Trapped!

Early in the morning he came again to the temple; all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst They said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?"

This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her."

And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Jesus looked up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again."

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

 - John 8:4-12

Satan must have overheard when Jesus Christ said to St. Peter, "I shall make you fishers of men."

But Satan's idea of fishing is to set a trap with bait and wait for the fish to be attracted by the tempting lure.

A fish trap is a curious thing. The fish swim in, but cannot find their way out. The opening that they came through does not snap shut behind them. It remains open. But the fish lack the intelligence to realize just how easy it is to escape. They are driven by instinct and their instinct fails them in this case.

You would think that we humans are much more intelligent than fish, but are we?

The greatest addiction that has ever taken hold of mankind is not drugs, alcohol or tobacco. It is sexual addiction.

We are attracted by the lure of romanticism. In the words of Joni Mitchell, love is "so sweet". We enter through the small opening, not realizing what lies in store for us. We ignore the teachings of the Church about chastity. Who needs chastity? Chastity is a prison, while romantic love is liberating. And through our desire to be free we are enslaved.

We partake in the orgiastic rituals and become marked by the stain of the deadly sin of lust. We become initialized and spend the rest of our lives trapped in one way or another in the slow motion orgy which marks modern man's sexual life. Crawling from one sexual partner to the next -- always searching for something more; never fully satisfied.

How easy it should be to turn around and swim out of the trap, but our base instincts will not allow us to.

If only there was a light in the darkness that could show us the way out.

Christ is the light of the world. He illuminates us from within and shows us the way to true freedom.

It is only through Christ that we can find true Love.

Pray for our brothers and sisters who are trapped in the darkness. Pray for your fellow Christians so that they can avoid the temptations which have blinded so many, and can grow in the love of Jesus Christ.

The scribes and the Pharisees were so blinded by their interpretation of the law of God that they failed to see the Truth that was right before them

"And He sat down and taught them."

He did not stand up on a high place, but humbly sat down among them while writing with his finger on the ground.

Who is this man? It would be easy to overlook and ignore him.

Later in John Chapter 8 He declares, "Every one who commits sin is a slave to sin." And he says, "The truth will make you free."

And a little while later He says "If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?"

This is indeed the question that modern man must answer. We are indebted to the scribes and the Pharisees for challenging Christ and evoking these responses from Him. Like modern man, they thought they had all the answers.

Earlier we spoke of the deadly sin of lust; pride is another one of the seven deadly sins.