Sexual aberration: As an expression of Valentine’s Day BY Rev FR UDO J.M. IWUJI SDV

Edited by Ogundipe Lawrence SDV
As we prepare to celebrate Valentine’s Day one pertinent question readily comes to mind.  What actually do we celebrate, the life style of the saint who died out of the love of Christ? Or is it animalistic attitude and behavior? The day marks the time animals begins to pair as to mate. Put in another way it is the time instinctual nature of animals is remembered. And at the same time we remember a holy man who lived on this same planet of ours but spent his life doing good. Which one do we actually celebrate?

The celebration of Valentine’s Day is losing its true test and meaning. It is becoming more of an animalistic celebration. People today especially the young ones do not just exchange gifts of flowers and cards but more. Many will send to or receive today from the so called lover packs of ‘The almighty Condom/rubber’. This is an evident of animalistic celebration. Permit me to ask this question. Do you give poison to your loved one or think of evil against him/her?

He who decides to love must know that loving and benevolence (wishing well) and beneficence (doing good as far as one is able) go together. If you break the sixth commandment in the name of love you are no longer wishing yourself well or doing good either to yourself or to the person you claim to love (if that person is an accomplice or partner in your sin). This is so because by doing what God does not want you have become God’s enemy. What a terrible thing – to have the Almighty against you; that by sinning you have driven God from your heart and enthroned Satan whom you have joined, hence you are now one of God’s enemies. You have knowingly and willingly taken a spiritual poison because like Esau of old, you preferred to become a slave, not a master of your instincts.

Amidst all the challenges of our time, one is really forced to ask, can a young girl or boy be religious in thought, word and deed? Is it really easy for one to stand on his or her own and not be thrown of balance with the sologan, ‘if you cannot beat them, join them” This is a decease; an infectious one so to say. It is a misleading slogan. The best slogan should be if you cannot beat them, stay aside and make the difference.
 
Anyone who has a person of the opposite sex as friend must watch continually (1 Cor. 10:13). What was beautiful at first can begin to breed worms. What began as a spiritual friendship can become carnal; it can become a weapon of Satan. A lover who gives in to sexual sins or who begins to sin against LOVE ceases to be a true friend. Such a one is a liar if he/she claims that he/she truly loves his or her partner in sin. What the fornicator, the adulterer, or the adulteress loves is not the man or the woman but his/her own pleasure. The man or the woman is simply a means of getting what the sinner loves. If he truly loves that ‘’temple’’ (the man or the woman), he will never violate nor become an instrument to its destruction (cf. 1Cor.3:16-17). Sin destroys friendship, hence a true lover avoids it at all cost; even at the cost of losing your friend; even at the cost of losing life itself like St. Maria Goretti or St. Charles Lwanga etc.

Love between a male and female friend dies when they begin to treat each other as a thing or the way a taxi driver treats petrol. If petrol were a human being then we would have to say that the taxi driver cares little about the welfare of the petrol. He simply wants to use it to satisfy his needs. He destroys or burns up the petrol he claims to love. This kind of ‘love’ is not like the love of God. A ‘love’ like this is not kind but selfish, it does not delight in what is just, it is a kind of love which is not ready to endure. It is a love ruled by instincts, not by reason. A love like this is unchristian (1Cor.13:4-7).

What then do we do, remove ourselves from the universe? Certainly no, we have to engage always in a healthy friendship, having in mind that all that glitter is not gold.

Fr Lawrence Ogundipe SDV