Dear Father Flagellation

Dear Father Flagellation,

   I come to you at the nadir of my time on this place of God’s creation. My life is no longer my own. The workings of the Devil himself have wormed their way into my mind. I am ashamed to admit that I am a man plagued by thoughts of a sexual nature. I can no longer carry on with my everyday life. I used to spend my days pedaling our baskets in the market, as my father demands, but now, I find myself glued to the pews of our church. I have been praying for weeks that God will take these wicked thoughts out of my head, but he does not seem to be listening. I am desperate. How do I find a way to keep from burning with desire?

With hope and admiration,

Depraved

Dear Depraved,

   I am so glad that you have come to recognize the error of your ways.  Moreover, I am thrilled that you chose to reach out to me and begin finding a path back into the light of God. Let me first say that you are not damned yet. It seems as though you have found the strength to avoid condemning yourself through actions of a sexual nature. I applaud you.

That said, I am not confident that you will remain so steadfast in your piety if you are not soon given a sanctified reprieve. Worry not my son; I am here to present an infallible cure. You write that you are “burning with desire.” Let me assure you that are neither the first nor the last to fall prey to this living hell. In fact, so many have found themselves in a similar position, that Paul himself deemed it necessary to address the afflicted in his First Letter to the Corinthians. He offered the same advice that I offer you now: take a wife. As he says, “it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians, 7,8).

Paul’s advice, though it was written nearly nine hundred years ago, remains relevant as ever. To free yourself from the chains of longing, one must bind themselves to another. As Augustine presents in his treatise, “On the Excellence of Marriage,” marriage is “the first natural bond of human society” (Augustine, On the Excellence of Marriage, 1,1). Thus, you can rest assured knowing that you are entirely within God’s favor should you get married.  More importantly in your case, marriage serves as a bastion against sexual depravity. While copulation, in the eyes of the church, is to be practiced strictly for procreation, it is not unheard for a couple to engage in intercourse lustily.  In regards to this, Augustine writes, “even if a perverted morality motivates [a couple] to have intercourse like that, marriage still saves them from adultery or fornication” (Augustine, On the Excellence of Marriage, 9, 6).

That said, the lust that motivates one to unite sexually without the intention of creating children is supposed to be kept in check by marriage. Sexual union requires two consenting participants, and should not occur in times that should be set aside for prayer. Additionally, marriage comes with a host of circumstances in which engaging in sex would be blasphemous. Pope Nicholas I delineates these circumstances in his 866 letter to the Bulgars. According to Nicholas, intercourse is not to be had “during Lent... [or]  in the daytime or night-time on Sunday” (Pope Nicholas I, The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866 (Letter 99), 48-63).  

Moreover, according to Pope Gregory, who preceded Nicholas by nearly three hundred years, it is essential that “a woman's husband should not approach to lie with her until the infants, to whom she has given birth, have been weaned” (Pope Nicholas I, The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866 (Letter 99), 64). So, my son, it is clear that there is a myriad of ways in which being married allows one to not only stay in God’s light but also free themselves from the fires of longing.

   In conclusion my child, I advise that you find yourself a young, Christian woman and court her.  With the permission of both her and her father, take her as your bride under the eyes of God. In doing this, you can begin to walk the holy path to salvation with the support of another. As God showed us when he made Eve from Adam, no man is meant to be alone. Do not let yourself burn any longer, let yourself bathe in the warm light of God. That is my word.

Go in peace.

Father Flagellation

Works Cited

Augustine. “Of the Good of Marriage.” CHURCH FATHERS: Of the Good of Marriage (St. Augustine), Oxford University.

“FIRST LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE CORINTHIANS.” JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOR, biblescripture.net/1Corinthians.html.

The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866 (Letter 99), Translated by W. L. North from the edition of Ernest Perels, in MGH Epistolae VI, Berlin, 1925, pp.568-600.