Inpure Thoughts

[Antrim]

A couple is going together. they are living chaste lives in every way. The church teaches that we can not have impure thoughts even about the person we are going to marry. With everything spelled out as to the teachings of the catholic church on sex in marriage with nothing left to the imagination and from what I understand it is encouraged in Pre Cana that the couple talk abot sex. How can you not have these thoughts and what to we do about it?
I wouild like to add that for a Widow and Widower it is harder since they know more.

Antrim

 

[Crown_of_Thorns]

I don’t think it is a sin to think about sex per se. Otherwise priests could not prepare engaged couples for the sacrament, unmarried teachers could not offer sex ed. etc. The problem is when lust kicks in, which is the disordered use of the mind to think about see. See CCC 2351.

“2350 Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in chastity.”

These are the bounds within which an engaged couple should remain. They may, of course, talk about sex as part of discovering one another, and they should probably talk frankly and openly as part of their preparation for marriage. But what they may not do is go beyond this to the point where they are deriving disordered pleasure from sexuality before marriage.

 

[Michael1985]

Thinking about sex is neutral, it can be good or bad. If you think about sex as something that draws to married people created in the iamge and likeness of God together and that it may bring life into the world (this lives out the words “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance”. Then this is good and I would encourage it.

If it becomes about how much pleasure can we get out of the other person and using the other person for ourselves then it becomes selfish and sinful.