1 Thess 4:1–7
Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness.
In today’s reading, St. Paul exhorts us to live in holiness and to aspire to perfection. This is the task that concerns us after having received the grace to know our Lord and to have undertaken to follow Him. It is important that we do not stop, much less turn back, on this path. If we realize that perfection consists in growing in love to attain full union with God, we will understand that each day we are given is an opportunity to make progress. This is what God wants from us, and He gives us everything we need to achieve it.
In this context, St. Paul refers to impurity, which is opposed to holiness. In doing so, he brings to mind a very sensitive issue that we must nevertheless face.
For many people, the proper use of the gift of sexuality is a great challenge. This has been the case since ancient times and is probably even more so today, when provocations in this area permeate almost all of society through the media. However, the commandments do not change simply because it is difficult for human beings to keep them.
St. Paul has no qualms about using the term fornication, which seems to be increasingly difficult for us to pronounce today. It simply refers to sexual acts outside of marriage. These acts do not have God’s blessing; rather, they separate us from Him, from ourselves, and from the other person. In many parts of the world, awareness of the seriousness of this issue has been lost. And if anyone dares to speak about it, they are quickly exposed to sarcastic comments.
What is particularly tragic for us Catholics is that this attitude has even penetrated the Church itself. There is a growing fear of clearly telling the faithful that the Church’s teaching on this very important issue has not changed and that states of life not in harmony with God’s commandments cannot be justified or approved by “pastoral accompaniment” (see Amoris Laetitia).
We can also observe how the approach to and handling of the issue of homosexuality has changed compared to the past. It is apparent that efforts are being made in the highest circles of the Church to consider homosexuality a normal expression of human sexuality and not a grave sin, thus adapting to the mentality of the world. The declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which seeks to allow the blessing of homosexual couples, was described as “blasphemy” by Cardinal Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—and it certainly is.
What abysses are opened here, revealing the gravity of the errors of modernism! Under the influence of the spirit of the world, it is believed that the Church’s practice must be adapted, perhaps even under the erroneous premise that only in this way can dialogue with modern man continue. However, the reality is that, in this way, the Church loses its prophetic voice of correction. A Church that adapts to the world gradually perverts the mission entrusted to it and hides the light that God has given it. It loses its flavor and places itself on the same level as other entities that do not even have a divine mandate.
There is no doubt that it is important to approach people today with prudent pastoral care and not bombard them with God’s commandments as if they were hammer blows. Mercy and the pastoral sensitivity that flows from it are highly desirable and, perhaps, sometimes not sufficiently developed. However, pastoral care can bear fruit only if it begins from the truth and aims to lead people into God’s order. On the other hand, if His commandments are relativized, people are deceived and deprived of the support the Church should give them in this confusing world. This has very serious consequences!
The exhortation in today’s reading to keep your own “body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust” also applies to marriage. Although conjugal pleasures have their place within this framework, the marriage bed should not become a place of unbridled passion. Rather, as the Apostle warns in his Letter to the Ephesians (5:28), “husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.”
Thus, the flower of today’s meditation is to manage the gift of sexuality according to what God has ordained for our state of life and to avoid all forms of impurity.