Writings on the Sin of Impurity by Saint John Vianney
On Lust
Lust is the love of the pleasures that are contrary to purity.
NO SINS, my children, ruin and destroy a soul so quickly as this shameful
sin; it snatches us out of the hands of the good God and hurls us like a stone
into an abyss of mire and corruption. Once plunged in this mire, we cannot get
out, we make a deeper hole in it every day, we sink lower and lower. Then we
lose the faith, we laugh at the truths of religion, we no longer see Heaven, we
do not fear Hell. my children! how much are they to be pitied who give way to
this passion! How wretched they are! Their soul, which was so beautiful, which
attracted the eyes of the good God, over which He leaned as one leans over a
perfumed rose, has become like a rotten carcass, of which the pestilential odor
rises even to His throne
See, my children! Jesus Christ endured patiently, among His Apostles, men
who were proud, ambitious, greedy -- even one who betrayed Him; but He could
not bear the least stain of impurity in any of them; it is of all vices that which
He has most in abhorrence: "My Spirit does not dwell in you," the Lord says,
"if you are nothing but flesh and corruption." God gives up the impure to all
the wicked inclinations of his heart. He lets him wallow, like the vile swine,
in the mire, and does not even let him smell its offensive exhalations.
The immodest man is odious to everyone, and is not aware of it. God has set the
mark of disgrace on his forehead, and he is not ashamed; he has a face of brass
and a heart of bronze; it is in vain you talk to him of honour, of virtue; he is
full of arrogance and pride. The eternal truths, death, judgment. Paradise,
Hell -- nothing terrifies him, nothing can move him. So, my children, of all sins,
that of impurity is the most difficult to eradicate. Other sins forge for us
chains of iron, but this one makes them of bull's hide, which can be neither
broken nor torn; it is a fire, a furnace, which consumes even to the most
advanced old age. See those two infamous old men who attempted the purity of
the chaste Susannah; they had kept the fire of their youth even till they were
decrepit. When the body is worn out with debauchery, when they can no longer
satisfy their passions, they supply the place of it, oh, shame! by infamous
desires and memories.
With one foot in the grave, they still speak the language of passion, till
their last breath; they die as they have lived, impenitent; for what penance can
be done by the impure, what sacrifice can be imposed on himself at his death,
who during his life has always given way to his passions? Can one at the last
moment expect a good confession, a good Communion, from him who has
concealed
one of these shameful sins, perhaps, from his earliest youth -- who has heaped
sacrilege on sacrilege? Will the tongue, which has been silent up to this day,
be unloosed at the last moment? No, no, my children; God has abandoned him;
many
sheets of lead already weigh upon him; he will add another, and it will be the
last . . .
Catechism on Impurity
THAT WE MAY understand how horrible and detestable is this sin, which
the
demons make us commit, but which they do not commit themselves, we must
consider
what a Christian is. A Christian, created in the image of God, redeemed by the
Blood of a God! a Christian, the child of God, the brother of a God, the heir of
a God! a Christian, whose body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; that is what sin
dishonors. We are created to reign one day in Heaven, and if we have the
misfortune to commit this sin, we become the den of the devils. Our Lord said
that nothing impure should enter into His kingdom. Indeed, how could a soul that
has rolled itself in this filth go to appear before so pure and so holy a God?
We are all like little mirrors, in which God contemplates Himself. How can
you expect that God should recognize His likeness in an impure soul? There are
some souls so dead, so rotten, that they lie in their defilement without
perceiving it, and can no longer clear themselves from it; everything leads them
to evil, everything reminds them of evil, even the most holy things; they always
have these abominations before their eyes; like the unclean animal that is
accustomed to live in filth, that is happy in it, that rolls itself and goes to
sleep in it, that grunts in the mud; these persons are an object of horror in
the eyes of God and of the holy angels. See, my children. Our Lord was crowned
with thorns to expiate our sins of pride; but for this accursed sin. He was
scourged and torn to pieces, since He said Himself that after his flagellation
all His bones might be counted.
my children, if there were not some pure souls here and there, to make
amends to the good God, and disarm His justice, you would see how we should be
punished! For now, this crime is so common in the world, that it is enough to
make one tremble. One may say, my children, that Hell vomits forth its
abominations upon the earth, as the chimneys of the steam engine vomit forth
smoke. The devil does all he can to defile our soul, and yet our soul is
everything. . . our body is only a heap of corruption: go to the cemetery to
see what you love, when you love your body. As I have often told you, there is
nothing so vile as the impure soul. There was once a saint, who had asked the
good God to show him one; and he saw that poor soul like a dead beast that has
been dragged through the streets in the hot sun for a week.
By only looking at a person, we know if he is pure. His eyes have an air of
candour and modesty which leads you to the good God. Some people, on the
contrary, look quite inflamed with passion. . . Satan places himself in their
eyes to make others fall and to lead them to evil. Those who have lost their
purity are like a piece of cloth stained with oil; you may wash it and dry it,
and tie stain always appears again: so it requires a miracle to cleanse the
impure soul.