons of coffee and diet soda. I plan on getting rid of the diet soda demons. And the coffee demons need to be put in their place. But can one conquer the demons completely and live a life of no sensuality at all when none of one's actions are influenced by the demons. They say that when people willingly sin the demons do not bother them but when one tries to stop sinning then the demons come out in force and fight really really hard to maintain control.

I am a common person who is feeble-minded. But I want to be good. I have been so bad. But now I want to be good. I do not want to be a plaything of the demons any longer. Their favorite corn-cob pipe.

I sometimes have desires to take up smoking again. My preference would be out of a corn-cob pipe because as a youth when I was a new smoker it gave me more pleasure than smoking in any other way. I would take the smoke into my mouth taste it with my tongue like good whiskey, and then blow it out of my mouth. My mouth would absorb the smoke and the nicotine and it would make me feel very very happy. It was a happy drug. Other methods of tobacco usage were addictive but they did not give me the same pleasure. So if I took up the vice again it would be in that way. But if I ever did that my parents would get angry and it would be introducing the old demons into my life, the tobacco demons. I used to roll really good cigarettes. After the corn-cob pipe, I preferred hand-rolled cigarettes without filters, that I would roll and smoke like candy. I may get lung cancer even after quitting. And if I bought a pack it would be Kamel Reds or some other variety of Camels. Cohiba cigarettes were better but I only smoked them once because at the time I smoked they were illegal in America. But that is another form of gluttony. It must be a vice.

So pray for me that I kick the demons of diet soda and coffee to the dust and live demon free. I am doing well for a schizophrenic out of the hospital. There is no demon fire in me like there once was so long ago. I have peace even though my life is meaningless in the eyes of the world and I am alone without a wife. Girls are so very beautiful to me even though I am no longer as much of a slave to the demons of lust as I used to be. There are some saints who never looked at a woman's face in their entire lives, even their mother's for the sake of modesty. I am not like that. I look at women's faces and adore their beauty. There are paintings of beautiful women in Churches. Are they not meant to be looked at?

For what it's worth I have been writing about demons. Fasting to fight them. I wish I were pure of heart.

A Mummy

Years ago I came across a blog that was by a Mexican man who became a traditional Catholic and went to the seminary in La Reja for a while, was never ordained, and now he is no longer a traditional Catholic but he still seems to still have respect for them (I could say us). I used to read his blog and there was one post that I remembered as being a great post.

It was about a popular-devotion among Catholics in South America. Apparently there was a young boy who died and his corpse became mummified somehow. His skin was dry and discolered and he looked like some sort of monkey. For some reason he was never buried, or if he was buried he was exhumed. The laywomen took his body and venerated him as if he were a saint. They put his body in Churches, put beautiful clothes on him like the Infant Jesus of Prague and prayed to him for his intercession. There must have been miracles, for otherwise why would the pious women pray and the devotion grow? This devotion to the mummified young boy became popular among the people, they would march the mummified body with his ornate dress into Churches and have services there.

One day as this devotion was going on in a Catholic Church, the Bishop walked by and was surprised to see a large crowd gathered together in one of his Churches because nobody ever goes to Church anymore in his diocese. He went in and saw the large group of women venerating what looked like an old shriveled up monkey on the altar and he was scandalized. He made it his mission to ban the devotion from his Churches and try to stamp it out. He failed. The lay devotion was more popular than the Bishop and the devotion went on, now underground and persecuted. Soon after, the Bishop died in a car crash and the women saw it a sign of the intercession of the monkey boy as retaliation for trying to have the devotion banned and it served as a warning for the new Bishop to not oppose the cult of the mummified boy. And it went on. I hope it continues to this day. I would love to see this devotion; it is in South America, I do not remember which country. I would rather go to such a Church for such a devotion than go to the Novus Ordo Mass.

So I rediscovered this blog after so many years and started reading it. For a while it was made private and as I was not invited I could no longer read it and forgot about it. It is called Reditus and the blogger says his name is Arturo Vasquez.

A Reason To Live

What is a reason to live? My only answer is eternity. I do not know what to say to other people though. I am content living the way I live and I am happy. So if there is no eternity I am better off living how I live anyway if happiness is the goal (and that seems to be the common goal if eternity is denied. Though some have come to the conclusion that all that matters is pain and the point of life is to suffer as much pain as possible (or at least as one can bear). Hurt). When I used to seek pleasure I was always miserable when I attained it and also when I lacked it, so that was not the way for me. I am content living peacefully in a small way. As an insignificant nobody. I am not on the street though. If I were on the street it might make me miserable. But it has not yet come to that. I am calm and am not being tortured. I do not yet know how to be happy while being tortured, I only know I am happy at rest.

Sometimes I think how my life would be better if I had a wife. But I know that I am not capable of that so it is better not to worry about it. Be at peace with silence. I feel at peace with the world, with God, with everything. I feel a great joy looking at the birds and looking at the clouds (for I remember a time when the clouds were angry at me) though the sensual pleasure is not as great. Pleasure is a momentary rush which ebbs and flows, but joy and peace are lasting. And significant. I can not live for pleasure like the rats in the cage. That is madness, but I can live for joy.

I want to be like a little child, before he has lost his innocence. I try. I have done so many bad things, but now I try to be good. I am as innocent as a guilty man can be. The blood on my hands is mingled with the blood of Christ. My blood-stained hands. The one stains, the other cleans. Like bleach. I do not want to sound arrogant. I am such a backward person. My thoughts belong at least a hundred and fifty years ago, but could only exist in the age of the internet. I am a man of the twenty-first century and a man of the fourth century at the same time. I told my father tonight that if I was not crazy I would want to join a monastery. This was after telling my father that I had just read an article and if what was in it was true that Thomas Merton was a bad monk and that now I did not want to read Seven Story Mountain, the book that he got me and my father told me that I was taking it too serious (as if I was crazy for judging a man on his sexual morals and his treatment of his fellow monks, as if to say all men are sexual and moral perverts).

Is everyone as perverse as they seem? I know I was, but is everyone really? I read a study that said that ninety-eight percent of grown men watch pornography (in the first world, or perhaps just in America). Is that true? That includes those in relationships and marriages. Am I alone like a lamb bleating in the desert for his keeper? Sometimes the mother come. And sometimes the wolf. I cry out. He sayeth "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep: And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me. As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep." I think good of everyone, but I fear that everyone else is either a goat or a wolf. Are you a wolf? I know we are meant to be as wise as serpents, but we are also meant to be as simple as doves, to become like little children. Are little children wise? They know nothing, but cry out "Abba". Father. I do not think dirty thoughts. My mind is clean. I hope everyone is like this, but I come across so much filth in the world. As Dostoevsky wrote in his greatest novel, Alyosha was pure and innocent and was afraid of dirty talk and the little schoolboys (children of eight or nine) learned this and would talk dirty around him and when he would cover his ears they would force his hands down and shout obscenities into his ears. I am like Alyosha, honestly, except I have more knowledge of the filth that so offended his pure ears. As far as I know when I was a child, my mother never held me up to an icon of the Theotokos as my father was tormenting her and in a mix of hope and despair prayed to her and asked her to protect me. The crazy saint. I spend most of my time thinking about the good God and the faith and religious things. But sometimes I go out of the cloister and into the world. And I read about the world and about politics. I am as far to the right socially as nearly anyone, but I despise libertarian economics as well as communism, so I do not know exactly where I stand economically as far as politics go. But I think social issues are more important, with abortion at the top, so I would vote for Republican candidates as being more against abortion as the lesser of two evils. But when I read about politics I am far too often scandalized. People are filthy. The talk about sexual perversions is everywhere and seen as normal. It is more common to find a woman of age who is into BDSM than one who admits to being a virgin. I know I am not a virgin, but that was because I was raised as a child of unbelief and only came to take religion seriously in my mid-twenties after some time stewing in a mess of perversions. So I guess I should lower my standards from a virgin, to a woman who is no longer a whore or a sexual pervert.

Robert at The Rose of Paracelsus posted a quote from a famous moral theology manual which tries to normalize sodomy and say it is not sinful as long as . . . you can guess, but it is literally filthy. He did not know at the time of making the post that I was aware of that quote and it is of everything that I have ever read from anyone in the Church who was not commonly considered a heretic, the most disgusting and vile thing I have ever read and the thing I am disgusted by more than any other teaching of any commonly respected theologian who ever lived. And a lot of priests read that and accept it as good and true and moral (including sedevacantists!) There are some scandalous things taught be theologians but that is the worst I am aware of (Other theologians teach differently but this man was respected). It makes me want to retreat into a bubble and read only about the desert fathers who would not as much as look at a woman fully clothed. Men who I am sure are in heaven, rather than think about men who endorse "imperfect sodomy" as not sodomy, and not even a sin. Men who if I had to guess would say they are in the other place.

I am not going to call all men to believe. I call on them, but I understand if they do not. But I will call all men to live their lives as if they did believe, especially when it comes to seeking sensual pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. I only know from my own life. But seeking sensual pleasure was for me the greatest cause of anxiety and misery in my life and rejecting pleasure and learning to live without it has caused the opposite, a lasting peace. It has come to the point where the more sensual pleasure I avoid, the more peace I have. There are two components of peace working in my life. The belief that I am at peace with God, through repentance and confession and penance, which one can accept or reject (I wish all to accept it, but I know that many will reject it as mindless superstition). And the end of the slavery to sensual pleasure, which I believe will give many a real peace, even if they are not Christians. Most children are happy unless they are abused, and when they become more corrupted they become more miserable. The more they learn of sin the more unhappy they get. I believe the baptized are at peace with God but the unbaptized are also happier than they become when their innocence is lost. So I advise all men to try to regain that innocence. One can not unlearn what one has learned about sin, but one can end its mastery over one's soul. One can end the addiction. Every sensual pleasure is a drug and once it is kicked one will be happier without it that with it. The lack of all sensual pleasure paradoxically creates the greatest joy in the soul. I speak of pleasure as sensual delight. And with the suppression of sensual pleasure comes a greater spiritual pleasure which is not as high at a peak but sustained and persistent. And one can move the perverse things that one has learned from the front and center of one's mind and instead of them being the reason for one's living, instead make them silly shameful things that one used to do but has grown wiser than.

I tell myself I want to learn how to be happy when I suffer and am in pain. I do not have enough practice. I am not being abused and I am not ill, so I do not know how to practice suffering. I do not want to be violent to my own body. The most I have done is fasting. I am not fasting now, but I plan to take it up heavily for Lent this year. One meal and one cup of coffee would be a good goal. I would probably have to keep myself going with tea though, at least at first.

But what is a reason to live? God alone is all that matters to me. That is one thing I cannot overcome. All that matters in the end is God. My weakness is that I cannot imagine a world without God. I can imagine different Gods and different religions, but I cannot imagine no God. And with a God, I cannot get around the immortality of the soul. Sentience must be paired with immortality, otherwise it is a cruel joke or a complete waste of time. If one might think that eternal damnation is unfair, a thought which I can understand, I cannot but think that it is necessary for the world to have any purpose. Somehow in the mind of God it was acceptable to let many souls fall into eternal hellfire. I believe this, though I am not at the point where I do not wish that it were not so.

As frightening as the reality of hell is, as happy as the thought of heaven is. To imagine unending bliss without any more suffering. A crown of glory given to those who carry their cross. One can not speak much about heaven without sounding presumptuous or shallow. But the thought of it brings joy to the soul. If we have the pleasure of the joy of watching the sparrows chatter or the mourning doves coo, imagine if we have these joys and greater joys that never end but only increase as the time goes by and every moment of one's life is seen as a stepping stone towards such joy. Not pleasure, but joy. I see heaven as an eternity of joy and not an eternity of pleasure. If this makes sense, perhaps there will be pleasure as well, but the central happiness is joy. I think many see heaven as eternal pleasure, as if it is sleeping with a new beautiful virgin every night forever and ever. If there is anything as shallow and dirty as sexual intercourse in heaven I will be slightly disappointed. For if I were in heaven I would prefer to touch a woman's hand and look into her eyes and smile and that is enough. To gaze at the pure soul of Gemma for just a moment, or forever and ever, with the beauty of God in her face, no less than to look at the face of God himself. I can not speak of heaven. It is not filthy, it is the smile of a virgin, not the sighs of a fallen whore. Of what use is a virgin if all she is for is the destruction of her virginity?

There is someone who has lost her will to live. I have nothing to say to her. I do not know what to say. I would advise her to enter into the great silence. Into the great silence. And leave the world behind. There is no beauty left in the world. It is fallen. The only beauty left does not belong to the world as of herself, but is only that within the world that points to God. The beauty is the beauty of God Himself and how he is reflected in His creatures.

What does one see when one adores the Blessed Sacrament. One sees a little bread. But in the quiet of the night God is truly there looking back at you from the monstrance and if you ask Him to help you He will help you transform into a better person. He will give you peace, even in your suffering. Maybe I speak too broadly, I can only speak of myself. I would spend hours a day looking at Jesus if I could. Saying prayers and asking him what I always ask of him "Oh Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine heart". I do not know if I am sounding arrogant. I want to be innocent. Jesus was innocent and more pure than snow, yet He knew everything there is to know of sin, but was still innocent. I know a little, and the Lord knows I know only a little. As wicked as I was, when I venture out into the world I see depravity that makes my own depravity seem tame. But I sound like I think I am better than other people. What is one to do? If one believes one is at peace with God? What of others who do not share your religion and are therefore not at peace with God? His blood. Sprinkle it upon us and upon our children.

I am a glutton. I eat too much food and drink too much coffee. It is not making me unhappy, but I would be better off if I were more penitent. I may not have the will until Lent. I should go back to my rice and lentil diet with one egg. That would be a good way to live. I am looking forward to Lent. I want to be good. And temperance makes me happier, even though all men are drawn to be slaves to their desires. So that is my reason to live.

Stations of the Cross

What makes you happy? Do you have happiness or only relief? When I was younger I never had happiness, but I only had relief. I feel more happiness now. I feel happy. I have no troubles in the immediate present. I have no great things, but I am content. I am taken care of. I will never amount to anything but in my own little world I am happy.

Everything in my life used to be a series of addictions. But now I am getting better. I am trying not to eat again to take over that impulse. I want to have no masters and get to the point where I could voluntarily starve myself to death and refuse food even to the point of death. Not that I ever would kill myself. But to be as much of a master over my self as I can be. Of course God is my master. Even the wicked have God as their master as the devil is a slave of God though unwilling.

So I am fasting again. For real. As I did before. So if it goes well I will be losing weight again. It will make me happier if it is as it was before.

I am looking forward to a book I will be buying from Angelus Press. A bunch of different stations of the cross. I started praying them every day. It is good for me. I go to Church and pray. I try not to be noticed. But I have a nosy neighbor who is always watching me. I like her but I feel odd around her. She knows I like to pray. She talks to me about it. She asked me why I don't have a girlfriend. I told her I am looking for one, which is kind of true, but I know is very unlikely. I told her it was hard to find one and she said really? And I said, a good one.

A good one.

I do not have very strong passions any more. I think it is good. I am getting older.