To Hell in a Hand. . . . held device?

Yesterday with a remote in my hand, I was surfing channels on a TV with cable. (My wife & I find no need for cable in our home, luckily I can get Catholic media from my Local Radio Station) Thumbing through, I stumbled on to an all news station promoting the release of the new iPhone. I'm all for technology and advancements, but part of me shrieks at the sight of this thing. I was struck with the reality of what the devil can do with this latest intrusion in to an already media saturated culture.

Recently, my local Bishop, the good Bishop Finn, released a Pastoral letter on Pornography. And a lot is going on here in the metro Kansas City area , through the leadership of NCPCF, to hold the S.O.B.'s (Sexually Oriented Businesses) accountable for the laws they are breaking, by the obscenity they are promoting and profiting from. With these movements on my mind, I have had several other encounters that inspired me to post on this topic. Two encounters in particular I'll mention here. 1. Fr. Wehner's Weekly Men's Mass prep Podcast for this coming Sunday put out by NFCM (please take the time to listen) makes a timely challenge to us Catholic men to get real with the temptations in our lives. 2. A conversation with a friend and co-worker about a new video release, Breach, which I have not seen but have caught bits of publicity & discussions about it enough to be familiar with the plot and characters. The FBI agent, main character, is a "devout convert Catholic", Opus Dei member & daily communicate that happens to also have a sexual fetish for strippers. My discussion with my friend debated the question of was his public Catholic life just a cover for his being a double agent for Russia, or did he truly believe all that the Church teaches while living in slavery to his sin of impurity? My friend couldn't get it that the later could be true, and I left him with my hope, and prayers that he never gets it.

So my reason for writing is not to comment or condemn the sexual saturation of our culture (which would be time well spent), but instead to delve into the ways to deal with it. My oldest son is turning 9 in a few weeks. If my memory time line serves me, this is the age that I was first exposed to pornography as a child. This of course was the early 1980's and Al gore hadn't invented the Internet yet. And my neighbor, with the only Apple 2e on the block, with its lone blinking cursor, was little threat to my young innocence. The culperit instead, was a heavily creased Club Magazine, hidden in our unfinished basement left there by an older brother that introduced me to this depraved world of modern slavery. I, being the youngest of 3 brothers, learned lots of things too young to fully understand them.

How were you exposed, and how old were you when the porn-demons attacked your world? Or how did you avoid it? How do we shepherd the flock of our domestic Church's? How do we train up our boys to be pure? What can we do to develop self mastery in little bits, instead of the Big Falls, experienced by those living through spiraling rock bottom conversions as adults?

These are things I think about as a Catholic Dad. Do you?

In the Begining. . . .

I open in this Blog by calling on the eternal Word made flesh, asking Him to bless it and all who read it. May it be a voice in the wilderness, sending light out into the darkness! I ask this in the name of the Father , the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen