In my last post I noted how Father John Unni has urged parishioners at St. Cecilia's Parish in Boston to "shed the burden of shame." It is most significant that Father Unni does not preach on the importance of chastity. The virtue of chastity liberates a person from the tyranny of concupiscence which in turn strengthens his or her will for the battles of life. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that, "When the lower powers are strongly moved towards their objects, the result is that the higher powers are hindered and disordered in their acts. Now the effect of the vice of lust is that the lower appetite, namely the concupiscible, is most vehemently intent on its object, to wit, the object of pleasure, on account of the vehemence of the pleasure. Consequently the higher powers, namely the reason and the will, are most grievously disordered by lust." (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 153, a. 5).
You might be scratching your head and saying "huh?" Joseph Pieper, in his excellent work "The Four Cardinal Virtues," puts it nicely:
"An unchaste man wants above all something for himself; he is distracted by an objective "interest"; his constantly strained will-to-pleasure prevents him from confronting reality with that selfless detachment which alone makes genuine knowledge possible. St. Thomas here uses the comparison of a lion who, at the sight of a stag, is unable to perceive anything but the anticipated meal. In an unchaste heart, attention is not merely fixed upon a certain track, but the 'window' of the soul has lost its 'transparency,' that is, its capacity for perceiving existence, as if a selfish interestedness had covered it, as it were, with a film of dust...
This kind of interest is altogether selfish, The abandonment of an unchaste heart to the sensual world has nothing in common with the genuine dedication of a searcher for truth to the reality of being, of a lover to his beloved. Unchastity does not dedicate itself, it offers itself. It is selfishly intent upon the 'prize,' upon the reward of illicit lust. 'Chaste,' says St. Augustine, 'is the heart that loves God without looking for reward.' One further comment: For anyone whose function it is to lead and counsel young people, it is this selfishness which characterizes the inner nature of unchastity (as intemperance)." (The Four Cardinal Virtues, p. 161).
Lust destroys peace of mind and causes spiritual blindness. It enslaves. Chastity liberates us from concupiscence and makes us more noble. By refusing to preach chastity, Father Unni is delivering up souls to a sensual world which results in darkness of intellect and will. He is encouraging the souls entrusted to his spiritual care to live with total disregard for chastity. And this in opposition to St. Paul's warning that, "..this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like heathens who do not know God; that no man transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness." (1 Thessalonians 4: 3-7).
Father Unni wants his flock to shed any feelings of shame and to embrace a total disregard for chastity. The book of Sirach includes the prayer of the just man who wants to live a chaste life:
"O Lord, Father and God of my life, do not give me haughty eyes, and remove from me evil desire. Let neither gluttony nor lust overcome me, and do not surrender me to a shameless soul." (Sirach 23: 4-6).
Notice the wording here: "Do not surrender me to a shameless soul." This is the exact opposite of what Father Unni preaches as he urges his flock to "shed the burden of shame."
The spirit of Christ and the spirit of Antichrist. The City of God and the City of Satan.
Which do you choose?
6 comments:
The rainbow ministry of St. Cecilia's has become a cult. With dire consequences for the community of faith. God help us.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY
2337 Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.
The integrity of the person
2338 The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.
2339 Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end."
2340 Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity."
2341 The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.
2342 Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life. The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.
2343 Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. "Man . . . day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth."
2344 Chastity represents an eminently personal task; it also involves a cultural effort, for there is "an interdependence between personal betterment and the improvement of society." Chastity presupposes respect for the rights of the person, in particular the right to receive information and an education that respect the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life.
2345 Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort. The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ.
Fr. Unni should be preaching on these truths.
We haven't had these problems here in my corner of NH. That's because we have remained in the faith of our fathers. Boston has become a cesspool of impurity and liturgical terrorism where the Mass is treated with satanic contempt.
I thank God every day that we haven't fallen to such depths. May the Lord Jesus preserve us from such a fate.
A "cult"? That's hillarious. The Rainbow Ministry at St. Cecilia is hardly a cult. You have no idea. This blog is more of a cult. Stewart, you couldn't be more wrong, but thanks for coming.
But it is a cult anonymous - and by the way, why anonymous? Don't you stand by your cult's beliefs? The so-called rainbow ministry is a cult because it distorts the Church's teaching in an effort to manipulate people and to advance an agenda which is not consistent with sound Catholic teaching.
I think Fr. Unni is unstable and should be removed from any and all ministry within the Church.
Right Jonathan. Not only does the "rainbow ministry" distort Church teaching or neglect it altogether, but it is built around an individual which some find to be charismatic. Signs of a cult. There have been cults within the Catholic Church before. And they have been dealt with. Let's hope that this cult will also be dealt with decisively. They link to another blog which is proclaiming homosexual priest Fr. Mychal Judge to be a saint. A person can only be raised to the altars by the Church. Absolutely bizarre.
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