This week’s invitation to reflection and prayer is for us to read this article, “3 Prominent Catholics Discuss Their Same-Sex Attraction” by Jim Graves who conducted the interviews. Whether we are male or female the focus on the struggles with SSA are common in some ways, one of which is about our engagement with pornography. The article is worth our honest prayer and reflection, in particular these three paragraphs:
“Until that point, I had isolated myself from men, and turned to pornography as a release from my frustration. The problem is, the more I exploited others, the more I hated myself. But I found out through COURAGE that despite my past, Jesus Christ still had room for me. I realized I was not alone. There were other people like me who wanted to live right with God. They wanted to live a life with God at the center, above their sexuality.” (Hudson Byblow)
“Porn is an addiction, and it is progressive. It is comparable to being addicted to drugs. When you begin taking drugs, you don’t start with heroin, but alcohol or marijuana. You become desensitized to what you are doing, and then move onto harder drugs. When you start with porn, you don’t start with S&M, bestiality or homosexuality. You look at soft-core porn. In my generation, it was Playboy magazine.” (Joseph Sciambra)
”Being in the ‘gay’ lifestyle was a search for happiness. It was restless, frantic and unfulfilling. I believed I could find happiness there, and I couldn’t. Now that I have come back to Christ and his Church and embraced chastity, I’ve never been happier.” (Joseph Sciambra)
Here are a few questions for our reflection and prayer this week:
- Am I still addicted to porn? What must I do to overcome this addiction if I really wish to live chastely?
- How can Courage help me to overcome my addiction? What help would I like to have?
- If I have come back to Jesus and am living chastely now, how can I safeguard myself from the temptation of pornography?
- Am I prepared to let Jesus enter into my struggle with pornography and help me? What grace do I want to ask Jesus for?
Word of Encouragement for this week:
“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons…He knows what He is about.” | Bl. John Henry Newman
