Many dangers are likewise forthcoming from our prurient thoughts, especially when we dwell too long on certain ideas that might excite concupiscence or do not suppress certain others immediately. Resist beginnings as all spiritual writers encourage for too slow of a response to impure thoughts can be venial sin and dwelling and taking delight can be serious sin, which Our Divine Teacher so strongly advised against: "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Therefore, the very same precautions for roving eyes apply to a wandering mind.
Impure Speech
"The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell. The tongue no man can tame, an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison. By it we bless God and the Father: and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so be." (James 3: 5-12)
No act of impurity is more common than an unchaste tongue. It is a world of iniquity, as the apostle James testifies, set on fire by hell. And it sins often seriously through profanity, obscenity or vulgarities. In today’s world where most social conventions of decency have lost the social graces of yesteryear i.e. acting as a Christian lady or gentleman, many adults perpetrate the basest crudities of sinful speech upon youth and commit, quite often mortal sins because of their unbridled tongues and the accompanying scandals.
Our Lord Himself indicated the reasons why all should avoid giving scandal to His little ones. "See that you despise not one of these little ones." And why? "For I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father Who is in heaven," and, furthermore, "of such is the kingdom of God."
Terrible punishment necessarily awaits those who disregard the warning of Our Lord: "He that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea." These words of Jesus are to be understood in a literal sense, for they do not refer to spiritual children but to those little beings on the threshold of life, for whom scandal is far more dangerous than it is for others. Several pagan Roman authors have commented upon this very innocence of children. According to Horace, a child at this age is like unto soft wax and easily lends itself to vice; once deformed it cannot be easily restored to the form of virtue. We also remember in the great novels of yesteryear, Charles Dickens relating in "Oliver Twist" about Fagan who taught young boys and orphans off the streets of London how to steal for him, via all kinds of unseemly tactics and behavior that Fagan taught them.
The Roman poet Juvenal, wishing to prevent the scandalizing of young impressionable children, taught that the greatest respect is due to them and that nothing sinful should be done in their presence. We all recognize today that the brunt of the scandal that children are subjected to by adults is the unbridled tongues of the older generation who casually use profanity, obscenity, and vulgarities to accent their speech. Often this is done in anger, frustration, or even to be comedic in order to entice others to pay attention to their infamous conversation.
We are all aware of the three basic kinds of impure speech: profanity, the worst, using God’s infinitely perfect and pure name casually in conversation, with simply the name of God or Jesus Christ to accent their speech or using all kinds of variations of God’s most Holy Names or His Titles with gross irreverences; obscenity, the most offensive, using terminology referring to the sacred parts of the body or the marital act to again accent a point made in conversation; and vulgarities, the rudest, using ‘barnyard’ language of the four letter variety to make a point about what one is expressing.
All of these abominations of speech offend decency’s virtue and Almighty God in serious or venial sins. Commonly, vulgarities are venial sins or even imperfections, if not too course, but profanities and obscenities are often serious sins, especially if they cause scandal to the young and innocent or blaspheme the name of God or holy persons or objects. If done in anger, using profanities, especially, can be serious sins, and also obscenities.
Swearing can involve any or all of the above sinful uses of speech. By swearing is meant the use of holy names of God or holy people or places or things in a solemn declaration in order to confirm or verify what a person is saying. Worse than swearing is cursing which is wishing ill to someone or something by calling upon God’s name or something holy to witness the curse as is the case with workmen who call down evil on the tools they employ or parents in anger upon their children because they aggravate them. The Fathers of the Church used to consider swearing as a sign of perdition, and those who curse others or things are destined to perish (Ps. 36:22); they shall not possess the kingdom of God (1Cor. 6:10). Ordinary swearing is a venial sin, provided no serious evil is wished upon one’s neighbor, nevertheless, it is a far greater sin than taking God’s name in vain, because not only is it disrespectful towards God, but an offence against charity. All of this is likewise uncharitable speech and at the worst scandalous because virtually always an audience is present. Now scandal can be direct or indirect. One commits scandal indirectly if one fails to prevent evil when in a position of responsible authority and duty and one should and could do so. In other words, one also commits scandal indirectly when, in spite of one’s desire to prevent it, one is deterred by fear of gossip or what others may think. As Father John Hardon, S.J. often said: "What sins we will commit for human respect." And so here with impure and sinful speech that is scandalous, whenever others that might be harmed from it are present, in particular Christ’s little ones; we are sinning by omission by not speaking up and therefore are lying supine in our own religious tepidity, especially if we are parents, teachers, bosses at work, or simply in a conversation with others and this kind of offensive impure speech arises.
Direct scandal in speech is usually always mortally sinful for it is perpetrated by sinners who either profane the Holy Name of God, curse others or inanimate objects with it or use obscenities to be humorous and belittle the marital act. And it is mortally sinful especially if these perpetrators glory in their wicked deeds and who because of their diabolical perversions try to increase the number of accomplices in their crimes of impure speech in their verbal damnations. Such men respect neither the innocence of character nor the purity of childhood.
Parents and teachers frequently exhibit virtually no care for the moral upbringing and preservation of the children’s innocence in their embrace by the prevention of impure speech in their midst today. Too often the parents themselves are the vile perpetrators themselves with these infamous unbridled tongues. What wonder, then, that children fall so easily as they proceed along the journey of life where they are continually exposed to the temptations of Satan without any spiritual protection from parent, kinfolk, teacher or vigilant adult. Again the pagan Roman poet Juvenal reprimands the danger of bad domestic example that corrupts children more quickly and thoroughly because of parents and relatives are endowed with the fullest authority in the home. For what son or daughter does not wish to act and speak as his father or mother who themselves taught the little ones to speak from the start. Frequently, no later remedy is of any purpose for such a wayward child because the sinful vice of an evil tongue has become second nature.
The heavenly advice of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior and the Word of God, ought to guide us in all our speech so that it is chaste, pure and reverent and charitable: "You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
(Matt. 12: 34-34)
Our holy Catholic Faith impresses upon us still more emphatic reasons for "chaste reverent speech." St. John Chrysostom, the great Christian preacher of the fourth century, who spoke to the people of his day in the homely language of everyday life, and moved so many hearts and minds said in one of his sermons: "Thou hast a spiritual mouth, sealed by the Holy Spirit. Ponder well the dignity of that mouth of thine. Thy dwelling place is heaven. Thy conversation is with the angels. Thou art deemed worthy of the kiss of the Lord in Holy Communion. By so many and so great things has God adorned thy mouth– with hymns, the hymns of angels; he has adorned it with more than angels’ food– with His Kiss, with His Embrace. And darest thou speak ill?"
(taken from http://theorthodoxromancatholic.com )
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