Lusting over beauty?

[Paul_theApostle]

I met a girl some years ago and we became friends,to my eyes she was extremely beautiful physically,i told her i have never seen anything more beautiful in my life and it was true

After a while we didnt see eachother anymore ,but i was still attracted to her and still am,i used to tell the Priest who knew us how i was missing her and hurting and he would say that i cant possess her or anything,but i didnt understand him.

Yesterday i read another thread and post here where someone spoke about Lusting after someones beauty and wanting to possess that person,

This sounded like what could be happening to me and i also read in Proverbs that it says not to Lust after a womans beauty,

Its taking a long time to get over this girl because im so captivated by her looks ,but i do need to move on and forget her,but havnt been able to

Does anyone think lusting after her beauty could be the problem?
What should i pray?

 

[underacloud]

Does anyone think lusting after her beauty could be the problem?

I think you know the answer…in fact, you’ve already answered your own question…

i do need to move on and forget her

What should i pray?

Pray for the grace to see her as a person, not an object. Pray for the grace to understand that her physical beauty is not something you should focus on, and certainly not something to be hurting over.

You speak of hurt as though you lost something, but her beauty was never yours to possess to begin with.

 

[Paul_theApostle]

.

You speak of hurt as though you lost something, but her beauty was never yours to possess to begin with.

I did love her for who she was also and i lost her friendship and lost the oppurtunity to get closer and perhaps be together,
we went to the same church together but she disapeared and never came back

I already feel happier and and a bit more free from what ive learned about wanting to possess this beauty and the misery that has been over me from losing or being rejected from her .

'The truth shall set you free"

 

[ChibiViolet]

If you’re willfully engaging in impure fantasies about her or you are only thinking about her because of the way it makes you feel sexually than you are lusting.

 

[loro]

Hi, it seems like this topic is something I also know from my own experience, that’s why I’m writing.

I think surely lusting is sinful, and may be a problem, but the most important issue here is how one approaches the whole situation. In the past I fell in love in a girl, who dumped me later. After that I was doing everything to get her back. Nothing was working. This was totally sick. If Jesus didn’t help me I’d probably have dropped my studies because of was was going on (long story).

What I’ve learnt was that God has got a plan for us. If we want to have a girl in our lives, He will give her to us in an appropriate moment - we should just follow His ways, and everything will turn out fine. I do my best to hold on to this mindset, and - believe me, things didn’t work out with a few girls since then, but I would think - ok, that means that’s how it was meant to be. I know that at the moment it might seem to you like this girl was the only possible candidate. But I really know from experience, that what we think is good for us, is nothing compared to the good that happens when we let God lead us.

So I’d say trust Jesus, and ask Him to lead you in your life.
God bless you.

 

[Fulcrum]

It kind of helps that the female is physically appealing since it is a survival instinct. Your survival instinct is tied to your heart. What I don’t get is why do you feel your desire for her is so abysmally lacking in mystery. Either you do not understand the nature of your feelings or you have a spiritual problem. I would not leap to the latter conclusion, however. It would be politically correct to say your interest in her is lustful. Have you considered the possibility that you were in love with her and it just so happens that she is physically stunning? Of course you are going to lament. Do you seek a lobotomy? Do you seek a pill to take the pain away?

No lusting after her beauty is not the problem. Is there anything about her other than her physical beauty that was appealing to you? You wrote, “we became friends”. You have been leading the reader to a conclusion. Perhaps you are unwilling to face up to something. Was it a real friendship? Are you that shallow?

Let’s get back to proverbs. What happens to people when, what is that rude word for it? becomes everything? That is the place you are not supposed to go. Such people have no regrets. Is that you? What you wrote, “i used to tell the Priest who knew us how i was missing her and hurting …” If that was all she was to you it wouldn’t have lasted, but it would not torment you. She would have been a conquest. On the other hand, you are tormented. This suggests that you were honorable. If you were honorable, that makes you a good Catholic and there is really nothing for you to worry about. Regrets come with the territory. It is a sign that you failed to Sin.

There is more than one way to Sin, however. Perhaps you didn’t realize how important she was to you and you assumed that what you felt was lust. From the film “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Do you want the moon Mary?” Perhaps what you are wondering is whether or not you should have married her. George Baily had to struggle with it. Other times, it just wasn’t meant and God has other plans for you. It is also possible that she was no good and you knew it.

There are a lot of possibilities. You only seem to be exploring one. Do you have any reason to believe that she did not want you or she would not have made a good wife? These are the sort of questions you should be asking.

In this your Sin becomes clear. Your Sin is not lust, it is not asking the right questions.

 

[wynnejj]

Obsession is just a bad habit taken to an addiction level. Self control is difficult unless you find alternative good energy activities. You must condition yourself to recognize the earliest points of wandering into obsessive thoughts, and get up and do something else that is a good personal goal. I’d say go out and date more to get a different perspective, but that often is not as easily done as said as time goes on and the crop of eligible ladies in your age group have married. It’s still a good idea, but with one precaution that you don’t transfer your obsession to another. Of course, love in the early stages is always some form of obsession but, it requires a certain amount of reserve and knowing when you’ve had enough for the day. Just like you can’t drink & drive, it is difficult to be obsessed by love and give proper attention to your daily duties. Treat it like an addiction that needs new habits. You seek temperance as the middle ground between obsession and prohibition.

 

[Fulcrum]

Christ suffered, yet was without Sin. Hence, the absence of Sin does not imply an absence of suffering.

 

[Fulcrum]

I found the article on concupiscence in the NewAdvent Catholic Encyclopedia insightful.

newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm

In its widest acceptation, concupiscence is any yearning of the soul for good; in its strict and specific acceptation, a desire of the lower appetite contrary to reason. To understand how the sensuous and the rational appetite can be opposed, it should be borne in mind that their natural objects are altogether different. The object of the former is the gratification of the senses; the object of the latter is the good of the entire human nature and consists in the subordination of reason to God, its supreme good and ultimate end. But the lower appetite is of itself unrestrained, so as to pursue sensuous gratifications independently of the understanding and without regard to the good of the higher faculties. Hence desires contrary to the real good and order of reason may, and often do, rise in it, previous to the attention of the mind, and once risen, dispose the bodily organs to the pursuit and solicit the will to consent, while they more or less hinder reason from considering their lawfulness or unlawfulness. This is concupiscence in its strict and specific sense. As long, however, as deliberation is not completely impeded, the rational will is able to resist such desires and withhold consent, though it be not capable of crushing the effects they produce in the body, and though its freedom and dominion be to some extent diminished. If, in fact, the will resists, a struggle ensues, the sensuous appetite rebelliously demanding its gratification, reason, on the contrary, clinging to its own spiritual interests and asserting it control. …

From the explanation given, it is plain that the opposition between appetite and reason is natural in man, and that, though it be an imperfection, it is not a corruption of human nature. …

A direct assault is spiritually dangerous because it will diminish the heart. In “John 9” I wrote, “For goodness sake we are called to make sacrifices. If it is a matter of conscience, what rational cause do we have not to give it a botox treatment? and render ourselves numb … , we are not inanimate objects. … To deny the more is to deny God …” The matter must be approached indirectly. The feeling a man has for a woman is not a corruption.