Sixth Thursday in Lent.
LUXURY.
1. Luxury incites to the indulgence of the senses excessively, beyond what God’s law permits. As a vice, it consists in the love of what is sensuous, and the inclination to yield to the pleasures of the sense.
It leads to forgetfulness of God and idolatry. That is to say, to the enthronement of self in the place of God. Everything is made to give way to the indulgence of the pleasures and caprices of self. God exacts of us the homage of the entire man—body, soul and spirit; luxury corrupts the body so that it can no longer be presented holy and without blame to God; stains and enervates the soul, and dulls the mind, filling it with lassitude and indifference.
It leads to sacrilege, for sacrilege is the profanation of that which is dedicated to God. Now, man’s body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and S. Paul shews that sensuality is a defilement of this temple.
Moreover, Christ took human nature upon Him to restore human nature, to purify it, and if we by indulgence desecrate the body, we are dishonouring that nature which Christ stooped to assume.
2. Luxury indulged in becomes a servitude. He that doeth sin is the servant of sin. (John viii. 13.) The more that the carnal nature is yielded to, the more exacting it becomes. It is never satisfied, it is ever crying out for fresh pleasures, and even when the faculty of enjoyment is over, the burning craving after new pleasures remains.