Catholic & Single The Senses in Dating: Conclusion - Conversion of the Senses

Apr 29, 2009

Every Christmas I watch the 1951 movie "Scrooge" with Alistair Sim. At the end, when Scrooge is converted, he says the wonderful line, "My dear woman, I have not taken leave of my senses, I have come to them." It's a true conversion within that implies the five senses are now ordered toward their purpose.

 

Like Scrooge, we all need to have a conversion, which should be ongoing throughout our lives. Our senses play a role in our conversion, and some practical thoughts on the conversion of our senses is how I would like to end this series on the senses in dating.

 

If we ever hope to be successful in love and marriage, we must realize our personal calling by God to authentic love, which is a self-donation to others. This is the call to become a saint because it means giving glory to God in our lives, and a keen awareness of our role to serve others. There is truly no room for self-centeredness along the path to sanctity, and certainly not in marital love. Therefore, to be successful in dating toward marriage has everything to do with how successful we are at denying ourselves and finding the joy in serving another. It sounds cold and unromantic, but this is what true love is.

 

We are all self-centered, and it lasts a lifetime. This is the result of original sin. But we have the grace of God at our disposal that has the power to perfect us. Life's struggle is to maintain this grace (friendship with God) that helps us to grow in holiness, and thus be effective instruments of God's love to others. Our daily life of sin leads us to more and more of a realization that we need God and cannot accomplish anything good ourselves.

 

Conversion means a change in our motives. Though we struggle with self-centeredness all our lives, conversion causes us to practice selfless motives in all actions. These selfless motives call the five senses to conversion in their practice so that no longer will they be used in ways that are harmful, but in ways that are holy.

 

Scrooge chose a self-centered existence and employed his senses to ensure his motive was satisfied. His senses did a top-notch job. His eyes never observed the goodness in people, nor the needs of others. His ears never delighted in the sounds of human association, nor heard the cries of the suffering. He did not allow himself to touch people lest he contract some disease or show some sign of affection that would be interpreted as care.

 

When Scrooge converts, his motives are for the good, and the senses are awakened and put to tasks they had yet to experience. His eyes now see. His ears hear. He desires to touch in caring ways. He is a true human person again, which means he is at the service of others. The senses work toward the good of this purer motive.

 

Dating persons who hope to be married one day must be attractive in motive. This is displayed through the senses in a major way. The senses help to display the character of a person, which is the animation of motive. Our motives cause us to act. Our character is the summation of our consistent actions (not bad moments, but consistent behavior). The Lord said, "It is what comes out of a man that defiles." How else do we bring out what is inside except through our body, the instrument of our will? For example, if what we do contradicts what we say, there is a problem. Consistently doing that causes confusion, and makes one unattractive.

 

Practically speaking, we must discipline our senses if we hope to use them for good and not evil; to acquire good, not useless or counterproductive knowledge. Therefore, ongoing conversion of our senses is necessary. How do we ensure this? I would suggest that the two keys to conversion of the senses are mortification and charity.

 

For a Christian, "mortification" has to do with a voluntary offering to God, as opposed to the acceptance of involuntary sufferings, involving the body being denied. For our purposes here, it means voluntarily denying our senses of lawful goods for a higher purpose. The higher purpose is to train the senses to be in total submission to our will so as to develop healthy habits (actions that happen instinctively) that safeguard our souls. For example, maybe you deny yourself seeing certain kinds of movies in order to train the eyes not to be so accepting of violent or suggestive images when they come along involuntarily.

 

Mortification conditions the body to be on alert, and helps to strengthen our will. When our will is weak, our body is weak and tends to control us, instead of us controlling it. When we have a strong will, we are then able to conform our will with God's will.

 

The second key to conversion of the senses is the practice of charity. Authentic charity actually means giving or service to others when it hurts. "Hurts" here means that you actually feel the loss when you give. It hurts because there is a decision to do something for another that you either don't want to do, or that may take something away from you that you have a right to.

 

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If you're hungry, it hurts to give up your sandwich to someone who forgot theirs. If you're cold, it hurts to offer your jacket or sweatshirt to someone who is shivering. If you are in a rush or were planning to do something, it hurts to give up that time to listen to a person who needs to talk to someone.

 

Charity demands we be ready at all times to give up our own wants and desires in order to serve an important need. But how can we recognize these needs if our senses are not trained to do so? Acts of charity involve the senses, and the more we train the senses to be involved with charitable acts, the more the senses develop habits of service, and the easier charity gets.

 

For dating persons, become a good listener and you can win a heart. Speak words in gentle, caring ways and you will win trust. Take care of your own body through proper eating and life habits as well as improve your prayer life, and you will be noticed as one who values working on oneself, and thus be attractive. Visit the Blessed Sacrament when you are too tired to do so and God will bless you with graces.

 

The reward of true charity is increasing your personhood. The more fully a person we are, the better capable we are of becoming holy and serving others, which is our universal call. As we grow in charity, we are better capable of love, thus more successful at dating and marriage.

 

Let us be mindful of our need to continually convert our senses. Mortification and charity facilitate this conversion. Habitual pure motives in our actions will ensure that the senses are always acting for the purposes they were created, and not to the detriment of ourselves or others.