I will continue today to reflect on the topic of concupiscence. This has become a low-key sermon series, it seems. To begin let us marvel that Saint Paul writes to us today with a rich and difficult teaching about the faith and about understanding ourselves in light of Jesus Christ Our Saviour. He writes: “I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.” And then he adds: “Wretched man that I am!” What he is getting at is the human condition truly understood by Our Savior Jesus Christ, for in becoming Man and taking our human nature upon Himself, Jesus Christ not only reveals the invisible God the Father but also reveals what we really are, and what each of us really is.
And what are we, according to Paul—we are wretched. Our wretchedness is a significant aspect of the human condition, a fundamental dimension of what it means to be a human being—whether baptized or not baptized. Despite our best intentions, we are captive, Paul says, to doing things we do not want to do, even doing things that we hate—and even when we are not in the act of doing things we do not want to do, not in the act of doing things we hate—we know we are capable of doing them. We are captive within a world of temptations and our mind that could give in at any moment.
Wretchedness means concupiscence, about which I have previously spoken: it means excessive and mis-ordered desire and eagerness for personal satisfaction, which is why we, as human beings, are inclined toward sin. And where we have come thus far is speaking of fleshly desire. We have seen that the pleasurable use for the glory of God of the things of the flesh with our God-given senses according to His will is right and can even be holy. Eating, drinking, and sex rightly ordered give God glory. Whereas the desire for fleshly pleasure for itself without relationship God, without any desire to give Him glory, is wrong and sinful. To eat, drink, and engage in sex, in keeping with those example, are often desire for merely personal and fleshly gratification, and nothing else. The specific name for this kind of concupiscence is “concupiscence of the flesh.”
There are other kinds; a total of three, in fact. Saint John speaks of this in his First Epistle: “If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust [concupiscence] of the flesh and the lust [concupiscence] of the eyes and the pride [concupiscence] of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.” Concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life are the three kinds of concupiscence, three expressions of of wretchedness. Having spoken of concupiscence of the flesh, let us turn to the second kind: concupiscence of the eyes.
To speak of the eyes is both to speak of things we see physically as well as things we see intellectually. One thing people feel eager to do is amass physical goods. These things look good. They are easy on the eyes, nice to own. We desire to possess such things, large and small. We desire as well to possess standing in society, accolades from achieving successes in life, and creature comforts that go along with that. Because they look good. And this is enabled often by the love of money. Yet as St Paul says, love of money, is the root of all kinds of evil. Money allows us to acquire goods and social advancement. Yet never far away from this is selfishness and greed.
Another thing people like to do is amass knowledge. This too looks good to have. Knowledge about people, both historical and contemporary, knowledge about politics and the news in general, knowledge that allows one to argue and be opinionated, knowledge about the weather, knowledge about the specific intellectual areas, knowledge about how things work, how to fix things, knowledge about music, art, and so on. And because all things made by God are good, and have a use for us, curiosity itself is not contrary to God’s will.
Yet at the same time, curiosity, our desire for knowledge, can run amok. This happens when desire for knowledge is made an end for itself, that is, desired for its own sake. It leads to intellectual pride, which is the opposite of the primary Christian virtue of humility. If one is restless without a cell phone, or tablet, or television for news and feeds, then one might be dealing with concupiscence. It is right to know rightly and correctly, but merely to know is the satisfaction of personal gratification, and a degradation of knowledge. The Christian should desire to seek God in all his knowing. To the Christian, any fact about anything in the universe is sacred because the universe is the work of God. Yet the knowledge we desire and seek out should be used in the fulfillment of the will of God: recognizing that genuine curiosity is anchored in the Holy Spirit, Who always seeks to guide us into all truth.
Dear brothers and sisters, acknowledging our wretchedness (our concupiscence), is crucial for transforming a life according to the flesh to a life according to the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of Heaven, which is the Holy Spirit, dwells within (that is, within our heart), and remembering that illustrates the deepest meaning of our Our Saviour Jesus to overturning the tables in the Temple. Each of us upon Baptism becomes a temple of the Holy Ghost. He overturned the tables to teach us that misuse of our desires, whether of the flesh or of the eyes, sinfully embodies the example of the Pharisee, and that we are to imitate not the Pharisee in our lives but the Tax Collector, in his constant humility and constant asking for mercy. All God wants is the human heart. And He wants our heart to be a house of humble and loving prayer, a heart of mercy; that in it may live the Light of light, even Jesus Christ, Who with the Father and Holy Ghost live and reign unto the ages of ages. Amen.
On Concupiscence of the Eyes