Pruning Away Sins to Let the Life of Christ Flourish

 

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Bishop Barron delivers a beautiful sermon on Jesus’ teaching that we must Abide in Him, who is the true Vine. 

For us to abide in Jesus is to no longer abide in the things that are not of God. This can be any sin. Bishop Barron mentions a few sins which I will give further commentary on. 

Resentment is a sin that we need to rid ourselves of. Maybe someone has hurt us. Maybe someone has rejected us. Maybe someone has ignored us. We start to hold a grudge against them, thus letting evil take root. Instead, we have to prune out this resentment with reconciliation. Do what you need to do to reconcile with a brother, sister, friend, father, mother, or whoever. You may send them a message, give them a call, or invite them to an in person meetup. Jesus wants for us to be reconciled with one another before we even approach Him (Matthew 5:24). How can branches on the Vine that is Christ be separated or cut off from one another without also being cut off from Christ? So let us remain in Christ by remaining in communion with his other branches. 

Bishop Barron condemns pornography. This is the Catholic teaching:

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2354

Sourced from USCCB.org; Pornography Harms Everyone

God made sex to be pleasurable even exceeding any other pleasure we have on this Earth. Why is this? God wanted for sex to be about love. God wanted sex to be about a communion of persons. God instituted marriage to be a sacrament of love between three persons: God, Husband and Wife. In the marital act, love is shared between Husband and Wife with God’s approval and is meant to be an act bearing fruit in nourishing the love of husband and wife as well as in the gift of a child. By engaging in intercourse, man and woman participate in God’s love as well as in his creative work. Think of the gift and the blessing of a child and of family. God has given man and woman great power yet also great responsibility. Man and woman are enabled by God’s grace to create an entirely new and unique human person. This is a great gift and God attaches great pleasure to this act that will bear fruit in children. 

The Catechism states that pornography removes this beautiful blessing of sex from the intimacy of partners united in marriage. Pornography places pleasure where it ought not to be. Pornography is the devil’s work because he takes the good sexual drive that God has created and has twisted it in such a way that God’s designs cannot be fulfilled. For anyone who says pornography harms no body and that it is just a little secret pleasure is dreadfully wrong. Some secular persons and organizations recognize pornography as the “new drug.” Yet it is much worse than this. It is an offense against God and is a work of the devil himself. It makes us to doubt God’s goodness. It makes us think we can only be satisfied if we will indulge in these devilish deceptions. God ordained that pleasure would come as spouses would give themselves to one another in love. The devil gives pleasure that ultimately is fleeting because it is not based on a self gift of love but a grasping outside of oneself for what is forbidden by God. Like Eve grabbed for that apple against God’s command, persons today grasp for pornography against God’s commands. They do this because they listen to the devil who tempts us to doubt God’s goodness. God is so good that he wants us to enjoy the sexual act in the context of true love. The sexual acts related to pornography are severed from love: both God’s love and the love of the spouse are missing. Not only this but no fruit is borne. No child is born from pornography watching. No family is bestowed by God from pornography watching. Sin only leads to sadness, dissatisfaction and death. God’s way leads to blessing, beauty, and beatitude. 

Human persons are supposed to rise above the level of animals. Yet pornography reduces us to dumb pleasures of the animals. Pornography makes us as the beasts, thus destroying any dignity God has bestowed upon us. Anyone who is involved in pornography and its related industries needs to be prayed for. They are in a bondage as cruel as the Israelites were in Egypt. 

Unfortunately porn is only a fantasy and will never satisfy you nor fulfill your deepest desires. We long for love. We were made for love. God wants us to love and be loved. This is imaged best between one man and one woman in marriage. The thousands of pornstars that you try to satisfy yourself with prove that you have an infinite desire. Has watching porn satisfied this or has the fantasy only left you empty and hungry for more? Porn leaves us restless looking for that next girl to fulfill our fantasies. Truly only reality can satisfy us. God can make our lives not only here on earth but in eternity to satisfy us. God is the infinite God who satisfies our infinite desires. Turn to God not to porn, please. 

The Catechism states indeed that Porn is a grave offense but how many of us let this go as something insignificant. 

First we must face ourselves individually and ask do we have a porn problem? Let us prune ourselves first lest we judge others without first taking the speck out of our own eye (Luke 6:42). Then we need to not approve of this in our friend groups. In any circle of relationships we are in we should separate ourselves from the secular way of thinking about things(which is really the devil’s way of thinking about things). For “whoever rebukes another wins more favor than one who flatters with the tongue”(Proverbs 28:23). We need to no longer flatter one another on these matters but to rebuke where there needs be rebuking. Start at the individual level and the level of your relationships at pruning pornography. You may advocate to government officials to install laws that are eliminating pornography from society. Some of the laws being passed are only to prevent minors from accessing pornography on their smartphones or computers. Why not extend this to an outright ban for people of any age? Why not crack down on the porn companies for what they really are as drug dealers and as agents of the devil’s work? Why is there not enough zeal on this issue? Let’s continue to consider what we can do on this issue starting with our own hearts then moving into the world to transform the world for Christ. 

ExodusCry.org is an organization tackling some of these issues. 

Three to Get Married by Rev. Fulton Sheen is a beautiful book explaining Catholic theology of how sex and love are meant to fit together in God’s plan 

There are many other sins that can be pruned in us:

List created using ChatGPT from OpenAI

1. Pride

2. Envy

3. Wrath

4. Sloth

5. Greed

6. Gluttony

7. Lust

8. Vanity

9. Arrogance

10. Jealousy

11. Anger

12. Laziness

13. Avarice

14. Overindulgence

15. Adultery

16. Impatience

17. Selfishness

18. Materialism

19. Idolatry

20. Blasphemy

21. Gossip

22. Backbiting

23. Hatred

24. Resentment

25. Covetousness

26. Indolence

27. Negligence

28. Procrastination

29. Hypocrisy

30. Deceit

31. Betrayal

32. Dishonesty

33. Cheating

34. Stealing

35. Fraud

36. Corruption

37. Bribery

38. Perjury

39. Slander

40. Libel

41. False witness

42. Irresponsibility

43. Ingratitude

44. Disrespect

45. Impurity

46. Profanity

47. Vulgarity

48. Lewdness

49. Pornography

50. Adulteration

51. Contempt

52. Insolence

53. Rebellion

54. Stubbornness

55. Disobedience

56. Disloyalty

57. Infidelity

58. Unfaithfulness

59. Heresy

60. Apostasy

61. Schism

62. Witchcraft

63. Sorcery

64. Occultism

65. Superstition

66. Idol worship

67. Sacrilege

68. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit

69. Oppression

70. Exploitation

71. Injustice

72. Discrimination

73. Prejudice

74. Racism

75. Sexism

76. Xenophobia

77. Homophobia

78. Bigotry

79. Hatred of the poor

80. Hatred of the marginalized

81. Hatred of the foreigner

82. Hatred of the stranger

83. Hatred of the outcast

84. Hatred of the oppressed

Identify which sins you are guilty of and ask the Holy Spirit to prune you of these so that you may bear good fruit in good works without any further hindrance.