Modesty According to Who? (about Sin of Lust)

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I’d like to add H0 to the discussion so that you all can see better what we will be doing in this thread. We will be checking the common assumptions that is surrounding the sin of Lust. you can give any comment or pick and choose anything. I will read them all although I may not give comment to all of your postings.

The above posting I assume that “there is relationship between Modesty and the Sin of Lust”

But we can also assume that there isn’t any relation between the two :

Let’s see these two scenarios :

scenario 1.
An old lady put on a sexy blouse and a tiny shorty short.
Q: Do you think men would lust for her?

scenario 2.
The same blouse and short, but the lady is young sexy and beautiful
Q: Do you think men would lust for her?

If the answer for scenario1 is NO but YES for scenario2, while the sexy blouse and tiny shorty short they are wearing are the same, can we see that the reason for lust may not necessarily be the dress?

With God’s blessings let’s crack the code of LUST so we are slave no more !
If lust is eliminated, humanity will die out within a generation.
 
The thing is, if any society HAD conquered lust and eliminated the sex drive, they would have simply died out.

When hatred of lust and sex gets extreme enough, it becomes hateful towards life itself.
 
The thing is, if any society HAD conquered lust and eliminated the sex drive, they would have simply died out.
Nice soundbite but lust cannot be equated with normal and healty sexual attraction.

Lust is uncontrollable. Lust is your desire telling you what you will do even though your mind might tell you it is wrong. When it gets bad enough, your lust controlls you to the point where you will do anything and take great risks to satisfy its appetite. The term “Sex drive” sounds benign, so very normal but it is often used to cover up addiction to destructive sexual behavior such as porn, prostitution, habitual masturbation, etc. Lust is desire which has gone out of control.

Lust is also one way. Lust takes everything for itself and gives nothing in return. It is completely selfish. Lust appropriates the “Other” for the pleasure of the “self”. If love is willingly giving one’s self to another then lust is the opposite.

Lust is not normal. A normal sexual attraction says, “Wow, she is beautiful. Her husband sure is a lucky guy” and moves on with life. Lust says, “Wow, she is hot. I’d like to take her clothes off right here and…” and then thinks about her for the rest of the day. Of course now we call the former normal and the latter wierd.

In reading this thread, I just thank God for the example of the saints including St. Rose of Lima

Another time she became afraid that her beauty might be a temptation to someone, since people could not take their eyes off her. Therefore, she rubbed her face with pepper until it was all red and blistered. (catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=446)

She had no desire to incite lust in anyone and went out of her way not to because Christ was her spouse.

-Tim-
 
If I take a long hike, I get blisters on my feet. If I work on a farm, I get blisters on my hands.

If a person tries to learn the guitar, blisters on the fingers.

And the world has no problems with these things.

But when St. Rose of Lima for the Love of God, gets blisters on her face… it’s ‘severe mental illness’.

To the world the saints are mentally ill. To the saints, who see clearly…

‘Perhaps you may tell me that they are only going to insult me and that I should leave them alone and not bother about them. No, my good brethren. I can’t abandon them: they are my own dear brothers and sisters. Tell me, if you had a very dear brother who was so sick that he was delirious and in his fever insulted you and said every foul thing in the world to you, would you abandon him? I’m sure you would not. You would feel all the more sorry for him and do everything you could for his recovery. Well, that is the way I feel about sinners. The poor creatures are just delirious. That makes them all the more deserving of compassion. I cannot abandon them. I have to work for their salvation and pray to God for them, saying with Jesus Christ, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing or saying.”’

St. Anthony Mary Claret

‘I must disfigure the face which contrary to God’s commandment I have painted with rouge, white lead, and antimony. I must mortify that body which has been given up to many pleasures. I must make up for my long laughter by constant weeping. I must exchange my soft linen and costly silks for rough goat’s hair. I who have pleased my husband and the world in the past, desire now to please Christ.’

St. Paula

The Peace of Christ to you.
 
Severe mental illness is by your standards, not God’s, nor the churches.

That attituede would have given St. Catherine of Siena a perscription for ritalin and made an appointment at the psychologist for St. Francis and St. Benedict. If most of the saints had lived today they would be labeled ADHD and given pills. The sad part is that secular society agrees with you. According to society, it’s more important to be normal than it is to remain holy and get into heaven.

They said Jesus was possessed by demons too.

-Tim-
 
The thing is, if any society HAD conquered lust and eliminated the sex drive, they would have simply died out.

When hatred of lust and sex gets extreme enough, it becomes hateful towards life itself.
What you mean above is sex/ sexuality and not lust. But I know what you mean: if man does not desire woman or vice versa, then there is no more life.

Opposite of good sex which give us all life, lust is dangerous for our existence.

Good sex is : man attracted to woman, or vice versa.

Lust is this : man attracted to woman, but he has prejudice toward woman. So, instead of attracted to her, he only attracted to sex (or imagining sex), and not to the woman. Lust does not care about the partner, it only care about self gratification, so lust also treat the partner as an object. He does not care about the woman at all, he only want her body as his tool of brief pleasure.

Lust harms people’s body mind and soul. Lust will disappoint the subject and the partner as well. Then… boom… here comes religion to save humanity… To cut the story short, religious and wise people then formalize rules of the game. Too bad religion of the world, human tradition does not know God’s plan. So they are not wise enough for this big game of the universe. So typical rule of the game they make, in the end, is nothing but old puritanism tradition : to ask woman to cover her body in hope that man will stop his lust. Lame.

Our clothes cannot stop our sexual appeal created by God. Whether you like it or not, man will always be attracted to woman and vice versa, no matter what rule you set, you can’t stop this. The church who claim the owner of teaching authority should teach man according to God’s word, not according to human wisdom/ tradition.

Man need to love woman, threat woman with respect, see her as a subject with her own will and idea, and taste, and complexity. Respect her right to choose what she want to do to say to wear. Man need to control his sexuality, take charge of his body, and take responsibility of his choices.

The church must clean the world from wrong idea such as “Man are powerless when it comes to sex”. This is super wrong, a myth set by the devil.
 
eyes off her. Therefore, she rubbed her face with pepper until it was all red and blistered.
(catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=446)[/INDENT]

She had no desire to incite lust in anyone and went out of her way not to because Christ was her spouse.

-Tim-

I believe there are women in the world nowadays who still suffer like St Rose, simply because they are so beautiful. Men lust for her, and women jealous of her. People gossip about any clothes she wear, any mistakes she made, and even mistakes she didn’t.

There is a woman I know. When she was young she was so pretty that she always be a target. Even teachers ask her to do this and that just to talk to her. Boys and girls gossip about her. The thing is she was introvert, not the humourous kind. Girls jealous of her and say all kinds of mean things, boys pretend to be her boyfriend (big talk about her).

This world is hard for beautiful women.
 
Severe mental illness is by your standards, not God’s, nor the churches.

That attituede would have given St. Catherine of Siena a perscription for ritalin and made an appointment at the psychologist for St. Francis and St. Benedict. If most of the saints had lived today they would be labeled ADHD and given pills. The sad part is that secular society agrees with you. According to society, it’s more important to be normal than it is to remain holy and get into heaven.

They said Jesus was possessed by demons too.

-Tim-
👍 Exactly Tim the world and worldly will always view the teachings of Christ and His followers as a contradiction to their maxiums, and as crazy.
 
Lust has nothing to do with true affection, nor does it have anything to do with true love. Lust is an unnatural affection that transcends the genders. Actually to be more specific lust itself transcends sexuality and can be an unnatural affection towards persons, places, and things. Your logic athiest is not within reason. The human race will survive and can survive just fine without lust.👍
 
The world is hard for beautiful women and others because the world is full of idiots and moral morons. The average maturity of our “civilization” is between about two and eleven. And being religious isn’t a guarantee against being in that category. Every sort of crime and every prison population reflects exactly the demographic of society in general adjusted somewhat for economics. I admire that people of faith think they discipline themselves according to a Higher law, and maybe they do, when they actually feel the relationship implied in the Great Commandment or the Golden Rule. But in religion all the rationalizing around that is… well, not necessary? Are there not functionally moral non christian? Functionally moral men and women who lived before Jesus or who didn’t know anything Jewish or Catholic?

Some peoples used to have rites of passage for their men and women and the kinds of things we are faced with weren’t so prevalent. As some have said, “Civilization has been a battle against testosterone.” You all on here are religious so you are kind of forced to see the problem through the limits your lens of your faith puts on things. But I guess at least your intentions are good. I’m grateful for that.
 
‘I must disfigure the face which contrary to God’s commandment I have painted with rouge, white lead, and antimony. I must mortify that body which has been given up to many pleasures. I must make up for my long laughter by constant weeping. I must exchange my soft linen and costly silks for rough goat’s hair. I who have pleased my husband and the world in the past, desire now to please Christ.’
St. Paula
Wow… That is WAY more a manifestation of UMS (Ugly Mood Swing) than any useful spirituality. It is also materialistic and selfish. And it reveals a p-poor understanding of what constitutes love, or Love Divine. It also personalizes God in a mean and petty way. It is a d**ned good example of what happens when someone personalizes religion and becomes self loathing when they are in fact in the Divine Embrace of God’s Love.
 
Wow… That is WAY more a manifestation of UMS (Ugly Mood Swing) than any useful spirituality. It is also materialistic and selfish. And it reveals a p-poor understanding of what constitutes love, or Love Divine. It also personalizes God in a mean and petty way. It is a d**ned good example of what happens when someone personalizes religion and becomes self loathing when they are in fact in the Divine Embrace of God’s Love.
Not only does this Saint know what love is they also know what it means to love God since they would sacrifice anything to not sin and be given up to their passions and desires of the flesh (which last time I checked are contrary to Gods commandments.) Furthermore these mortifications do not portray God in a bad light no more than God giving up His only Son to suffer the most painful of toments during the Passion and then die on a cross for our Sins!

This Saint knew what it meant to live by the Spirit!

“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do MORTIFY the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”–Romans 8:13

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry”—Col 3:5


Wow I mean how serious is this? How far should we go to git rid of these passions and desires that are contrary to Gods commandments? Are our body members more important than rooting out these desires and sins from us? I wonder what Christ says?

“And if thy right eye scandalize thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee. For it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell.”—Matthew 5:29

“And if thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is expedient for thee that one of thy members should perish, rather than that thy whole body be cast into hell.”—Matthew 5:30


To you Christ must look like a fanatic huh? Yet something tells me that the Saint had the right idea. In fact the Saint was lighter on themselves than what Christ commanded since they didnt cut off their hands or pluck out their eyes! Althought something tells me that the Saint wouldnt have a problem giving those things up because they cared about the salvation of their soul more and because they wanted to go to heaven and be with Christ more than keeping a beautiful body/features. Now thats love my friends.👍

“And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.”—matthew 10:28

This is why I dont look at what the Saint was talking about as bad, crazy, or not loving. The would rather loose their body than their soul and in doing so in the end they would have saved both. You on the other hand are sandalized by this and therefore advicate me loosing my soul because you hold the appearance of the body as more important than the routing out of your fleshly desires if it came down to it, and this type of outook scares me since its asking me to loose my soul. That to me shows a lack of love and Love Divine.

God bless 👍
 
I don’t think St. Rose of Lima was canonized because of the action of blistering her face, was she? I don’t really know her story. I suppose she live a hard life.
 
This Saint knew what it meant to live by the Spirit!

“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do MORTIFY the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”–Romans 8:13
I really hope that you guys don’t interpret MORTIFY by seeing St. Rose “blistering her pretty face” as something noble. Pretty face is gods gift. One should not blister or throw away any God’s given gift. I suppose she was canonize for something else, but blistering her face is part of her weakest moment, I suppose.

To MORTIFY the deeds of the body means simply say no to evil. And it’s not that hard. If anyone tell you that it’s impossible to manage sexual desire, that is not true. If anyone tell you that it’s OK to look at those magazines (porn), because they are pictures only, don’t. And that’s all.
 
I agree that woman can have lust also. There are many women do not believe in love anymore, because love is hard to find. So just like man, woman who think like this will probably make bad decisions in her life. Despite this, however, I still think the key to solve society sexual problem is still man, not woman. You guys may think that I am being a feminist (even though nobody here said so, I can read your mind :D). No, I m not a feminist.

There is a pattern in love stories in the bible. God always chose His chosen ones in this manner : God choose those who were the children of their father’s true love, not the mother’s true love. For example Jacob has four wives. God choose Joseph who’s the firstborn of Rachel, Jacob’s true love. God also chose Isaac over Esau, because Isaac is the firstborn of Sara. Also God chose King Solomon who is the firstborn of Betsheba, the woman King David was madly in love with, despite he has many previous wives.

With regard of Betsheba, the bible did not really bother to write whether Betsheba loved King David. I mean, King David killed her first husband. If a king kill my husband, and then want to marry me, I may marry him because he is a king and I have no other choice, right? But because he really really loved her, maybe, just maybe, she later on loved him back.*

Also in real life, I see many examples of marriages where the men were the one in love with the woman, and not otherwise. In this scenario, their marriage are just fine. The opposite scenario, however, If the man do not care, it’s almost certain that the way is only down. So I see that *man plays the driver role.

In sex business : prostitution, porn, clubs, modeling, etc… in these business, men are the ones to run them, not the women. Any woman who become prostitute, her story is either a victim of human trafficking, or economy desperation. Despite the image of woman represented in those media seems like women are so aggressive sexually, in reality it’s always the men. As aggressive as a woman can be, if the man say no, she can’t do anything about it. But if men are the ones to be aggressive such as the above examples, women become victims.*

So in the setting of todays world, where business sell our woman and make them victim of their situation, religion and morality also think that woman has the power to stop man’s lust. False teaching of religion make woman’s position impossible. The world misunderstands sexuality (especially woman’s sexuality) further and further because of this. And the victim of this situation will continue to the next generation. The children of unloved women will certainly believe in controlling woman rather than loving them, just how their fathers treat their moms.

The bible shows that God chose the children of loved woman, and not the unloved ones. I hope you all see how the devil play his game. You don’t control woman how to dress (you see the children of those women who wear burqa? God did not chose them), Instead teach men to respect woman and love her. If a man can’t love a woman, then he has to take charge to say no to her sex, even if she offer it. Love me or leave me, baby.

By the way, here is Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians, the continuation of what Shin quoted in one of his post:

1Corinthians 11:13-16
Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled?
Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears his hair long it is a disgrace to him,
whereas if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because long hair has been given (her) for a covering?
But if anyone is inclined to be argumentative, we do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God.
 
My next question

For guys :

If you know that there is a huge chunk of cash of the world-- which could have gone to family vacation packages, or even invested in something else-- but instead, this huge cash goes to sex industry. If you now can see the fact that the war is never between men against lusty women, rather it’s between the good guys and those bad sex industry guys then who in the world can stop this? Who can chop down the big tree of sex industry?

For girls :

If you are a wife or a girlfriend, or a fiancee, and you know that your competitor is sex industry, if you know this-- would you let people tell you to dress down? Do you think it’s wise for churches, and moralist to tell our good girls to dress down, or is it wiser for churches to advice them to face the feminine competition fearlessly (and ask the moralists to shut up)?
 
As some have said, “Civilization has been a battle against testosterone.” You all on here are religious so you are kind of forced to see the problem through the limits your lens of your faith puts on things. But I guess at least your intentions are good. I’m grateful for that.
Not against testosterone, but against concupiscence. The tendency of both genders to satisfy the lower passions and appetites and seek sensual gratification without any regard for a higher good.

I would argue that the lens of the faithful must necessarily be more accurate than that of the world. God, as Creator, draws all things unto Himself and a faith-filled Christian (don’t much like the word religious,) would, indeed see things in a different light, but one that transcends the world and encompasses an understanding given by the Holy Spirit and the Author of Life, who not only made us sexual creatures but also desires only good for us. And yes, there are moral non-Christians who follow their conscience, a part of natural law, which is the voice of God within, and urges each to do good and avoid evil.
 
My next question

For girls :

If you are a wife or a girlfriend, or a fiancee, and you know that your competitor is sex industry, if you know this-- would you let people tell you to dress down? Do you think it’s wise for churches, and moralist to tell our good girls to dress down, or is it wiser for churches to advice them to face the feminine competition fearlessly (and ask the moralists to shut up)?
Your comments are completely of the world and void of the spiritual. I’ve not let any one tell me how to dress since the age of six, but the Spirit directs me internally with regards to modesty. I can dress fashionably and be attractive without violating modesty by showing skin because I hear His voice and by being obedient to His signal grace, I can embrace both modesty and chastity. BTW, as a Catholic, I believe the “moralists” are the hierarchy of the Church who infallibly guide us in moral matters!

I think you are confusing love, lust and sex with beauty and attractiveness. The beauty of a woman is not only physical, in fact that fades quickly. I would say her inner beauty and strength of character is the more meaningful and what will last forever.

As a married woman I still take great pains to make myself attractive to my husband, but also to myself and others. I will not even go to the grocery store in grunge clothing, nor without makeup. It’s a part of who I am. But I certainly don’t do it to attract anyone, nor am I worried about my Christian husband being tempted by the competition.
 
I really hope that you guys don’t interpret MORTIFY by seeing St. Rose “blistering her pretty face” as something noble. Pretty face is gods gift. One should not blister or throw away any God’s given gift. I suppose she was canonize for something else, but blistering her face is part of her weakest moment, I suppose.

To MORTIFY the deeds of the body means simply say no to evil. And it’s not that hard. If anyone tell you that it’s impossible to manage sexual desire, that is not true. If anyone tell you that it’s OK to look at those magazines (porn), because they are pictures only, don’t. And that’s all.
You have obviously never met a sex addict have you? Furthermore do you think Christ weas just kidding when he said pluck out your eye or cut off your hand if it leads you to sin? No, He wasnt because losing your soul and going to Hell is a worse fate than disfiguring your beautiful appearance.

To MORTIFY the deeds of the body does not just mean simply saying no because saying NO is not so simple! Furthermore there are two different types of mortifications. There are interior and exterior. Regardless the practice of many Saints and the instruction of all the saints do not agree with your outlook.

Saint Jose Maria Escriva: “To defend his purity, St. Francis of Assisi rolled in the snow, St. Benedict threw himself into a thorn bush, St. Bernard plunged into an icy pond… You… what have you done?” …] "If you realize that your body is your enemy, and an enemy of God’s glory since it is an enemy of your sanctification, why do you treat it so softly?"

So why do you treat your body so softly? Do you not understand that to care about your appearance more than your own soul is VANITY! Which do you think God cares about more? Your beautiful face or your soul?

God Bless
 
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