Bodily Pleasures - Week 7: Saturday

Bible Passage

Colossians 3:5-10

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Commentary

St. Augustine of Hippo

He put fornication at the head of carnal vices and love at the head of spiritual virtues. Anyone who takes pains in the study of divine Scripture will be prompted to inquire attentively into the rest. Fornication is love divorced from legitimate wedlock. It roves everywhere in search of an opportunity to fulfill its lust. Yet nothing is so rightly suited for spiritual procreation as the union of the soul with God. The more firmly it adheres, the more blameless it is. Love is what enables it to cleave. Rightly then the opposite of fornication is love. It is the sole means by which chastity is preserved. Now impure acts come from all those disturbances produced from the lust to fornicate, to which the joy of tranquility is opposed. And bondage to idolatry is the ultimate fornication of the soul.