The Deadlies: Lust
For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 1 John 2:16 In my last post, I spoke of the underlying habits of action and thought that keep us full of the world and the flesh and prevent us from emptying ourselves to allow God to enter into us and fill our souls—the big seven that separate us from God. Lust isn't as destructive as pride for instance but it is pervasive, and the one many people obsess on, and/or accuse the church of obsessing on, so it seems like a good starting point. I begin with a definition from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes. Legalistic that, full of careful adjectives. Clearly, it doesn't refer to all desire or all sexual pleasure, but the specific list of sins related to lust is...