Pagan Impurity, Sermon by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX

When we read the epistles of St. Paul, we are mainly reading letters written by an Apostle to former pagans. These were people who had grown up in the world of the Roman Empire. It was a world of great military power and of amazing engineering feats, but also one of great decadence.These people were not just used to leading immoral lives; leading such lives was a way of life. In other words, it was considered normal behavior to be immoral. By this, I mean getting drunk, committing fornication, seeking after riches, and so on.Then, this Jewish man named Paul came into their lives, explaining to them that God Himself came down upon this earth and that He taught what we are made for, He redeemed us from our sins, and He showed us how we must live our lives in order to get to Heaven.Many of these pagans converted and, when they did, they completely changed their lives. They stopped living as pagans in the Roman Empire and started living as Catholics.At the same time, they still had to struggle greatly against their old habits, particularly the habit of impurity. It is striking that, in today’s epistle and in last Sunday’s epistle, the Church wants us to read St. Paul exhorting these former pagans to fight against impurity.We are Catholics living 2,000 years later, we are in the middle of the penitential season of Lent, and the Church wants us to hear these words of the Apostle Paul to help us make that same fight against sins of the flesh that the first Catholics were doing.Today, I would like us to hear some words of these two epistles about impurity, to understand what they mean, and also to understand why it is so important to fight impurity.