Pastor: It is never easy for boys and girls, nor even for men and women, to resist the urge to indulge in unlawful sex. The Lord has created us with this challenge, so that time and again, day in and day out, we say "NO" to what is unlawful, and so advance courageously in the development of a good character. The boy and the girl who says no to sex today will be the man and woman tomorrow whom society can trust. When they are faithful in not indulging, even though they are alone and no one sees them, they will be faithful at the bank and will not steal, they will do their share at the place of employment, they will not cheat in examinations and in games. God has arranged wonderfully to allow nature to challenge us severely, so that by repeated and resolute faithfulness to the Sixth Commandment, boys grow to manhood, and women to womanhood. "How beautiful the chaste generation with glory. It is beholden both to God and to man."
Boys, whose bodies mature with adolescence, will experience new feelings and desires. They will be tempted to experiment, to exploit, to satisfy desires. Girls will see their bodies change, will experience monthly cycles, and wrestle with desires that must wait for satisfaction until marriage. Long before they are ready for marriage, they will need to deny themselves from wilful indulgence in gratifying sexual pleasures. To deny themselves this pleasure for the time being is the great single challenge which all normal boys and girls cope with during adolescence. Disciplined denial of selfish indulgence is also the most powerful dynamic by which adolescents build strong characters.
Those who indulge wilfully lose, to some extent, precious benefits available from this program for growth which nature and God provide. Self control during adolescence is perhaps the chief dynamism by which humans extract themselves out of the world of animal instinct to become free and noble characters. Good decisions form good habits. Good habits tend to mold the brain so that its neural pathways shape up in a manner that facilitates virtuous habits. Civilizations are built on citizens who cultivate goodness and honesty. Patriotism therefore includes efforts toward growth in virtue and rejection of vice, so that each contributes to the welfare of all. Let us pray with the Psalmist for wisdom and strength to follow the ways of God.
Reader: A reading from Psalm 119:
Teach me, 0 LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep thy law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of thy commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to thy testimonies, and not to gain! Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; and give me life in thy ways. Confirm to thy servant thy promise, which is for those who fear thee. Turn away the reproach which I dread; for thy ordinances are good. Behold, I long for thy precepts; in thy righteousness give me life!
Let thy steadfast love come to me, 0 LORD, thy salvation according to thy
promise (Psalm 119, 33-40).
Pastor: Lord, bring the wickedness of the media and of all who thrive on promoting sinful sex to nought; help the young people of our parish to be chaste, and to refuse to view occasions of sin in movies, TV, videos, Internet, or reading materials.
Pastor: What is your desire?
Youths: We represent the young people of this parish. We wish to renew the pledge to abstain from all use of sex until the time we are married.
Pastor: Why do you wish to renew that pledge before the people of this parish?
Youths: We wish first of all to give joy to our Lord and Savior who was born as one of us in Bethlehem and who reaches out for our friendship. We wish to live in chaste homes, as Jesus lived with Mary and Joseph. We ask the people of the parish to help us keep our pledge to be chaste.
Pastor: Will you also pledge to avoid occasions of sin?
Youths: Indeed, to help us abstain until marriage, we will choose good company, we will abstain from drink which can lead to sex, we will turn away from shows and materials that titillate sexual appetites. We will do what is needed to keep our pledge.
Pastor: And will you come frequently to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Youths: We will make it our practice to confess once every month.
Pastor: You have expressed the will to make this pledge, and you ask the parish to help you. Then let all the young people of the parish rise and make the pledge together.
Adolescents stand and recite the pledge together: "We, the young men and women of this parish, promise to God, to you as witnesses, and to ourselves, that we will abstain from the use of sex until we are lawfully married with our spouse."
Pastor and Congregation together: Thanks be to God. Lord, teach our young men and women the beauty of purity, the beauty of virginity. Help those who have fallen to rise again and begin their lives anew. Keep them from sin, keep them free from sexually transmitted diseases, and from the lowering of their self-image because of untimely sexual indulgence, and from temptations to suicide because of excessive emotional involvement. We pray also that we and they together will avoid the occasions of sin when watching presentations of the media. We ask this through Christ our Lord. "Hail Mary ..." (three times). Then:
"Mother most pure, help the young of our parish to be chaste."
Pastor: Christ has spoken the memorable words: "What God hath joined together, let not man rend asunder." Nature and God have made man and woman want to give themselves to each other for life, to please God together, and to bless their children.
For centuries and millennia laws protected the stability of marriage, and economic circumstances further helped families to remain intact for life. Divorce was rare, and hardly ever occurred in parishes. During the past four decades, however, for various reasons, divorce has become commonplace, to the detriment of parents and children. The break-up of so many families has influenced many to cohabitate without marriage. As a result one of three children born in our country is born out of wedlock. It must not be so in our parish. We must do all we can together, to help each family to be a holy family, under the patronage of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
We know that for baptized persons whose marriage has been ratified and consummated, the bond remains until one of the partners dies. Holy marriage is a participation in the mystery of Christ espoused to His Church. When validly married baptized couples divorce and re-marry, no new valid bond is formed. The remaining bond, which should be a lively vehicle of graces for both, remains largely unused; and a new marriage is not recognized by God. It is a no win situation for God and for the partners unless there is a change of heart.
As Pope John Paul II has taught, it is the community that must help to facilitate good family life:
Reader: A reading from Familiaris Consortio, by Pope John Paul II
As mother, the church is close to the married couples who find themselves in difficulty over this important point of the moral life: She knows well their situation, which is often very arduous and at times truly tormented by difficulties of every kind, not only individual difficulties but social ones as well; she knows that many couples encounter difficulties not only in the concrete fulfillment of the moral norm but even in understanding its inherent values.
But it is one and the same church that is both teacher and mother. And so the church never ceases to exhort and encourage all to resolve whatever conjugal difficulties may arise without ever falsifying or compromising the truth: She is convinced that there can be no true contradiction between divine law on transmitting life and that on fostering authentic married love...
On the other hand, authentic ecclesial pedagogy displays its realism and wisdom only by making a tenacious and courageous effort to create and uphold all human conditions psychological, moral and spiritual indispensable for understanding and living the moral value and norm.
But the necessary conditions also include knowledge of the bodily aspect and the body's rhythms of fertility. Accordingly, every effort must be made to render such knowledge accessible to all married people and also to young adults before marriage through clear, timely and serious instruction and education given by married couples, doctors and experts (Familiaris Consortio 33).
Pastor: We pray earnestly to God to save the people of this parish from the scourge and disaster of divorce, and for his help and healing for couples and children who experience this hardship.
Pastor: What is your desire?
Young couple: We represent young married couples of this parish who may have sinned by contraception, unfaithfulness and by divorce. So many of us have sinned by cohabitation before marriage that we have entered marriage itself with weak resolve. Our children suffer many disorders and lower self-esteem because of the divorce of their parents. We young couples ask for help from the parish to keep us straight and to repair our disorders.
Pastor with congregation: We turn to the Lord our God to ask forgiveness for all the sins committed by the married couples of this parish, for sins of divorce, for sins that lead to divorce, for sins after divorce. Forgive our sins and have mercy on us. In solidarity with those who suffer the tragedy of divorce, we show our tears and distress to the Lord and ask Him to come to our rescue.
A reading from the Book of Lamentations:
Remember, 0 LORD, what has befallen us; behold, and see our disgrace!Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our homes to aliens.
We have become orphans, fatherless; our mothers are like widows.
We must pay for the water we drink, the wood we get must be bought.
With a yoke on our necks we are hard driven; we are weary, we are given no rest.
We have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough.
Our fathers sinned, and are no more; and we bear their iniquities.
Slaves rule over us; there is none to deliver us from their hand.
We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.
Our skin is hot as an oven with the burning heat of famine.
Women are ravished in Zion, virgins in the towns of Judah.
Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders.
Young men are compelled to grind at the mill; and boys stagger under loads of wood.
The old men have quit the city gate, the young men their music.
The joy of our hearts has ceased; our dancing has been turned to mourning.
The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned! For this our heart has become sick, for these things our eyes have grown dim, for Mount Zion which lies desolate; jackals prowl over it.
But thou, 0 LORD, dost reign for ever; thy throne endures to all generations. Why dost thou forget us for ever, why dost thou so long forsake us? Restore us to thyself, 0 LORD, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old!
Or hast thou utterly rejected us? Art thou exceedingly angry with us? (Lamentations 5:1-22).
Young couple: We request to renew our marriage vows together with all the married couples of the parish.
Pastor: Then let all couples here present renew their marriage vows together:
Husbands and wives hold hands as they recite: "On this holy day we renew our pledge to live faithfully with our lawful spouse, to have and to hold, for better and for worse, in riches and in poor, in sickness and in health, until death do us part."
Pastor: God our Father, thou hast created man and woman to love each other in the bond of marriage, Bless and strengthen these married partners. May their marriage become an increasingly more perfect sign of the union of Christ and the Church. We ask this through Christ Our Lord.
Congregation: Amen. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, bring to our families the faithfulness of your home in Nazareth.
Pastor: In 1968 Pope Paul VI confirmed once more that contraception is a grave evil and that society will suffer the consequences if it does not guard itself against the evil. Today we see that contraception and sterilization have indeed brought about the disorders about which the Pope had warned us.
Reader: A reading from the Encyclical Humanae Vitae
17. Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men -- especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point -- have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer his respected and beloved companion.
Reader: The reading is from the testimony of Clinical Psychiatrist Bernharda Meyer:
If we include vasectomized male spouses, the number of sterilized couples may reach as high as 60%or 70%. More than half the couples actually live neuter gender sex, having excluded their heterosexual humanness of being men or women. Why have so many done it? Many decide on this permanent form of unnatural birth control because they have that choking fear of "needing an abortion." Or they may dread that if they lack physical love-making during abstinence time when following natural family planning, their marriage may break up.
The divisive psycho-sexual consequence of sterilization is something which even love cannot prevent or neutralize, because the very core Of a human being is an inseparably interlocked unity of body + psyche. Because of sterilization, spouses cannot accept each other as intact human beings in their male and female sexuality. There always remains an awareness about the rejection of the essence of the spouse in his/her total self, even if this is only felt subconsciously (and nine tenths of our feeling and thinking is subconscious).
Sex, done for its own sake and not as an inter-relation of persons, is not love. Sex from which the natural openness to life has been blocked out lacks any glory and splendor. The fun eventually ceases to be real fun and no longer brings contentment. Contraceptive sex is distant, a gap between the two. It is not a heterosexual relationship because the partner's opposite and complementing sexuality is neutralized. The much touted method to allow uninhibited sex, blissfully free from fear of pregnancy, has in reality mis-developed; it now causes friction and/or flat, dead, or broken-up marriages.
Couples who have been sterilized can tell about this experience most clearly. Initially there is relief, and this time varies in duration. But the time comes when the husband can no longer perform well sexually; ejaculation praecox or impotentia coeundi. may show up. This has roots in the subconscious, the abiding awareness of the non-reversible mutilation of their fertility which constitutes the essence of their sexual identity, male or female.
The divisive psycho-sexual consequence of sterilization is something which even love cannot prevent or neutralize, because the very core Of a human being is an inseparably interlocked unity of body + psyche. Because of sterilization, spouses cannot accept each other as intact human beings in their male and female sexuality. There always remains an awareness about the rejection of the essence of the spouse in his/her total self, even if this is only felt subconsciously (and nine tenths of our feeling and thinking is subconscious).
Sex, done for its own sake and not as an inter-relation of persons, is not love. Sex from which the natural openness to life has been blocked out lacks any glory and splendor. The fun eventually ceases to be real fun and no longer brings contentment. Contraceptive sex is distant, a gap between the two. It is not a heterosexual relationship because the partner's opposite and complementing sexuality is neutralized. The much touted method to allow uninhibited sex, blissfully free from fear of pregnancy, has in reality mis-developed; it now causes friction and/or flat, dead, or broken-up marriages.
Couples who have been sterilized can tell about this experience most clearly. Initially there is relief, and this time varies in duration. But the time comes when the husband can no longer perform well sexually; ejaculation praecox or impotentia coeundi. may show up. This has roots in the subconscious, the abiding awareness of the non-reversible mutilation of their fertility which constitutes the essence of their sexual identity, male or female. (See wvw.CatholicMind.com. Healing Marriages Ill).
Pastor: 0 Lord God, we know that husband and wife receive graces to make each other holy. We confess our sins of contraception and contraceptive sterilization and ask for forgiveness and for an amendment of our lives. Pope John Paul II has told us that the greatest gift we can give to our children is to provide them with another brother or sister. Pope Pius XII told a group of large families that they were specially loved by God and by the Church. May our parish benefit from these precious teachings.
Reader: A reading from an address to large families by Pope Pius XII:
You are and represent large families, those most blessed by God and specially loved and prized by the Church as its most precious treasures. For those families offer particularly clear testimony to three things that serve to assure the world of the truth of the Church's doctrine and the soundness of its practice, and that redound, through good example, to the great benefit of all other families and of civil society itself.
Wherever you find large families in great numbers, they point to: the physical and moral health of a Christian people; a living faith in God and trust in His Providence; the fruitful and joyful holiness of Catholic marriage Surely, one of the most harmful aberrations that has appeared in modern society with its pagan tendencies is the opinion of those who are eager to classify fruitfulness in marriage as a social malady,' and who maintain that any nation that finds itself thus afflicted must exert every effort and use every means to cure the disease. This is the basis for the propaganda that goes under the name of planned parenthood' Far from being a 'social malady,' large families are a guarantee of the moral and physical health of a nation. Virtues flourish spontaneously in homes where a baby's cries always echo from the crib, and vice is put to flight, as if it has been chased away by the childhood that is renewed there like the fresh and invigorating breath of spring.
So let the weak and selfish take their example from you; let the nation continue to be loving and grateful toward you for all the sacrifices you have taken upon yourselves to raise and educate its citizens; just as the Church is pleased with you for enabling her to offer along with you, ever healthier and larger groups of souls to the sanctifying activity of the divine Spirit [end of Address of Pius XII].
Pastor: Everyone in our parish is pleased with seeing parents with new babies come to Mass. May the Lord bless them, and may our parish increase and multiply.
Pastor: What is your desire?
Elderly couple: We represent all couples in the parish some of whom have sinfully committed contraception and/or contraceptive those men and women who have submitted to contraceptive sterilization. We confess our disobedience to God, our Lord and Savior. We ask for penance, and resolved to amend our lives.
Pastor: We are now in the Season of Advent awaiting salvation by Christ who will make all things new. Let us look forward then, to a new life and spirit in our parish as we prepare ourselves for the blessed coming of our Savior.
Reader: A reading from the Letter of Paul to Titus.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another; but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life (Titus 3: 3-7).
Pastor: Thanks be to God, who took our sins upon Himself and converted us through His Passion and Death which we will commemorate solemnly during Holy Week. Prepare yourselves for a good confession, then, and allow Christ to be kind to you.
For couples in this parish who have been surgically sterilized the parish has this policy. We ask them to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and to do penance for this sin. The penance recommended is to abstain from sexual intercourse during fourteen days of every month for one year, beginning on the first Friday of each month.
Congregation: To strengthen us to keep our resolve we pray: Lord I will keep your laws and will endeavor to say with Paul: "I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church" (Colossians 1:24).
We confess to almighty God that contraception and contraceptive sterilization are wrong, are an immense evil, are an abomination in the eyes of God. We fear God's wrath boiling against all this. With David, after his sin of adultery, we pray to thee to God for forgiveness, and for the creation of new hearts in our sinful selves.
(Sing): Miserere mel Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Et secundum multititudem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea; et a peccato meo munda me.
Pastor: The law of God states "Thou shalt not kill." The Law of the Church automatically excommunicates a person who actually procures an abortion (Canon 1398). To be absolved from the crime of abortion one must confess the act to a priest and receive absolution from the sin and from the excommunication. The Fifth Commandment forbids abortion, and with good reason. Every human being is created directly by God, and has the right to life from Him. We offend Him gravely when we kill an innocent person whom He has created.
Moreover, abortion is never a healthy experience for a woman physically, psychologically, and morally.
Physically: Health specialists point out that the woman who loses her child by abortion experiences a sudden change from the pregnant state to the non-pregnant state. Her body has been functioning at high capacity to provide nourishment for the developing child and to dispose of wastes. When the child is suddenly wrenched out of her body, the shock to the body is enormous. Doctors have compared it to slamming emergency brakes on a train which is going at full speed. Adverse after effects are therefore the normal response of a women who until then has been healthy. These are said to frequently be cramps, headache, dizziness, exhaustion, sterility, habitual spontaneous abortion, extra-uterine pregnancies, sleepless nights, nightmares, and chronic depression. Research indicates that suicides, accidental deaths, and deaths from natural causes increase abnormally for women after abortion. Psychologically also many women are said to suffer after an abortion. Long term clinical depression is found to be more common among them than among other women. Such depression can weaken the immune system and reduce overall health. There are victims of victims of alcoholism and of drug abuse. A mother who has killed her own child is inclined to lose a good image and to feel worthless because she has killed her own child, a deed that undermines motherly instincts.
From the moral viewpoint mothers sense that they have betrayed their mission of motherhood by killing their own child. They have offended against their natural sense of what is right, and have alienated themselves from friendship with God. Like Cain, they may sense that God is angry at them for what they did:
Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me this day away from the ground; and from thy face I shall be hidden; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay me" Genesis 4:13-14).
We recognize that many women are practically forced to do an abortion. The father of the baby may not want to pay alimony or do the duties of a father toward the child. Men have from ages past forced women to do abortions, and the problem increased exponentially with the legalization of the crime.
After the deed is done, women are inclined not to face the awful fact that they have killed their own child. A part of a woman dies with the child. Many need our help to be able to acknowledge the deed, and to confess the sin to a priest. Let us all together pray, therefore, that the people of this parish will help victims of abortion to make their peace with God and with themselves. May those of our parish who may have committed abortion, like the prodigal son, like the lost sheep, rejoice once more in he wonderful mercy and forgiveness of God.
Congregation: Lord, if I have committed the sin of abortion, I ask forgiveness. I promise that I will never do so again. Please take care of my child and make it happy in thy presence.
Lord, if I have influenced my daughter or a friend to do an abortion, forgive this my sin, and I promise to never do so again. We pray: Jesus, Mary, Joseph, protect the families of our parish. Amen.
Pastor: A recent document of the Magisterium on unions between homosexual persons, June 3, 2003, instructs us that:
All: We pray for and with members of our parish who bear this cross.4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts "close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved".
Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts "as a serious depravity... (cf. Rom 1:24-271 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered". This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition. Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies "must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided". They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however "objectively disordered" and homosexual practices are "sins gravely contrary to chastity". We pray that the members of this parish will not sin against the Lord in this matter, and that any who are homosexually inclined will keep the Sixth Commandment faithfully, and seek spiritual as well as other help as needed.
My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to thy word! Put false ways far from me; and graciously teach me thy law! I have chosen the way of faithfulness, I set thy ordinances before me. I cleave to thy testimonies, 0 LORD; let me not be put to shame! I will run in the way of thy commandments when thou enlargest my understanding! Teach me, 0 LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep thy law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of thy commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to thy testimonies, and not to gain! Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; and give me life in thy ways. Confirm to thy servant thy promise, which is for those who fear thee. Turn away the reproach which I dread; for thy ordinances are good. Behold, I long for thy precepts; in thy righteousness give me life! (Psalm 119:28-40).
Mother most pure, pray for us.
Pastor: God has given us the challenge to cultivate our bodies and souls as temples of the Holy Spirit, and to avoid sins against the Sixth Commandment, and to avoid placing ourselves into the occasions of sin. Since pornography has become a huge commercial business - a multi-billion dollar per year industry - we can indulge in this degradation by the click of a key, switching on a video, and purchasing smut magazines. We need to keep in mind, then that viewing pornography and prurient sexual materials is sinful, is offensive to God, and places our own eternal welfare into jeopardy.
As surely as bad money drives out good money, so also viewing pornography drives God Ii ness out of our lives. The widespread viewing of smut materials lowers morality among our citizens and our believers. it blunts devotion, draws us from prayer and converse with God, invites Satan into our lives and the lives of our families. We cannot serve God and pornography. It is either the one or the other. Watching sexually stimulating pictures arouses intense feelings, overwhelming our bodies, driving us into insatiable lust, making animals our of humans. Lust cheapens our self image, trivializes the view of one's spouse, makes us slaves to our instincts. Lustful parents lose the ability to become apt models for their children and deprives us of the desire to educate them in the virtue of chastity.
If the number of vocations to marriage, to the consecrated life, and to the priesthood is lagging, the epidemic of pornography which now blights virtue in civic and ecclesial life is one of the major causes for this lack of moral health. Porno addicts walk about with a library of lustful pictures in their mind that leave little room for God and for holiness of life. Self-centered lives replace lives of love. A hunger for God is replaced by lust for pleasures of the flesh.
Once enslaved by porn, we need the help of God to set us free and to live a chaste life.
Saint Augustine knew what it was to be in the grip of sin, when he prayed: "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet." But his mother prayed for him, and he prayed, and St. Ambrose prayed. Still he was not freed from his addiction. As he wrote:
Reader:
The very toys of toys, and vanities of vanities, my old mistresses, still enthralled me; they shook my fleshly garment, and whispered softly, "Dost thou part with us? And from that moment shall we no more be with thee for ever? And from that moment shall not this or that be lawful for thee forever?" ... What impurities did they suggest! What shame! (Confessions VIII, 11).
He was struggling with himself when he seemed to hear the voice of a boy saying "Take and read. Take and read." He then describes what happened nest:
So quickly I returned to the pace where Alypius (his friend) was sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the apostles, when I arose thence. I grasped, opened, and in silence read that paragraph on which my eyes first fell - "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof" (Romans 8:13-14). No further would I read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended - by a light, as it were, of security infused into my heart - all the gloom of doubt vanished away (Confessions VIII, 12).
Pastor: Augustine's mother Monica leaped for joy. She received from God even more than she had asked. Augustine the sinner became Augustine the saint. We members of this parish must be a Saint Monica to all our members, asking the Lord to help them through their struggles with porn and lust, and freeing them to praise the Lord. As we next pray before the exposed Blessed Sacrament, let us thank Jesus for bringing us together here to do penance for our sins, and ask Him to protect and bless all the members of this parish.
Conclusion: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and Benediction.