We desire pleasure. Our bodies and souls yearn for those brief moments of joy or good feelings that are the result of a physical experience. And this is good because this is how we were created. Yet just like all good things, if pleasure is experienced or sought out without moderation or in the incorrect context it can become a destructive context to our human experience.
The good of pleasure is that it signals to us that a good thing is taking place. Delighting in the taste of good food, enjoying a warm shower, and relishing a hard fought victory are all moments of goodness. Our bodies need food to eat, and good taste is a reward for keeping the body going. Our bodies need a certain body temperature to function and a warm shower allows for the body to reach that temperature and relax and ease tension. We are a people overcoming obstacles in a fallen world to get to heaven, and victories achieved virtue mimics the ultimate triumph of Jesus’ paschal mystery. And the list goes on.
The problem with pleasures occurs when we seek after them or enjoy them too much. These are generally gluttonous actions. We over indulge in food so much that we become sick in the short term and/or unhealthy in the long term. We fixate on entertainment via screens to excess because it is so readily available and provides an escape. We obsess over our own plans, desiring to achieve all the things on our lists without thought of how it affects the immediate community around us. As a result, the more we experience pleasures in an unhealthy way, the more the world turns into an arena of utility for one purpose – to experience continuous pleasure, or at least experience it as much as possible.
We know that this is not what it means to be human simply because continuous pleasures do not satisfy. We get bored with them. While they may be great in the moment, they ultimately do not fulfill our existential desires. We can see this in many hedonistic cultures where the rates of suicide and depression continuously rise. Those who participate in a pleasure chasing lifestyle ultimately realize how futile it is.
Pleasure is a good thing, but when it hampers our ability to love it becomes a god unto itself.
If we refuse to leave our comforts and enter into uncomfortability to show love to another person, then we have placed that pleasure above the needs of that person. In other words, we have dehumanized them because we have given more respect to our pleasures than to the person who needs our love. Additionally, desiring pleasure so much that we will do almost anything to attain it also usually ends poorly. Those around us can often be dehumanized if we use them as a means for our pleasure, whether overtly or subtly. So while it can take various forms, the result of desiring pleasure in a disordered way nearly always dehumanizes someone.
The solution? The example of Jesus. Jesus did experience pleasures in His life, but at no point in the gospels do we see Him seek them out. In fact, He often combats against pleasures through prayer and fasting. This is most notably seen in Jesus’ temptation in the desert by Satan. If we can tell our bodies ‘no’ to good things, then it will be easier to tell our bodies ‘no’ to things that are unhealthy for us. Yet, just being able to say ‘no’ is not a spiritual solution. In order to unite our ‘no’ to Jesus’ sufferings, we have to bring our own fastings to prayer and allow them to be united to Jesus. Thus, Jesus gives us not only the method, but the strength to follow in His footsteps of love through prayer and fasting (aided by the sacraments).
Every person from holy saint to horrid sinner has to fight the battle for the moderation of pleasure. It is one that our culture does not want to face. It often thinks that we can have our cake and eat it too. However, we know that we are called on to something greater. Love gives greater peace (no matter how great the sacrifice) than any momentary pleasure can, but we are too weak to truly love God and others on our own. That is why we look at the example of Jesus and unite ourselves to him – because in Him we find love and peace which will ultimately bring us to the true eternal pleasure through a perfect relationship with Him and others.
